Abstract
Over the past few years, we have strived to provide readers of Beyond Behavior with articles that would help increase the use of effective educational practices for students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). This is critical, given the dismal academic, behavioral, and life-oriented outcomes that are regularly cited from the empirical research that is reported in research journals such as Behavioral Disorders, Exceptional Children, and the Journal of Special Education.
As co-editors, one of the ways we hope the practitioner-oriented journal Beyond Behavior influences classroom instruction is through the types of articles that we publish. Among those are demonstration and discussion articles. Demonstration articles describe the rationale for and explicit steps in planning, implementing, and evaluating an intervention, program, or practice with a strong research base (Mooney & Ryan, 2018). Discussion articles “are designed to provide knowledge about issues or practices that affect or have the potential to influence professional practice” (Mooney & Ryan, 2018, p. 118). Authors often conceptualize the discussion article as a vehicle to offer an opinion on a relevant topic. Authors can also use this type of manuscript to provide a rationale for and/or a description of a practice that may not presently have a robust empirical literature to support its implementation but has great potential to positively impact professional practice and student outcomes. In the present issue, four of the five articles meet this criterion and, in our estimation, have great potential to increase the likelihood that effective practice is implemented in educational settings for students with or at risk for EBD.
The first article, by Brenda Scheuermann, Madeline Parsons, and Karena Hayes, provides specialized guidance on how to successfully implement positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) practices within secure care juvenile justice facilities. The article constitutes a discussion article because there is, to date, a small but growing research base to support PBIS implementation in these more restrictive placements. The authors describe unique characteristics of secure care and offer guiding questions as a mechanism to foster successful implementation and sustainability of PBIS practices in secure care facilities.
In the second article, Shanna Hirsch and colleagues provide readers with guidance on how to create and use videos to sustain PBIS practices in schools. In recent years, PBIS videos have been used to introduce stakeholders to practices, teach specific expectations, and/or celebrate school implementation successes. The authors describe two types of PBIS videos or films and provide useful hints to help schools promote effective video development and screenings. The article is chalk full of web links to examples of effective video practice. It also outlines existing research that has been conducted in this area of inquiry.
In the third article, Mariya Davis and Ingrid Cumming provide a rationale for and the steps in implementing a student-led special education program planning and implementation process. While the authors note that there is not a strong empirical basis for teaching and supporting secondary students with EBD in implementing a student-led Individualized Education Program process, there is a strong justification to support this practice. That rationale includes empirical research that spans the population of students with disabilities as a whole. The authors provide readers with step-by-step guidance on how to teach and foster student development of the skills necessary to act and advocate for oneself. These self-determination and self-advocacy skills, if effectively learned and applied, would likely increase the odds of positive secondary and post-secondary outcomes for students with EBD.
In the fourth article, Reem Muharib and Robert Pennington outline ways to increase the likelihood that functional communication training is implemented by professionals in school-based settings. The authors note that while functional communication training has been deemed an evidence-based practice in the field of autism, it can be a difficult process to implement with fidelity in natural settings. In the first part of the article the authors define and describe functional communication training, including a summary of the empirical evidence to support it. In the last part of the article, Muharib and Pennington describe three procedures for building student tolerance to immediate reinforcement that professionals can use to foster meaningful implementation. Tolerance procedures described include delay to reinforcement, chained schedules of reinforcement, and multiple schedules of reinforcement.
In the final article, a demonstration piece, Renée Lastrapes and Paul Mooney illustrate how self-monitoring can be incorporated into the special education programs of students with EBD. The authors define self-monitoring, provide a rationale for its use and a description of a strong empirical literature. They then describe a process for planning, implementing, and evaluating incorporation of a self-monitoring of academic and/or behavioral programming with an elementary-age student with EBD. Successful implementation of self-monitoring practices in the individualized programs of students with EBD is yet another mechanism to spur improvement in outcomes for this population of students.