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…

Relations among 'parents' psychological difficulties (i.e., depressive symptoms, overt anger), dysfunctional attributions for child misbehavior, and inept discipline were investigated in a representative community sample of 451 mothers and 449 fathers. Depressive symptoms and anger were hypothesized to relate to discipline via their link with…

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…

Our aim in this study was to validate a stress-process model for Hispanic caregivers of adults with mental retardation that incorporates family functioning. The model postulates that maladaptive adult behaviors are related to poorer family relationships and higher levels of family burden, which in turn is related to caregiver psychological…

Some adults and children exhibit defensive behaviors to tactile or auditory stimulation. These symptoms occur not only in subsets of children with ADHD, autism, and Fragile X syndrome, but also in the apparent absence of accompanying disorders. Relatively little research explores the correlates and antecedents of sensory defensiveness. Using a…

In the current study, nursing home staff were taught to administer functional analyses to determine the variables maintaining aggression by an elder with dementia. The results indicated that aggression was evoked during bathroom routines and that escape maintained aggression. Staff then reduced aggression to near-zero levels with noncontingent…

We retrospectively compared 2 groups of children receiving either behavioral treatment (n=13) or eclectic treatment (n=15) for an average of 12 hours per week. Children were assessed on intelligence, language, adaptive functioning and maladaptive behavior at pretreatment and 2 years into treatment. The groups did not differ significantly at…

Numerous researchers have employed functional communication training (FCT) to address both the communication and behavioral needs of children with autism. Thus, the purpose of this review is to examine FCT, particularly, the environments and individuals involved in the training and the effectiveness of FCT with children who have a diagnosis of…

Objective: First, to investigate whether non-Western children in the Netherlands are less likely to be treated for behavioral problems than Western children; second, to examine whether discrepancies in treatment status are related to differences in level of problem behavior and impairment. Method: The study included 2,185 children of the four…

Objective: This pilot study evaluated outcomes for a modified 12-session protocol of cognitive-behavioral therapy for childhood traumatic grief (CBT-CTG) conducted between March 2004 and October 2005. CTG is an emerging condition characterized by a combination of posttraumatic stress and unresolved grief symptoms. This two-module treatment model…