Students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) continue to have poor transition outcomes despite the continued advancement of evidence-based transition planning practices. Strategies tailored to the specific needs of students with EBD must be researched and disseminated to practitioners. A social capital approach to transition planning…

Dr. McGinnis-Smith earned a PhD in special education with emphasis in EBD at the University of Iowa and an administrator certification from Drake University. She is coauthor of the social skills teaching series "Skillstreaming." She also coauthored with Richard Simpson "Skillstreaming Children and Youth with High Functioning Autism…

Social skills training has become a major focus for improving the lives of individuals with disabilities. Students with emotional and behavioral disorders often lack the social skills necessary to build and maintain positive relationships with others and require individualized training to appropriately engage across all settings. Despite the…

Children and youth rely on language skills to navigate environments, many of which are multifaceted and complex. In a society in which successful interactions involve language and prosocial behavior, children who struggle with language or classroom behavior are predisposed to failure. The present perspectives article (a) summarizes the comorbidity…

Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) is a widely adopted framework to support the social, emotional, and behavioral growth of all students. This article addresses two key questions related to supporting students with disabilities through PBIS: (a) Why focus on universal classroom PBIS practices?--without support, students with…

Teachers report that students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) present challenges that are among the greatest they face on a daily basis. Research, however, clearly shows that teachers routinely receive little or no training in how to effectively work with students with challenging behaviors. This is particularly frustrating when…

Researchers sometimes conduct a study and find that the predicted relation between variables did not exist or that the intervention did not have a positive impact on student outcomes; these are referred to as null findings because they fail to disconfirm the null hypothesis. Rather than consider such studies as failures and disregard the null…

In this article, we follow up on recommendations from the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health (DEBH) for providing school mental health (SMH) services by offering additional implementation suggestions for teachers and school staff. We highlight the need for and urgency of SMH services, particularly during and after the pandemic, and also…

Research suggests a potential relationship between self-determination and improved post-school outcomes for students with disabilities. Self-determination represents a particularly relevant variable which deserves increased attention for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD); however, there is no consistent understanding on how to…

Professional development in research-based early reading intervention and curriculum materials is not consistently available to special educators working with students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). This article provides practitioners serving elementary school students with and at risk for EBD with a variety of options for…

Social-emotional and behavioral skills are essential to school and life success. Some young children, though, demonstrate significant delays in these areas. While there is a current hierarchical model of behavioral interventions for young children, it is lacking explicit interventions to be implemented in the early childhood classroom. This column…

Students with or at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders pose an immense challenge for educators, and typical practices to address them are punitive and exclusionary, leading to poor academic and social outcomes for students. To address the complex needs of students with intensive emotional and behavioral needs, evidence-based practices and…

Youth in juvenile justice facilities may experience symptoms of mental health disorders and trauma at a higher rate than their normative peers. As a result, juvenile justice facilities have become de facto mental health agencies, resulting in an increased need to provide interventions that can meet the various needs of their residents. Embedding…

Office discipline referrals (ODRs) are a data source commonly used by school teams to identify students who need behavioral intervention. In this brief, the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) and the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) provide a brief synthesis of the research on using ODRs has a…

This article offers a rationale for using a low-intensity support, increasing opportunities to respond, to promote students' academic engagement and decrease disruptive behaviors. A step-by-step guide to implementing this strategy in the classroom setting is presented.