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This article reports on a pilot study of the Integrated Literacy Study Group, a digitally delivered professional learning intervention to prepare elementary school teachers to provide evidence‐based reading instruction and behavioral strategies to students with or are at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Using broadcast methods, we recruited 72 teachers across five states in the western United States to participate in the randomized controlled trial. Intervention teachers, relative to controls, made significant gains in self‐efficacy and use of the reading and behavioral strategies learned in the professional learning program. Students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders served by participating teachers made significant improvements in academic competence and engagement. Teacher professional learning can improve teacher knowledge of evidence‐based reading and behavioral strategies for students with (or at risk for) emotional and behavioral disorders, teacher self‐efficacy, and teacher practice, with positive impacts on student early literacy and academic competence. Practitioner Points: 1.Elementary teachers are challenged by students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders.2.An online intervention helped teachers manage student behavior and improve reading instruction.3.Teachers improved self‐efficacy and students gained academic competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this cross-sectional study, conducted with a random sample of 166 students with emotional disturbance (ED), was to establish, with attention to age and gender differences, the extent to which students with ED served in public school settings experience language skill deficits. This study also examined particular types of problem behaviors related to language skills. Students with ED showed moderate to large language deficits, which appeared to be more pronounced in the expressive language domain. The language deficits of a majority of the students were clinically significant. These language deficits appeared to be relatively stable across age and gender. Furthermore, externalizing behaviors were related to receptive and expressive language skills, whereas internalizing ones were not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Office discipline referrals are one approach that educators could use (a) as a guide in the development and/or selection of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs; (b) as an outcome measure with which to assess the effectiveness of those programs; and (c) as an early screening procedure to identify children who might benefit from the secondary and tertiary programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which children who met the borderline and clinical cut-off scores on the Teacher Report Form (TRF; Achenbach, 1991b) received one or more office discipline referrals (the most liberal criteria possible) to determine the levels of false negatives (failure to detect a problem when one exists) that would occur if one used office discipline referrals as an early screening device. The relatively high levels of false negatives suggest that the use of office discipline referrals as an early screening device may fail to identify relatively large numbers of young children in need of interventions and supports. This issue appears to be even more pronounced in the case of students who are experiencing internalizing-related problems. Results, limitations, and future research needs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]