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Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) who display aggression necessitate effective interventions for reducing highly disruptive behavior, while keeping learning environments safe and secure for all students and staff. In this chapter, we describe the merits of cognitive-behavioral interventions (CBIs) in school settings to reduce student aggression and other destructive and maladaptive behavior and to promote student success and lifelong learning. To that end, we first explore three theoretical frameworks for aggression: the general aggression model, social learning theory, and social information processing, each of which examines the role of environment, cognition, and behavior as foundational to the occurrence of aggression. Synthesizing these theories assists in the development and implementation of CBIs in classroom settings. We then describe the CBI approach to teaching students cognitive and behavioral strategies to reduce problematic behaviors and increase the use of more pro-social alternatives, and ultimately generalize learned skills to a variety of social situations. A brief history of CBIs is explored, followed by a discussion of several meta-analyses establishing CBI's effectiveness in decreasing aggression across a variety of venues and populations. We then focus on social problem solving as an example of a cognitive-behavioral approach and describe the Tools for Getting Along curriculum as an example of a school-based CBI. At the end of the chapter, we explain some limitations of CBIs in schools and delineate future research needs.

Assessment and identification of children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is complex and involves multiple techniques, levels, and participants. While federal law sets the general parameters for identification in school settings, these criteria are vague and may lead to inconsistencies in selection and interpretation of assessment measures. Assessment practice across school settings is greatly influenced by clinical guidelines such as the DSM-IV, which more specifically defines emotional and behavioral disorders and highlights the issue of co-morbidity. Before a student is assessed for special education eligibility under the IDEIA category of emotional disturbance, screening techniques and pre-referral interventions are needed. Positive Behavioral Supports and Response to Intervention models provide empirically supported frameworks for establishing the need for formal psychological assessment. Collaboration among members of the multidisciplinary team, including parents, helps to ensure that identification and intervention efforts have ecological validity. Tests and techniques vary considerably, but developmental histories, interviews, observations across settings, and behavioral checklists and rating scales are recommended, along with cognitive and achievement testing. While problems exist in the reliability and validity of projective techniques, they continue to be used in school-based assessment for EBD. Multitrait, multisetting, and multimethod approaches are essential for culturally fair assessment and reduction of bias in identification and placement.

There is growing evidence for the efficacy of anger treatment programmes, which aim to reduce inappropriate aggression in people with learning disabilities. To date they have been provided in both group and individual formats, but the differential efficacy of these approaches is yet to be assessed. Individuals with a learning disability and inappropriately expressed anger were assigned to either group or individual treatment or a waiting list control, depending on the availability of treatment options. In this way, 23 participants completed group treatment, 18 individual treatment and 21 were included in a waiting list control. Participants were assessed both before and after treatment using an anger provocation inventory. Improvements were found in the scores obtained on the anger inventory for both the group and individual treatments compared to the control using a 2 by 3 split plot ANOVA. There was no difference between group and individual treatments. These results replicate previous findings that suggest that both group and individual cognitive behavioural interventions are effective treatment options for people with learning disabilities, but do not support either method of delivery as the preferred option. Limitations of the data are discussed.

Hope and death anxiety as the important sources of adjustment can affect the attitude, health status and quality of life in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Hopelessness and death anxiety are considered as the important factors in patients undergoing hemodialysis, because these can avoid non-adherence and increase mortality rate. This study aims to investigate the effect of the cognitive–behavioral intervention on hope and death anxiety in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

In this randomized controlled clinical trial, 84 patients undergoing hemodialysis were included, who were then divided into two groups as the cognitive–behavioral intervention group (n = 42) and the control group (n = 42). The experimental group received eight sessions of individual chair-side cognitive–behavioral intervention. To measure the hope level and death anxiety, Hearth Hope Scale and Templer’s Death Anxiety Scale were used as tools once at the beginning and once at the end of the study.

The mean scores of the hope levels in the intervention group significantly improved compared to the control group. Furthermore, the mean scores of the death anxiety levels significantly decreased in the intervention group compared to the control group.

Cognitive–behavioral interventions are significantly effective on promoting the level of hope and decreasing the level of death anxiety in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Therefore, applying this psychological intervention to design the individual education programs is recommended.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is being used increasingly with people with learning disabilities. The evidence base to support these developments comes from uncontrolled trials of CBT in a variety of psychological disorders and eight to nine controlled trials of CBT for anger (plus a single controlled study in depression). This paper reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of group‐based anger management and the acquisition of anger coping skills, and the effectiveness of individual anger treatment, with some discussion of the status of CBT for other indications and the difficulties of conducting outcome research in this area.

Anger has been shown to be associated with aggression and violence in adults with learning disabilities in both community and secure settings. Emerging evidence has indicated that cognitive behavioural anger treatment can be effective in reducing assessed levels of anger in these patient populations. However, it has been suggested that the effectiveness of these interventions is significantly affected by verbal ability. In this service evaluation study the pre‐ and post‐treatment and 12‐month follow‐up assessment scores of 83 offenders with learning disabilities who received cognitive behavioural anger treatment were examined in order to investigate whether participants' responsiveness to treatment was a function of measured verbal IQ. The results indicate that, overall, the effectiveness of anger treatment was not the result of higher verbal ability as reflected in verbal IQ scores. It is concluded that cognitive behavioural therapy for anger control problems can be effective for people with moderate, mild and borderline levels of intellectual functioning and forensic histories.

This study aims to examine the extent to which anti‐smoking websites use intervention strategies that have been informed by four prominent theories of health‐related behavior change: the health belief model, the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior, the transtheoretical model, and social cognitive theory.

Content analysis was applied to 67 unique and independent anti‐smoking websites to determine their use of 20 intervention strategies based on the four theories.

The findings reveal that anti‐smoking websites used the health belief model the most and social cognitive theory the least. In addition, websites devoted to smoking cessation used these theories more extensively than websites devoted to smoking prevention.

The sample size is somewhat small, which may result in lack of sufficient statistical power. Also, the analysis may have overlooked some important intervention strategies that are particularly effective for smoking intervention programs.

Anti‐smoking website designers should take more advantage of the internet as a health promotion medium and use more intervention strategies that have been informed by scientifically tested theories of behavior change, particularly with respect to affective and behavioral strategies.

This study contributes to current knowledge about which kinds of anti‐smoking messages are available online and how extensively they employ theory‐based intervention strategies.

Recent research suggests that multi-component and contextualized interventions are a good option for the treatment of children with ADHD. The primary goal of the present investigation was to examine the efficacy of a multi-component psychosocial intervention involving children, with ADHD, their parents and their teachers. Forty-two children with ADHD were distributed in two groups: one with 27 children who received the intervention (experimental group) and the other with 15 children who received no intervention (control group). The effects of the intervention program were evaluated in three basic developmental areas: school learning, emotional adjustment and social adjustment. Once the intervention was over, the learning problems of children with ADHD who participated in the intervention were significantly reduced, based on the observations of both parents and teachers. Furthermore, social adjustment of the treated group improved significantly at the posttest evaluation. In contrast, in the group of children with ADHD who did not receive treatment, the learning and social problems remained stable.

Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth with complicated and often serious academic and behavioral needs. The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and practices with Best Available Evidence are necessary to increase the likelihood of long-term success for these youth. In this chapter, we define three primary categories of AES and review what we know about the characteristics of youth in these schools. Next, we discuss the current emphasis on identifying and implementing EBPs with regard to both academic interventions (i.e., reading and mathematics) and interventions addressing student behavior. In particular, we consider implementation in AES, where there are often high percentages of youth requiring special education services and who have a significant need for EBPs to succeed academically, behaviorally, and in their transition to adulthood. We focus our discussion on: (a) examining approaches to identifying EBPs; (b) providing a brief review of EBPs and Best Available Evidence in the areas of mathematics, reading, and interventions addressing student behavior for youth in AES; (c) delineating key implementation challenges in AES; and (d) providing recommendations for how to facilitate the use of EBPs in AES.

This study reports a recovery‐themed cognitive behavioural educational group for clients suffering from chronic positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, on a low secure inpatient unit. Nine participants completed baseline and post‐intervention measures of insight, self‐esteem and knowledge about schizophrenia. Additional post‐intervention measures included compliance with medication, feelings about schizophrenia, qualitative views and access to the community. Overall, the results were positive within the limits of this small‐scale study. Following the intervention, most participants reported that they were less frightened about psychosis, and felt more in control of their illness and more optimistic about their future. This study suggests that there may be clinical benefits of having CBT‐orientated educational groups in low secure settings with clients with longstanding co‐existing positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Recovery style should be evaluated systematically in future studies.