The purpose of this study was to provide insight regarding the impact that the alternative to suspension program Achievement Character Excellence (ACE) has on the students who are placed there. The study utilized four achievement indicators to track the level of improvement of students after they were placed in the ACE program and after they were…

Nearly all chapters in this volume are contemporary original research on personality, stress, and coping in educational contexts. The research spans primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Research participants are students and teachers. The volume brings together contributions from the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Scotland, and…

Research suggests that many students learn best when teaching practices are outdoors, nature-based, and experiential. Meaningful outdoor experiences increase students' social and academic achievement and contribute to the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills Experiential and nature-based instruction in the outdoors has been…

Students with persistent disruptive behavior problems lose valuable time in academic lessons, are a distraction for classmates, and cause stress for teachers. Recent meta-analyses indicate that 87% to 92% of published studies on school-based interventions targeting student problem behaviors report results from demonstration projects (involving…

The issue of parental involvement (PI) in education is notable for the extensive rhetoric supporting it and considerable variation in the reality of its practice. It is proposed that the gap between rhetoric and reality in PI has come about because of the influence of factors at the parent and family, child, parent-teacher and societal levels…

Educators in the United States have been socialized to believe that their mission in teaching is to play nice and treat all of their students the same, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, or gender. What is often missing in this teaching-all-equally approach is a counter-narrative that questions whether teachers can in fact successfully act as…

A primary purpose of early childhood education and interventions is to promote children's acquisition of knowledge and skills linked to later social competence and academic success. In this report, special attention is given to summarizing what has been learned about early childhood classrooms as contexts for development and learning, the kinds of…

Problem behavior significantly impedes multiple aspects of quality of life for individuals with developmental disabilities, and thus represents a major priority for intervention. Psychotropic medications are commonly administered to treat such behavior; however, these agents are often associated with adverse side effects that may have a negative…

The purpose of this research project was to increase constructive behavior of intermediate grade students through the use of the response cost strategy. Approximately 70 students participated in this study. Three teacher researchers conducted the research in an elementary school and two middle schools in different counties near a major mid-western…

What are the positives and negatives of zero tolerance? What should be considered when examining a school's program? Although there are no definitive definitions of zero tolerance, two commonly used ones are as follows: "Zero tolerance means that a school will automatically and severely punish a student for a variety of infractions" (American Bar…

Response to Intervention (RtI) offers a comprehensive model for the prevention of delays in learning and behavior. While this problem-solving framework was initially designed for application within Kindergarten to 12th grade programs, there is substantial research that supports the value of the model for application within early childhood…

Evidence-based psychosocial interventions for externalizing behavior problems in children born premature have not been reported in the literature. This single-case study describes Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) with a 23-month-old child born at 29 weeks gestation weighing 1,020 grams, who presented with significant externalizing behavior…

In this review, we discuss ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies on mood disorders and mood dysregulation, illustrating 6 major benefits of the EMA approach to clinical assessment: (a) Real-time assessments increase accuracy and minimize retrospective bias; (b) repeated assessments can reveal dynamic processes; (c) multimodal assessments…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and No Child Left Behind emphasize the use of scientifically based research to improve outcomes for students. From this emphasis, response-to-intervention has evolved. We present one perspective on the defining features of response-to-intervention and application of those features to school-wide…

Social skills training (SST) is a topic of great importance in the field of autism as social skill deficits are a prominent feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Improving and/or facilitating the acquisition and performance of social skills across multiple settings should be the primary purpose of SST. Unfortunately, few children receive SST…