This study reports new evidence for the dimensionality and validity of the Learning Behaviors Scale in samples of Head Start children. A sample of 900 former Head Start children enrolled in public kindergarten and first-grade classrooms was studied using modern techniques to analyze item responses represented as ordered categories. Findings from…

Although numerous studies have evaluated the effectiveness of multimodal psychosocial interventions for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, these programs are limited in that there has not been an explicit focus on the connection between family and school. This study was designed to develop and pilot test a family-school…

This randomized controlled study examined disciplinary outcomes for 201 students who made threats of violence at school. The students attended 40 schools randomly assigned to use the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines or follow a business-as-usual disciplinary approach in a control group. Logistic regression analyses found, after…

Performance feedback (PF) has become popular in the school-based literature as a method to increase the treatment integrity of prescribed interventions. The current study extracted and aggregated data from single-case studies that used PF in school settings to increase teachers' use of classroom-based interventions. Results suggest PF is…

The present study is a large-scale randomized trial testing the efficacy of a family-school partnership model (i.e., conjoint behavioral consultation) for promoting behavioral competence and decreasing problem behaviors of students identified by their teachers as disruptive. The focus of this study is on student behavioral outcomes and the…

The positive effect of competent behaviors on academic functioning may outweigh the negative effect of externalizing problems. The current study examined this premise among children with externalizing problems in the early elementary years. Participants were 207 kindergarten through third-grade children and their parents and teachers. Results…

Outcomes of 28 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1981 and 2007 were evaluated quantitatively to assess the effectiveness of classroom-wide interventions for the improvement of social skills. All interventions included in the study were implemented with intact classrooms that included both socially competent children and those with…

Early measures of mathematics skill and development have focused on early numeracy skills like counting, number identification, and sequencing of numbers. This study attempted to expand early mathematics assessment. Six new measures of early mathematics skill competence were developed and evaluated. Four existing measures also were examined.…

This article focuses on the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IY TCM) intervention as an example of an evidence-based program that embeds fidelity and adaptation within its design. First, the core features of the IY TCM program along with the methods, processes, and principles that make the intervention effective are described. The…

Reading skills are core competencies in children's readiness to learn and may be particularly important for children in foster care, who are at risk for academic difficulties and higher rates of special education placement. In this study, prereading skills (phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and oral language ability) and kindergarten…

Number sense skills provide the foundation for the acquisition of higher order mathematical skills and concepts. However, there is disagreement over the definition of number sense, the specific skills that make up the construct, and the psychometric properties of measures used to assess these skills. In the current study, 10 brief tasks…

Using a cross-sectional design and five Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills measures, researchers tested for gender differences in reading skills for 1,218 kindergarten through fifth-grade students. A series of two-way repeated measures analyses of variance with time of year (fall, winter, and spring) serving as the within-subjects…

In this article, the author comments on Dominguez, Vitiello, Maier, and Greenfield's (2010) article on identifying quality in preschool education. Dominguez et al. have conducted a methodologically sophisticated study describing the growth of learning behavior among Head Start children. By doing so, they contribute to a growing body of evidence…

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are brief measures of early literacy skills for students in Grades K-6 (University of Oregon, 2009; see Kaminski & Good, 1996). School psychologists and other educational professionals use DIBELS to identify students who are in need of early intervention. The purpose of this review was…

Using a longitudinal design, children were given a brief number sense screener (NSB) screener (N = 204) over six time points, from the beginning of kindergarten to the middle of first grade. The NSB is based on research showing the importance of number competence (number, number relations, and number operations) for success in mathematics.…