Dealing with the behavioral and academic problems of children with co-occurring learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) can be challenge for educators. One characteristic often associated with AD/HD is an inability to remain engaged in tasks for long periods of time. This lack of attentional focus often results…

This study examined the effects of increasing task difficulty when inadequately challenging tasks are assigned. Jason, a 10-year-old, typically developing Caucasian boy, attended a fourth-grade general education classroom at a public elementary school. During independent academic assignments in math and reading, Jason often talked with other…

Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) experts were surveyed to examine their perceptions of the treatment acceptability of commonly used decelerative consequence-based behavioral procedures. Findings illuminate the paradigm shifts that have occurred over the course of the careers of PBS experts and the factors that have contributed to these personal…

Objective: This study examined Barkley's (1997b) theory regarding the emotional regulation of children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Method: Mothers of children with and without ADHD between the ages of 6 and 15 were asked to rate their child's emotional response on each of three measures. Results: Children with ADHD were…

The authors report findings from the first national survey of gambling among college students. They collected information from 10,765 students attending 119 scientifically selected colleges included in the 2001 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS), which indicated that 42% of responding students gambled in the last school…

Central to teaching is a grand dichotomy: public and private. Children need the protection of privacy to form their own identities: they try out new roles and need to be sheltered from some consequences of these attempts so that they feel confident to keep trying. Forming an identity, however, is also a public concern: the very roles that children…

Alternative programs need to offer troubled and troubling students alternatives to punishment, expedient control, and rejection. This article demonstrates how the alternatives of building trusting relationships and effective, empathic communication can provide the re-education to improve a child's life.

Drawing on experience in developing and administering alternative settings, the author describes a strength-based approach for reaching students who too often fall through the cracks. The North Star psycho-educational model addresses academic, behavioral, clinical, career, and spiritual needs of troubled youth. This article defines the research…

Schools have widely used suspension and related punitive practices, in spite of their proven ineffectiveness. This article discusses the role of Aggression Replacement Training (ART) as part of a schoolwide positive behavior support initiative. Grounded in theory and research, ART focuses on the proactive teaching of acceptable behaviors to…

The current study analyzed a subset of the experimental data collected by Berk, Ladd, Graziano, and Baek (2003) to test whether different intensities of incarceration make inmates more criminal while incarcerated. There were 561 male inmates whose equivalent classification scores indicated they had the same level of risk to commit institutional…

More students are arriving at college today with emotional issues than just five years ago, and there has been dramatic growth in the severity of the problems. These students are creating a need for significant expansions in college counseling services. In this article, the author identifies the social forces underlying these issues and discusses…

We conducted a longitudinal comparative evaluation of person-centered planning processes and outcomes for 20 individuals with intellectual disabilities and problem behavior (former residents of Willowbrook) and a matched contrast group, who received traditional interdisciplinary service planning (ISP). At the inception of the study, all…

Reinforcers lose their effectiveness when they are presented repeatedly. Early researchers labeled this loss of effectiveness as "satiation" without conducting an experimental analysis. When such an analysis is conducted, "habituation" provides a more precise and empirically accurate label for the changes in reinforcer effectiveness. This paper…

Interviewed 150 Palestinian mothers and their children living amidst the Intifada uprising in what was then the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Found that the number of risks present in a child's life was significantly correlated with the number of behavioral problems the child exhibited. Under conditions of high accumulated risk, boys evidenced more…

This report summarizes results of a 2007-2008 survey of AISD parents, students and staff about how well students are prepared for transitions to middle and high school.