Teachers are o�en ill-prepared to manage classrooms in urban schools. In the present study, an empirically-based behavioral management strategy, the Good Behavior Game (Game), was investigated. The effects of the Game on student behavior and teacher response statements, including praise, were examined. A teacher with 22 students in a first grade classroom of an urban elementary school participated in implementation of the Game. Using a withdrawal design, results showed that student on-task behavior increased while disruptive behavior decreased, replicating previous findings. The number of teacher praise statements remained at near zero levels across conditions. Frequency of teacher neutral and negative statements varied with the level of student disruptive behavior. Teacher praise and limitations are discussed.

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a powerful group contingency with a history of documented empirical support. The purpose of this study was to compare two interdependent group contingencies, the GBG and a positive variation, the Caught Being Good Game (CBGG), in a school implementing school-wide positive behavior support. A kindergarten and fourth-grade classroom teacher with 17 and 20 students, respectively, implemented both versions of the game in a counterbalanced fashion. Using a withdrawal design, results showed similar effects on disruptive and on-task behaviors. The CBGG is discussed as an effective variation of the GBG that is acceptable to both teachers and students. Keywordselementary and middle schools, classroom intervention, positive behavior supports, good behavior game at GEORGIAN COURT UNIV on May 15, 2015 pbi.sagepub.com Downloaded from

The need for residential services for youth with the most intractable emotional and behavioral problems continues to exist despite advances made in developing community-based systems of care. Residential treatment centers (RTCs), considered one of the most restrictive service settings, have changed little over the years and have not fared well in outcome evaluations. Despite these factors, admissions to RTCs continue to increase. In an attempt to contemporize and bring the RTC more in line with current practice, a stop-gap model of service delivery is recommended. The stop-gap model, incorporating evidencebased practices, is intended to have an immediate and positive impact on the barrier behaviors that keep youths in the most restrictive environments. The twofold goal of the stop-gap model is to interrupt the youth's downward spiral imposed by increasingly disruptive behavior and, simultaneously, to prepare the post-discharge environment for the youth's timely reintegration. Strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of the stop-gap model are recommended.

Matching theory describes a process by which organisms distribute their behavior between two or more concurrent schedules of reinforcement (Herrnstein, 1961). In an attempt to determine the generality of matching theory to applied settings, 2 students receiving special education were provided with academic response alternatives. Using a combined simultaneous treatments design and reversal design, unequal ratio schedules of reinforcement were varied across two academic responses. Findings indicated that both subjects allocated higher rates of responses to the richer schedule of reinforcement, although only one responded exclusively to the richer schedule. The present results lend support to a postulation that positive reinforcement may have undesirable collateral effects that are predicted by matching theory (Balsam & Bondy, 1983).

No abstract