Positive behavioral interventions and supports and evidence-based behavioral interventions have become increasingly important for rural educators. This program description shares how a behavior analyst serving a growing U.S. rural district with limited resources implemented an eNewsletter to support educator professional development. Implications…

Intensive, individualized interventions are certainly the hallmark promise of special education. In a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS), tier 3 interventions are the most intensive and require individualized delivery to address the learning and behavioral needs of students who are most often identified for special education services. MTSS,…

Paraeducators play an important role in assisting teachers and other professionals to support students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including delivering positive behavioral supports to those students who engage in persistent challenging behavior. The purpose of this multiple baseline design across participants study was to support…

Increasing efforts have been made in the field of special education to identify positive, evidence-based practices (EBPs) to meet the needs of students who engage in problem behavior, with a major goal being to eliminate or limit the use of reactive measures such as restraint and seclusion (Snell & Walker, 2014). Various stakeholders,…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that secures special education services for children with disabilities from the time they are born until they graduate from high school. The law was reauthorized by Congress in 2004, prompting a series of changes in the way special education services are implemented. These…

The Supreme Court case of "Endrew F. v. Douglas County District RE"-1 (2017) has renewed interest in the Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The court's ruling expands the term "appropriate" to a consideration of progress for academics and behavior. This shift…

Dr. Tim Lewis provides his reflections on his career working as a researcher-teacher to address the issues of children with challenges. Dr. Lewis also provides his advice for those entering the field.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that secures special education services for children with disabilities from the time they are born until they graduate from high school. The law was reauthorized by Congress in 2004, prompting a series of changes in the way special education services are implemented. These…

The purpose of this "From the Field" article is to share the tentative results of community-engaged research investigating the impact of Restorative Justice Discipline Practices on persistent discipline gaps in terms of race, gender, and special education identification.

The success of function-based interventions depends not just on the quality of procedures but also on the extent to which procedures are implemented as planned. Too often in schools, effort is committed to functional assessment and behavior support plan design, only to be followed by weak implementation. This study used a multiple baseline across…

Disproportionality in discipline has been well-documented in the research literature (Achilles, McLaughlin, & Croninger, 2007; Losen & Gillespie, 2012; Gregory, Skiba, & Mediratta, 2017; Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997). Students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and students with disabilities are removed from their classrooms more…

In this replication study, we examined the effect of educators' participation in a practice-based professional learning series for designing, implementing, and evaluating Functional Assessment-based Interventions (FABI; Umbreit, Liaupsin, Ferro, & Lane, 2007) on their actual knowledge and perceived knowledge, confidence, and usefulness of…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of workshops and coaching on paraprofessional implementation of function-based interventions. The results of indirect and direct functional behavior assessment guided the development of intervention strategies for three students with autism and intellectual disability. Following intervention,…

Exemplifying the insufficient treatment of legal issues in refereed journals in special education and related fields, the limited legal coverage of functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) tends to view the applicable case law through normative lenses. This skewed view characterizes the case law as requiring…

Sixteen general and special education teachers were randomly assigned to one of four teams that were to make manifestation determinations using two different "hidden profiles" case studies based on students with an emotional behavioral disability. One case study was constructed to support a decision of the behavior not being a…