One of the main purposes of alternative education, residential facilities and our nation's juvenile justice restrictive settings is to provide the youth who find themselves in these settings an opportunity to redirect their lives and receive the supports and skills they need to have successful and productive futures. While this has not always…

Food selectivity is a common problem among children and youth who have intellectual and developmental disabilities or autism spectrum disorders. Whereas most intervention research has been conducted under simulated conditions in clinic and hospital settings, this study evaluated teacher implemented procedures at a specialized school. The…

This study examined the perceptions of adolescent girls with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) who were participating in a support group. The focus of the study was to explore the perceptions of the girls' friendships, connectedness with others, ability to establish and maintain relationships, and self-perceptions within the group. The…

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) impact all areas of a person's life resulting in deficits in language, social behavior, and intellectual abilities as well as the development of repetitive behaviors that can greatly restrict access to the community and quality of life. Intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) has repeatedly been shown to be…

Recent efforts to improve American educational practices have focused on determining the efficacy of interventions and instructional practices via randomized controlled trials. Aligned with this effort, the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the primary funding agency for experimental research in education, has organized grant funding into…

Choice-making of task-sequence was implemented to determine the effect on the percentage of time on-task behavior, task-completion, and accuracy for five students with E/BD served in a residential setting. An ABAB design was used to examine a potential functional relation between choice-making and the dependent variables. All sessions were…

As part of a collaborative project between a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities and a local private business, we examined the effects of video modeling to teach vocational skills to four adolescents and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Video modeling was used to teach the participants to wear a WalkAround[R]…

This quasi-longitudinal descriptive case study evaluated problem behavior for an adolescent boy with developmental disabilities via repeated functional behavioral analysis (FBA) probes during a blinded cross-over from the atypical neuroleptic Risperdal (Risperidone) to Seroquel (Quetiapine). The repeated FBA probes showed no medication differences…

Psychological interventions for migraines typically include biofeedback training, stress-management training, or relaxation training and are implemented without consideration of environmental variables that might maintain migraines or complaints of migraines. An adolescent with daily reports of migraines that negatively impacted school attendance…

This paper presents background, implementation, and feasibility findings associated with planning and conducting an after-school intervention program in an alternative education setting designed to prevent the initiation and escalation of violence and substance abuse among urban African American youth at high risk for life-long problem behaviors.…

This article describes a service-learning case study and program description involving the development and the delivery of services in a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program for secondary students. Following an overview of the philosophy of constructivist theory applied to the concept of the dissemination of information concerning adolescent…

This paper describes the Adolescent Mood Project (Project AMP), a study transporting an evidence-based, cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for adolescent depression from the university lab setting to a school-based setting. Extant research on the psychosocial treatment of adolescent depression is reviewed and rationale for transporting evidence…

The most common and widely studied treatments for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) are psychostimulant medications and behavioral interventions. The purpose of this article is to review empirically-supported, behavioral school-based interventions that are designed to enhance classroom behavior and academic achievement of students…

This longitudinal study examined risk assessment dimensions and practices used by the Orange County (California) Juvenile Probation Office to identify youth most at risk of re-offending. Results indicated that the risk assessment was not equally predictive for females and males. The use of gender specific norms or gender neutral assessments and…

A study examined the validity of the SCARE program; an anger management program developed with high school students. Adolescents (n=207) exposed to the SCARE program had significantly lower levels of anger and aggression, slightly higher anger control, and lower scores on aggressive and violent attitudes a year after exposure. (Contains…