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Alternative Education Placements (AEPs) are unique and complex settings that serve students with varieties of needs and strengths, though in practice such settings may be used most frequently to serve students with serious challenging behavior. Although research supports a number of individual interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), including intensive, individualized interventions, less is known about adapting such interventions for AEPs, and especially about the potential for AEPs to adopt a flexible, positive, multitiered framework for behavior and school climate. Emerging evidence suggests that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be integrated into alternative education settings with careful planning. This chapter provides (1) an overview of AEPs, (2) a description of six steps recommended for integrating PBIS into AEPs, and (3) a brief overview of recent literature regarding PBIS in AEPs.

Academic and practitioner attention to the constructs of authentic leadership and work engagement and their implications for organizations has grown dramatically over the past decade. Consideration of the implications of these constructs for high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP) is limited, however. In this monograph, we present a conceptual model that integrates authentic leadership/followership theory with theory and research on HPHRP. Then, we apply this model to systematically consider the implications of skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and opportunity-enhancing HR practices in combination with authentic leadership for authentic followership, follower work engagement, and follower performance. We contend that authentic leadership, through various influences processes, promotes HPHRP, and vice versa, to help foster enhanced work engagement. By cultivating greater work engagement, individuals are motivated to bring their best, most authentic selves to the workplace and are more likely to achieve higher levels of both well-being and performance.

The 1990 reauthorization of PL 94-142, the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), emphasized the need for applied research in schools to prevent the development of emotional disturbance. Prevention research then led to mandates in IDEA 1997 that schools must develop positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) for children and youth whose behavior impeded their educational performance. This chapter describes how the ensuing research and implementation regarding each of the three-tiers of PBIS have influenced the educational outcomes of students with EBD. Recommendations for school staff using the three-tiered PBUS model are provided so that students with EBD can benefit from implementation of PBIS structures and supports.

Recently, a national priority has been set to improve mental health services for children and families. It has been identified in epidemiological literature that in the United States, an approximate 15% of youth meet diagnostic criteria for emotional or behavioral problems. Furthermore, less than one in every five children that present with such needs receive mental health services. Individual, family, and system barriers such as transportation, competing demands, and long waiting lists have negatively impacted access to mental health services. Therefore, the school system has become the “de facto” mental health system for children and adolescents, in part because of the significant time students spend at school. However, meeting the needs of students with behavioral or emotional problems within the school system poses its own challenges. Schools have reported being limited in their ability to deliver basic mental wellness to students due to the lack of available resources. Specifically, there is a shortage of school-employed mental health personnel and the ratio of student to mental health professional is two to three times larger than recommended. Expanded school mental health programs are partnered systems that utilize existing services and collaborate with community mental health (CMH) professionals at each level of the three-tiered system. This partnership enables CMH staff gain access to youth with emotional and behavioral problems, resulting in increased prevention and intervention services for students. Additionally, a coordinated effort such as student-transition services has an integral role of facilitating the process from the school system to postsecondary employment, training, and or additional education.

In addressing positive general education teaching practices for use with students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), the chapter emphasizes teacher behavior change research that has been informed by applied behavior analytic (ABA) principles. Its central theme is that general education teachers can access research informed by ABA in developing prosocial instructional and management practices. Highlighted teaching practices include fostering correct academic responses from students, increasing active student response, and using contingent praise with regularity. The chapter also discusses functional behavioral assessment, positive behavioral interventions and supports, and controversial behavior change issues surrounding seclusion and restraints and medication, topics related to teaching students with or at risk for EBD in general education settings.

This study examined early childhood special education preservice teachers' perceived knowledge and confidence, as well as actual knowledge of functional assessment-based interventions pre- and postuniversity course participation. A quasi-experimental two-group pre- and posttest design was applied to examine (1) initial differences between two groups (by assigned instructor) in preservice teachers' perceived knowledge, perceived confidence, and actual knowledge, (2) growth over time on these three measures, and (3) their concluding performance following course completion. Results indicated mean score differences between groups at the start of the functional assessment-based intervention course instruction. Large magnitude effects were found for both groups when comparing pre- to posttest scores of preservice teachers' ratings of their perceived knowledge and confidence, as well as a measure of actual content knowledge. Posttest scores showed preservice teachers ended the experience with similar levels of actual knowledge, regardless of group membership. Findings indicate preservice teachers may benefit from a preparation course with applied practice to develop knowledge and confidence for using functional assessment-based interventions, a promising practice (What Works Clearinghouse, 2016), to support students with challenging behaviors. Limitations and future directions are presented.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) present unique challenges to the families and educators supporting them. Even though families and educators report that behavioral issues can be identified by age 3 (Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004), the commonly used wait-and-see approach to intervening results in children with E/BD not receiving services until after the age of 10 (Park & Scott, 2009). By this time, behaviors have become chronic (Lewis, Jones, Horner, & Sugai, 2010) and educators primarily focus interventions on the child's social skills and behavioral deficits while there is a lack of focus on the student's academic needs (Lane, 2007). The purpose of this chapter is to review trends in E/BD research and practice that specifically focus on social emotional and academic interventions. While there is a strong history and direction for behavioral interventions for students with E/BD, researchers have only begun to investigate the academic learning needs of this population of students. The documented deficits in reading, writing, and mathematics for students with E/BD make it clear that further research is needed in these areas. The use of strategies including self-mediated, group/peer-mediated interventions, and explicit instruction may be effective teaching strategies across content areas. Initial studies show not only improved academic outcomes but also increases in positive behavior. The need for teachers and researchers to focus on the whole child, both the social emotional needs and the academic deficits, is imperative in order to improve the lives of children with E/BD.

In a multicase qualitative study, inclusive school leaders attempted to move their schools from the excessive use of suspension; they employed positive behavioral intervention and support (PBIS) as an alternative they thought would be therapeutic rather than punitive. However, the PBIS system traded a disciplinary system of control for a medicalized system of restoring order. Unwanted behavior came to be defined as evidence of possible behavioral disability. Hence, the PBIS system exchanged one deficit identity of “disorderly” student for another of “disordered” student, subsuming other considerations of race, class, and gender identity. Following the study’s findings, this chapter proposes more liberatory practices for PBIS that interrupt dominant culture discourses of normal behavior and power, and hold promise for establishing justice, rather than simply reinstating order.

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.

Given that preschool children with disabilities exhibit three times the rate of challenging behavior as compared to their typically developing peers, and that exhibiting challenging behavior in the preschool years is associated with later academic failure and social rejection, researchers and teachers alike recognize the need to support children with disabilities who use such behavior in the preschool years. This chapter presents how one preschool special education teacher, in accordance with her teaching philosophy, employed a performance-based pedagogy as a positive behavioral approach to working with one child with special needs who used challenging behavior. Through the presentation of a series of vignettes, this teacher’s reflections illuminate how a performance pedagogy relying on the principles of theater improvisation allowed both teacher and student to step outside traditional challenging behavior patterns and scripts. These vignettes and reflections are offered to practitioners and researchers interested in developing holistic and humanistic practices that teachers can use to support children to co-create an expanded behavioral repertoire, thereby increasing their opportunities for both social and academic success.