This ethnographic study of language shows the importance of educators' appropriate use of linguistic, nonlinguistic, and paralinguistic communication techniques when working with elementary students within two classrooms who have behavioral and emotional disorders. This study focused on communication techniques used by teachers and…

A primary deficit seen in many children with autism, particularly those with limited verbal repertoires, is repetitive and rote verbal behavior. This type of repetitive or rote verbal behavior can be stigmatizing and may severely limit access to primary reinforcers. Therefore, it may be beneficial to attempt to increase response variability in…

This paper presents the results from a series of surveys distributed to school personnel from three different schools throughout the Positive Behavior Support (PBS) implementation process. The surveys used in this study were designed to measure the team members' acceptability of PBS, amount of support received, and satisfaction with training as…

This study investigated the effect School-Wide Positive Behavior Support had on special education students' achievement and office discipline referrals. Sixty-nine special education students from eight elementary schools participated in this study. Thirty-four participants were in the group with School-Wide Positive Behavior Support, and 35…

Research suggests that gambling is similar to addictive behaviors such as substance use. In the current study, gambling was investigated from a behavioral economics perspective. The Multiple Choice Procedure (MCP) with gambling as the target behavior was used to assess for relative reinforcing value, the effect of alternative reinforcers, and…

As an increasing number of studies document the link between the development of student academic and social behavior, there is a growing need to create and evaluate interventions that address both types of skill development in school contexts. It is of particular importance to focus on interventions that improve the learning environment to…

Although there is a considerable amount of research studies about effective professional development, a literature review revealed that educators are not receiving effective professional development in order to improve instruction. What is paramount in the studies of professional development is that the traditional one-shot model does not meet the…

Using a qualitative case study approach, this research explored the perceptions of middle school students on the role of their mathematics teacher in their success or failure to achieve in his mathematics classroom. Also, the study examined the teacher's perceptions of his role in the students' achievement. Further, the research explored the…

Students may avoid working on difficult tasks because it takes them longer to complete those tasks, which results in a delay to reinforcement. Research studies show that reinforcer and response dimensions can be manipulated within a concurrent operants framework to bias choice allocation toward more difficult tasks. The current study extends…

The high school principalship has been designated an area of professional shortage by many states. Resignations and terminations have been numerous as a result of poor student test performance. The purpose of this ex post facto correlation study was to investigate the self-perceptions of accountability by high school principals as they related to…

Recent legislation requires that students with disabilities receive equal access to the same educational opportunities as their typically developing peers (Cook et al., 2011). Therefore, most students with disabilities receive all or part of their education in the general education classrooms (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). Because of the…

Participation is at the core of democratic society. However, studies have shown that participation is biased toward those who are better educated, more affluent, and in greater possession of civic skills. Scholars have pointed to the Internet as a possible remedy for the disparity in participation for its potential to lower barriers and increase…

This study directly compares two interdependent group oriented contingency strategies, the GBG and the GBG with a behavior specific praise statement (BSPS) component (i.e., GBG+BSPS) to examine the relative effectiveness of each as a tool for class-wide behavior management, to inspect the effect on teacher interactions with students, and to assess…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the mentoring relationship between principals and their teachers in regards to instructional practice at three demographically diverse elementary schools. Multiple data sources were used to conduct qualitative research which resulted in extensive data collection and analysis. The collection of…

In this study, the effects of two secondary tier positive behavioral support strategies, teacher praise notes (TPNs) and peer praise notes (PPNs), were investigated using an alternating treatments single-subject design in residential classroom settings with eight elementary students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) in grades one…