Students with learning disabilities and behavior problems need instruction designed to increase active thinking and questioning skills. Described methods for teaching these skills include T. Raphael's question-answer relationships, A. Hahn's questioning strategy, reciprocal teaching, and the "ReQuest" procedure. Practice activities for…

Studies the type and severity of maladaptive behavior in foster children as perceived by 58 foster parents. Results indicate that foster children as a group exhibit significantly more serious behavior problems than do nonfoster children. (RJC)

Assessed stressful life events and psychological symptoms of 211 children and young adolescents and their parents. Findings supported a model in which daily stressors mediated the relation between major life events and psychological symptoms for family members. (RJC)

The research investigated what characteristics distinguish high ability/learning disabled (LD) intermediate grade students from average ability LD and high ability students. High ability/LD students were more creative than average LD students but cause the most classroom disturbance and perceive themselves as less efficacious in academic tasks.…

Ratings on the acceptability, intrusiveness, restrictiveness, and efficacy of 18 commonly used interventions for decelerating behaviors were obtained from 58 special educators of severely handicapped students. Results suggested a lack of confidence in intervention efficacy and a lack of discriminant validity for the constructs of restrictiveness…

Compared children's emotional expression and self-appraisal of emotional experience in response to positive feedback. Subjects were 60 children ages 7 through 14, half with diagnosed externalizing disorders and half without. Found that, although diagnosed children typically reported a positive response to peer compliments, they displayed more…

A behavioral assessment procedure was evaluated with five children with severe/profound mental retardation who exhibited feeding problems of limited intake. Subjects were fed various types of foods. Results indicated each subject fit into one of four categories: (1) total food refusal, (2) food type selectivity, (3) food texture selectivity, or…

A functional analysis involving interviews and direct observation was used to analyze the multiple disruptive behaviors of a kindergarten student. An intervention that combined reinforcement and teacher-cued self-monitoring procedures was implemented using an A-B-A-B withdrawal design. The procedures produced a significant decrease in the…

Mothers (n=82) rated dimension of causal attributions for hypothetical situations involving either themselves or their children. Mothers who reported higher levels of depressed mood were more likely to attribute their own negative experiences to internal, controllable, global, and stable factors, and their child's negative experiences to causes…

At an urban, predominantly African American middle school, the authors addressed parents' concerns (adolescent development, self-esteem, family communication, behavior management, peer pressure, sexuality, and substance abuse) through a series of six Saturday workshops. Parents were randomly assigned to one of three models: directive,…

The effectiveness of Auditory Integration Training (AIT) in 8 autistic individuals (ages 4-21) was evaluated using repeated multiple criteria assessment over a 3-month period. Compared to matched controls, subjects' scores improved on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist and Fisher's Auditory Problems Checklist. AIT did not decrease sound sensitivity.…

The frequency of sexual behaviors among 251 preschoolers attending Swedish day-care centers was evaluated. Some behaviors were frequently occurring (like clinging body contact) whereas others were very uncommon (touching an adult's genitals). Correlations between age and single behaviors were seen as manifestations of the socialization process.…

All 1,101 clients with mental retardation residing in about 120 group homes of a residential service agency were surveyed on one date for usage of psychotropic medication. Findings indicated 27 percent had received one or more psychotropic drugs for behavioral or emotional disorders. Diagnoses such as psychosis and mood disorder and certain target…

This study investigated interparental agreement of the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory for 44 clinic-referred families. Mothers rated their children's disruptive behavior as more frequent and more problematic than did fathers. However, strong evidence for cross-informant reliability was obtained. For maternal vs. paternal reports, classification…

Describes a student-behavior-modification process and ongoing research project involving 650 of the highest risk youth from a population of 11,000 6th to 12th graders. After identifying at-risk students, researchers isolated routine problem behaviors and examined how they could be modified. Students work their way back to a regular school setting…