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This study investigated the use of practitioner-implemented structural analyses to determine setting events affecting the disruptive behavior of two male students with EBD in a self-contained classroom. Descriptive measures (PBQ, SEII, and direct observation) and analogue probes were employed and contrasted. An ABA reversal design was used to compare intervention packages; maintenance and social validity data were also obtained. Findings indicate that structural analyses can be implemented by a practitioner and can lead to the development of successful interventions within educational settings. Implications for broad implementation and future research are also discussed.

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, educators have been advised that it is no longer acceptable to allow ideology, fads, or untested procedures to define teaching. Therefore, knowing what counts as evidence and why it counts is the primary issue of the early 21st century in the field of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD). Over the last several years, we have been engaged in an effort to define our field as a set of standardized, evidence-based, and sustainable practices. Issues related to the validity of research are at the center of that discussion. This article responds to the work of other authors in this special issue through a discussion of the role of science in EBD, various aspects of validity related to current interventions, and threats to the systematic determination of a valid research base in the field.

Severe behavioral problems and social interaction deficits are the two areas of functioning most responsible for the failure of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) to adjust adequately and achieve success in inclusive settings. Over the past 10 years, the development and refinement of a technology of functional analysis has allowed educators and researchers to address problem behavior more effectively by matching the function of the response to an intervention. Recently investigators have begun to turn their attention to the assessment and manipulation of setting events that can elicit appropriate responses. This article describes an experimental hypothesis-testing model of structural analysis designed to identify critical contextual variables associated with successful social interaction. Suggestions for use in general education settings are provided, with an emphasis on matching inclusive social environments to individual student antecedent variables. Strengths and weaknesses of various forms of functional analysis are discussed in conjunction with the need to develop reliable, valid, and acceptable assessments that can be used in natural environments.

Three children with autism from a self-contained elementary special education class participated in daily W-min free-play sessions with 15 nondisabled 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade peers from the same school in three social interaction groups. After a baseline period, one of the peers was trained to appropriately interact with the student with autism. During the first phase of the intervention, this trained peer and the student with autism joined four other nontrained peers for play activities. Subsequently, each peer in the group received training sequentially so that the treatment phases reflected one trained, two trained, three trained, four trained, and five trained peers interacting with the student with autism in that same group of six. For each of the three groups, generalized interactions with nontrained peers were observed after the introduction of the third trained peer. Qualitative as well as quantitative changes in social interaction were documented.

It is difficult to summarize a career like Jim Kauffman's in just a few paragraphs. And, although I won't even try to do justice to his contributions in the field of emotional and behavioral disorders, I do want to say a couple of things at the outset. What Jim has done for us over the last several decades, even if many of us are not properly aware of it, is to provide a space where we can do our work, secure our grants, train our teachers, and conduct our research without having to fight battles every day defending the efficacy of what we do. Throughout his career, he has been consistently trying to tell us something very important: that ideas and actions matter greatly to the lives of the children we serve and that we had better be as sure as we can that what we propose to do is based on the most reliable information we have at our disposal. That kind of information comes to us through logical, objective inquiry, and we ignore it at our peril.Postmodernism is just the latest permutation in the long, muddled history of relativist flak that has bombarded us throughout the history of special education. Whether it was the ideological lunacy of arguments regarding the use of punishment, the decade-long rush toward The Delusion of Inclusion (Mock & Kauffman, in press), disingenuous arguments that impede prevention efforts (Kauffman, 1999a; Kauffman, in press b), or a hermeneutical philosophy that not only proposes false solutions but also prevents us from even seeing and formulating our problems (Kauffman, 2002; Kauffman, in press a), Jim has consistently stepped into the middle of it to expose the folly of much of what has passed for educational expertise. Perhaps it is because he was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, absorbed the lessons of Mark Twain into his bones, and was thereafter constitutionally unable to suffer fools gladly. Or, perhaps he has just seen things more clearly than many of the rest of us. Whatever the reason, we are indebted to him for showing us that, as Tallis (1999) once stated, "to pursue truth, one should not be too deeply entrenched in any hole" (p. 93).Kauffman's "Reflections on the Field" neatly sums up our current struggle to develop and maintain effective programs in a climate saturated with political solutions based on rhetoric and persuasion (Kauffman, 2003). His message is that those who seek the truth as closely as is humanly possible will not begin with conclusions and then look for arguments and facts to support them. Rather, they will examine all relevant data in the hope of finally arriving at an accurate account of the needs of children and youth with emotional or behavioral disorders.When Jim warns us of new forms of racism packaged in progressive notions of "democratic epistemology" (Kauffman, 2003, p. 207), he gets to the heart of the postmodern conflation of political and epistemic goals. That is, many of these otherwise seemingly bright people routinely commit the elementary logical mistake of confusing warrant with belief or truth with acceptance. As he has demonstrated in his recent work (Kauffman, 1999a,1999b, 2002), one of the reasons that this relativist sophistry has gained popularity is because too few of us who might have been expected to resist the putsch understood what its instigators were saying. When applied to special education, the result is a devaluation of empirically tested procedures, a perverted characterization of special education as a form of punishment, and a concomitant valorization of so-called "full inclusion" to outcome variable status rather than, correctly, as a treatment option within the context of an array of possible treatments. When applied to racial issues, postmodern multicultural dogma dissembles into an ardently advocated, veritably messianic political program, and, like most political programs that have succumbed to the Utopian temptation, it does not take kindly to true difference.Conceptual and Practical IssuesJim's comments regarding our field point toward a number of conceptual and practical issues that we must address immediately if we are to continue to meet the needs of our students. …

There is a consensus among social skills trainers and researchers that broad intervention effects, such as response generalization, are both attainable and desirable, yet recent reviews of the literature have revealed that little is known about collateral effects of procedures designed to effect social interaction. A multiple baseline, multiple probe design was used to evaluate the effects of a social skill intervention for three elementary school age children with behavioral and learning disor ders. An observation system utilizing time-sampling and duration recording was developed to assess the acquisition of target social behaviors, the concomitant changes in nontargeted behaviors, and changes in peer and teacher responses to target students as a result of the training package. The results indicated success in increasing student acquisition of targeted social behaviors which in turn led to lengthier peer interactions for all three students. Additionally, all three target students demon strated increases in nontargeted responses. The results are discussed in light of social skill training, response covariation, collateral effects, and generalization. I Students with behavioral disorders often demonstrate difficulties in interpersonal relation ships, particularly peer interactions (Gresham, 1988). For most children with behavioral disor ders, the lack of adequate social skills coupled with the presence of interfering behavior, such as aggression, appears to be the foundation for peer interaction problems. The bulk of social skill intervention research has focused on dem onstrating that students with behavioral disor ders can acquire adequate social skills and re duce their display of behaviors that interfere with positive peer interactions (Asher & Coie, 1990; Gresham, 1990; McConnell, 1987). While the social skills literature documents that the peer interactions of students with so cial problems improve following social skills training, less evidence exists that these gains generalize or result in a substantial improve ment in the student's overall social competence (Chandler, Lubeck, & Fowler, 1992; Gresham, 1988; Kohler & Greenwood, 1986; Mahur & Rutherford, 1991 ; McConnell, 1987; Newcomb, Bukowski, & Pattee, 1993). It is often difficult to determine if the lack of evidence for positive long-term effects of social skills training is miss ing due to a lack of treatment integrity (Gre sham, Gansle, & Noell, 1993), the strength of the treatment package (Stokes & Osnes, 1989; Strain, 1993), or limited knowledge regarding the durability of trained skills in the natural en vironment once the intervention has been with drawn (Kohler & Greenwood, 1986; McCon nell, 1987; Voeltz & Evans, 1988). Review of social skills training literature re veals numerous attempts to assess strategies for programming generalization. Chandler, Lubeck, and Fowler (1992), for example, examined var ious social skill generalization strategies with withdrawn preschoolers and found that al though generalization strategies frequently are incorporated into social skills training, the ef fects often are not evaluated. Schloss, Schloss, Wood, and Kiehl (1986) in a comprehensive review of 25 studies, examined the effects of social skills training with students with behav ioral disorders. Nearly half of the studies dem onstrated lasting results during a maintenance assessment. However, the type of generalized responding most often reported was stimulus generalization (i.e., across persons, environ ments, events). Very few demonstrations of re Behavioral Disorders, 1994, 20(1 ), 35-50 35 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.57 on Mon, 08 Aug 2016 05:02:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms sponse generalization (i.e., across related be haviors) have been reported. Nonetheless, both sets of authors concluded that programming for generalization of social skills is limited and that the generalization effects of most treatments remain unknown. In 1991 Mahur and Rutherford examined the efficacy of peer-mediated interventions by analyzing the effects of 21 social skill interven tion studies. Within the peer-mediated social skills training literature, these authors found that certain treatment components, such as incor porating naturally occurring reinforcers, were more effective than others in promoting gener alized effects. These reviewers and others (e.g., Kohler & Greenwood, 1986; McConnell, 1987; Stokes, 1992; Stokes & Osnes, 1989) have con cluded that what is known about broad inter vention effects is insufficient to either predict or control for generalization. We concur with Kohler and Greenwood (1986) and Stokes and Osnes (1989) who recommend systematic in vestigation to specifically analyze generaliza tion effects. Sasso, Melloy, and Kavale (1990) examined the generalized effects of an inter vention package that included modeling, re hearsal, feedback, and use of peer confederates. The treatment increased the frequency of tar geted social responses; produced generalization across situations; and decreased nontargeted, aberrant behaviors. The generalized effect of decreased aberrant behavior led Sasso et al. to conclude that social behavior interventions may have a generalized impact on behaviors seem ingly unrelated to the target behavior. In the context of social skills training, two alternative mechanisms may underlie response generalization: response covariation (Kazdin 1982a) and collateral behavior change (Voeltz & Evans, 1988). Response covariation occurs when two or more behaviors are directly or in versely related; when one behavior changes, the other behavior changes as well (Kazdin, 1982a). Several authors (Neef, Shafer, Egel, Cataldo, & Parrish, 1983; Parrish, Cataldo, Kol ko, Neef, & Egel, 1986) have documented the direct relationship between compliance and inappropriate behavior in children with devel opmental delays. Decreased levels of aggres sion and other forms of disruptive behavior of ten have been hypothesized to covary with improved social skills (Brockman, 1985; Gre sham, 1990; Sasso et al., 1990). Haring, Roger, Lee, Breen, and Gaylord Ross (1986) investigated the behavioral interre lationship of the acquisition of conversation initiations by children with moderate disabili ties and the unexpected increase in the nontar geted skill of emitting expansions within con versations with peers without disabilities. Once the target students reliably emitted the targeted communication skills (initiations), rapid and expansive displays of nontargeted communica tion skills (conversation expansions) also oc curred. Similar effects were reported by Koegel and Frea (1993) who modified the social be havior of children with autism. In addition to generalized effects for target children, an evaluation of the multiple effects of an intervention also might determine the collateral effects for students not included in the intervention. Collateral behavior change refers to increases in nontargeted positive ef fects associated with the acquisition of certain critical behaviors (Voeltz & Evans, 1988). Sas so and Rude (1987), for example, developed a peer-initiation package for students with severe disabilities. Of interest was the result that there were substantial increases in initiations to tar get students by untrained peers without disabil ities. The challenge in evaluating the multiple effects of social skills interventions has both pragmatic and methodologie considerations. First, most social skills training occurs in the classroom setting and not typically in situations such as recess, when lengthier peer interactions are more likely to occur (Brockman, 1985; Car tledge & Milburn, 1983; Gresham, 1988,1990; Kohler & Greenwood, 1986). Thus, the possi bility of any generalization effects being ob served may be limited. Second, many social skills training programs include multiple target behaviors, some of which do not promote peer interactions. For example, teacher-preferred social skills (i.e., adult-oriented responses) are commonly taught and may not change the lev el of peer interactions; in fact, they may decrease socialization with peers (Gresham, 1988). Even if the pragmatic concerns just noted are controlled, the evaluation of the possible multiple intervention effects remains problem atic due to the sheer number of behaviors and situations that warrant assessment. The purpose of the present investigation was to provide a descriptive evaluation of the multiple effects of a social skills intervention conducted within a special education classroom. A structured learn ing approach was employed to teach social ini tiation and sustained responding to three stu dents. The intervention included modeling, coaching, instruction, and feedback. In addi 36 Behavioral Disorders This content downloaded from 207.46.13.57 on Mon, 08 Aug 2016 05:02:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms tion to the components of the structured learn ing model, generalization training strategies (Stokes & Osnes, 1986) were used. The strate gies included teaching multiple examples of the target behavior, using common stimuli, and incorporating natural contingencies. Finally, the observation of concurrent changes in in appropriate behavior, such as aggression, en abled us to determine if prosocial responding and inappropriate behavior are responses that covary.

This investigation assessed the effects of social skill training using a structured learning model on the behavior of three children with behavioral disorders. Specifically, the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of target skills were measured across an entire school year using a multiple probe design across behaviors. In addition, negative responses were measured to determine if they would covary with the social skills. Results show an increase in frequency for most skill areas, an inverse relationship across negative behaviors, maintenance over time, and moderate levels of generalization to nontreatment settings. These results are discussed in relation to effective social skills training and the integration of children with behavioral disorders.

The present study focuses on two methods used to facilitate the social integration of autistic and autistic-like children in a school setting. Specifically, the interactive values of peer tutoring and structured interaction activities on the social initiations of nonhandicapped peers toward students with autism were measured. The nature of the initiations were coded either instructional or cooperative. Results revealed that nonhandicapped students assigned initially to a tutoring phase interacted at far lower rates than did students exposed to structured interactions. Conversely, the structured interaction activities produced the highest rates of cooperative initiations regardless of presentation sequence. The data are discussed in reference to implications for programs which will enhance the normalization process for children and youth with severe handicaps.