The collection of student data through screening and progress monitoring of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills is just as important as the implementation of curriculum and practices. Monitoring skill acquisition allows teachers to identify effective practices, provide intervention, and intensify support for students who need it. In this…

The best social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum can be difficult to implement when students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are unregulated and unprepared to engage in instruction. Daily mindfulness practices can help students with and at risk for EBD regulate their emotions and behaviors and be prepared for…

Goal setting is used to track progress on academic and behavioral outcomes. It can also be extremely effective in monitoring progress toward social and emotional learning (SEL) goals. In this article, we provide an overview of effective goal setting in the classroom to support SEL skill acquisition and development, and practical examples of how to…

Paying attention during academic instruction plays a significant role in learning. Students with off-task behaviors are less likely to obtain desired learning outcomes. Technology-based self-monitoring is one of the strategies designed to address this issue. This article introduces technology-based self-monitoring (TBSM) for elementary educators…

The concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequence of instruction is an explicit methodology for teaching mathematics using multiple representations of concepts. Learning concepts through multiple representations fosters conceptual understanding and mathematical thinking. This article describes how a special education teacher used explicit CRA…

Peer-mediated interventions (PMIs) are an effective support for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) for improving targeted behavioral skills. As one of the most important strategies in PMI, peer prompting and reinforcement (PR) provides an effective approach for developing and maintaining positive behavior. This article provides…

With students having experienced dramatic changes to their lives and perhaps personally experiencing serious illness and death within their immediate or extended families due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools may have to examine how to broadly implement the use of trauma-informed care in schools. This article examines why experiences related 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…

This article provides educators with a research-informed process for addressing student problem self-injurious behaviors within inclusive settings. The process involves (a) identifying functions of problem behaviors, (b) implementing function-based interventions that include teaching and reinforcing socially acceptable replacement behaviors, (c)…

A functional assessment-based intervention (FABI) was designed and implemented to increase the on-task behavior of David, a second-grade student in a general education classroom. David attended an elementary school that used a comprehensive, integrated, three-tiered (CI3T) model of prevention. The school's principal nominated David for Project…

In this study, the authors examined the effects of a systematic functional assessment-based intervention (FABI) to identify the function of a third-grade student's off-task behavior and create a plan to increase academic engaged time (AET). The FABI was designed and implemented in an urban elementary school with a comprehensive, integrated,…

Positive educational outcomes often include success in reading, math, and writing, which are beneficial skills that will assist students in school and beyond. However, in education it is important that the classroom focus not only on subject and content-specific learning, but also on behavior and societal expectations for following rules. When…

The purpose of this article is to describe an applied method of assessing and manipulating environmental factors influencing student behavior. The assessment procedure is called structural analysis (SA) and can be a part of a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) process or a stand-alone set of procedures for teachers to use in their classrooms.…

Research strongly suggests that visual supports, such as pictures, prompts, cue cards, story boards, graphic schedules, and diagrams, have been effective for providing instructional structure for a wide variety of children and for multiple activities. Making successful transitions from one activity to another is difficult for many children,…

Schoolwide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is an empirically supported approach that is implemented by more than 10,000 schools in the United States to support student and staff behavior (www.pbis.org). SWPBS is based on a three-tiered prevention logic: (a) Tier 1 interventions support all students; (b) Tier 2 interventions support targeted…