If students at your school are not attending classes or coming to school at all, they may be engaging in school refusal. Understanding what school refusal is, as well as the functions behind it, is key to evaluation and a collaborative school-home approach to intervention.

The function of any behavior (or chain of behaviors) can only be determined by identifying the prevailing antecedent motivating condition (Cipani & Cipani, 2019). The author dubs this antecedent condition the driving force of behavior. What you desire at a particular point in time, if such desire is at a sufficient level, executes two effects.…

This article discusses a three-phase model aimed at obtaining vocal speech with students who display selective mutism at school. The three phases discussed include: (1) establishing reinforcer influence; (2) enhancing motivation to speak; and (3) generalize to nontherapy settings. The utilization of this approach to get speech to occur and…

In considering classroom management strategies, understanding the environmental factors related to available reinforcement and their effect on student behavior is crucial. When teachers or school staff have access to information related to student behavior function, it can be used to design and implement more effective behavioral intervention…

Developing character strengths such as kindness and perseverance are just as crucial as academics for today's learners. This article describes how the author and the classroom teacher worked one-on-one with a third grade class to teach such attributes. Approximately once a month the classroom teacher and the author taught lessons on kindness,…

The principles and practices of positive psychology are gaining wider acceptance among school psychologists (Gilman, Huebner, & Furlong, 2009). Unlike traditional assessment and intervention practices that focus primarily on what is wrong and missing with students, positive practices focus on what is right and working with students--strengths,…

With the intention of increasing school safety, across the country, law enforcement officers have been deployed to work on school grounds. After the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) developed a new program called COPS in Schools (CIS) that was a mechanism…

In part one of this series, the authors discussed the connections among social and emotional learning (SEL), positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS), and response to intervention (RTI). Specifically, they compared the processes and fidelity components of these approaches. They attempted to highlight the similarities in systems,…

Historically, most educators have recognized two primary aims of school discipline: (a) managing student behavior, relying primarily on the use of teacher-centered techniques for preventing and correcting misbehavior; and (b) developing self-discipline, combining teacher-centered techniques with more student-centered techniques that focus on…

Many schools are working toward improving their overall social and behavioral climate. This endeavor is undertaken for its own sake, and in the anticipation that it will improve academic performance for students. There appear to be at least three predominant school-wide approaches to frame improving school climate: (1) positive behavior…

The field of positive psychology has been interested in gratitude and documenting its benefits on well-being. Research has shown that people who experience gratitude have a variety of positive outcomes including more positive emotions such as joy, love, and happiness; fewer negative emotions such as bitterness, envy, and resentment; increased…

Over the last several years, educational policy has advocated for a preventive approach to keep problem behaviors from escalating and interfering with student achievement. Proactive methodologies such as school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) and response to intervention (RTI) have become common practice in school districts across the…

Over the past several years, allegations of abuse and death related to seclusion and restraint, media coverage of these events, subsequent federal investigations, and Congressional hearings about this topic have resulted in increased pressure on Congress to pass legislation to address the use of seclusion and restraint in the school setting.…