National Leadership for Children and Youth With Serious Emotional Disturbance: Progress and Prospects

Despite the federal mandate to identify and provide appropriate educational and related services to children and youth with serious emotional disturbance (SED), the national profile portrays exceptionally low rates of identification; unacceptably low rates of school completion; high rates of placement in segregated environments; evidence that economic and demographic factors substantially affect identification, placement, and school completion; and a mixed, although mostly discouraging picture of outcomes after leaving the educational system. Recent national leadership, comprised of strategic planning, research, and demonstration initiatives has attained considerable momentum and is intended to improve outcomes for children with SED. Significant changes are anticipated as a result of the upcoming reauthorization of the statute governing special education and related services. These changes reflect a 20 year perspective regarding the benefits and shortcomings of current eligibility criteria and discretionary initiatives for improving outcomes for children with disabilities. The manner in which these changes may affect prospects for better serving children with SED is discussed

Effects of Task Difficulty on the Disruptive and On-Task Behavior of Students with Severe Behavior Disorders

It has been proposed that academic materials presented to students with emotional and behavioral disorders may serve in some situations as aversive stimuli that increase escape and/or avoidance responses. The results from two single subject studies using ABAB designs that were conducted to examine the effects of the difficulty level of academic tasks (i.e., easy versus difficult) on both the disruptive and on-task behaviors of students with severe behavior disorders are presented. Results indicated that difficult tasks were generally associated with lower percentages of time on-task and higher percentages of time engaged in disruptive behavior than were easy task conditions. Implications for teachers of students with severe behavioral disorders are discussed

Promoting autistic children's peer interaction in an integrated early childhood setting using affection activities.

Group affection activities were used to increase the interaction of three autistic children with their nonhandicapped peers in an integrated early childhood setting. Peer interaction increased during free play when the affection activities were conducted, but not when similar activities without the affection component were used. This interaction included initiations by both the autistic and nonhandicapped children, with reciprocal interactions occurring more frequently with nonhandicapped peers who had participated in the affection activities