Susan M. Sheridan

• University of Nebraska–Lincoln

This study examined the unique and interactive effects of teacher‐child relationships and classroom quality on PreK to Grade 1 children's reading and math achievement, social skills, and problem behaviors, as well as whether these relationships differed by children's race and ethnicity. Based on data from 192 children (18.23% Black, 8.33% Latine En...

Family engagement and family–school partnership interven- tions present significant opportunities to support students who experience identified disabilities or academic or social- emotional challenges. One intervention that brings families and educators together via a collaborative problem-solving process and joint decision-making consultation fram...

The use of data to inform instruction has been linked to improved student outcomes, early identification of intervention needs, and teacher decision-making and efficacy. Additionally, data are used as a means of accountability within educational settings. However, little is known about data use practices among early grades teachers. The purpose of...

This chapter provides an overview of the role of resilience within families. Although the definition and structure of families have evolved over time, families continue to provide the primary context for a child’s development. Thus, the family provides a critical support system that can enhance the resilience exhibited by its members. Important fam...

This chapter describes the importance of home-school partnerships in school mental health workforce preparation so that school mental health practitioners are equipped to provide effective supports for their clients. Key characteristics of home-school partnerships include: (a) mutual responsibility for supporting the child’s learning and success; (...

Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC), a teacher-parent partnership intervention, has been shown to yield immediate improvements in problem-solving skills and communication quality with parents for kindergarten through third grade teachers in rural schools. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether CBC can yield maintained effects...

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC) is an indirect intervention delivered by a consultant, wherein parents and teachers engage in collaborative problem-solving. This small-n study investigated the effects of remote videoconference delivery of CBC (Tele-CBC) in a rural region. The effectiveness of Tele-CBC was tested using a concurrent multiple b...

Healthy relationships between parents and teachers are essential to addressing children's emotional and behavioral concerns. The current meta-analysis examined the effects of family-school engagement interventions on parent-teacher relationships. Twenty-three group-design studies yielding 58 effects comprised the current sample. Random effect model...

Relationships are important to the developmental success of young children. Specifically, strong relationships between parents and their young children provide a foundation for lifelong healthy growth and development. Furthermore, partnerships between parents and other adults, including educators, who are actively involved in children’s lives also...

The transition into formal schooling represents an important milestone for young children and their parents. This chapter begins with research documenting the importance of family-school partnerships as children prepare for and make the transition into elementary school. As in other key areas of development, parents influence child school adjustmen...

This book presents research-based family-school intervention programs that target the specific developmental period of preschool through the early elementary years, focusing on promoting positive child transitions into school. It explores critical intervention issues, including the need to understand mechanisms of efficacy, issues with real-world i...

At the turn of the current century, Sheridan and Gutkin shared perspectives on the status and future of school psychology. Limitations of then-standard school psychological practices focusing on a medical model of service-delivery were raised, and approaches to realize a new paradigm, including advances in conceptual, empirical, and practical vanta...

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC) is an evidence-based, indirect service delivery model that addresses children’s behavioral concerns across home and school. However, to date, researchers have not yet examined specific aspects of the intervention that maximize the effects of CBC. The current study examined whether a foundational aspect of cons...

Social-behavioral functioning during early childhood is associated with children’s academic and social success concurrently and over time. This study explored how concurrent, year-to-year, and sustained parent–teacher and student–teacher relationships predicted children’s social skills and problem behaviors across the preschool to Grade 1 transitio...

Students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience enduring difficulties in academic, behavior, and social domains. Few studies have addressed long-term behavioral treatment across the school and home settings for students with ADHD. This study utilized conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) to facilitate the grade-level trans...

Managing behavior is both time-consuming and costly to teachers and school districts. This study was conducted to understand the financial costs of managing classroom behavior. Data were collected during baseline from 186 elementary students and their teachers participating in a large randomized control trial of a problem-solving consultative inter...

This handbook begins with a foundational overview of rural education, examining the ways in which definitions, histories, policies and demographic changes influence rural schools. This foundational approach includes how corporatization, population changes, poverty, and the role of data affect everyday learning in rural schools. The contributors con...

Objective Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of the Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play) intervention in young infants with neuromotor disorders. Method This randomized controlled trial compared usual care early intervention (UC-EI) with START-Play plus UC-EI. Analyses included 112 infants with motor delay (55 UC-EI, 57 START...

Early childhood, including the infant and toddler years, is a critical developmental period providing the foundation for lifelong relationships, skills, behaviors, and health outcomes. The importance of the adult-child relationships during this period is well established. There are a number of research-based interventions promoting responsive and s...

This article provides reflections on several key elements important for establishing and sustaining successful research trajectories and scholarship within the field. Developed by several Lightner Witmer Award recipients, the article highlights several of Lightner Witmer’s experiences and pioneering contributions, including the importance of his ow...

The University of Nebraska Five-Year Strategy: Trust, Predictability, and Positive Outcomes for Nebraskans In February 2020, the newly named president of the University of Nebraska system, Ted Carter, gathered a diverse 28-member team of students, faculty, staff, and administrators to help chart the path forward for Nebraska’s public university. Th...

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) mandate that families participate in shared decision-making with schools. For youth who receive special education services, such as those who have ASD, having parents and teachers aligned in their practices is even more crucial. Unfortunatel...

This article introduces the special issue, Recent Methodological Advancements in Indirect Service Delivery. The authors first highlight salient aspects of each of the five articles included in the special issue to emphasize their unique contributions to the consultation literature. Next, we organize the articles into two main themes to discuss find...

Family-school partnership (FSP) interventions capitalize on connections between families and schools, as parents and teachers jointly promote child development through activities that bridge both settings. The current meta-analysis assessed the effects of FSP interventions on children’s academic and social-emotional competencies. From initial compr...

Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) is a model of consultation wherein parents and teachers partner to address children’s social-behavioral concerns. The teacher-parent relationship has proven critical to the success of CBC, yet little is known about the dynamics in CBC that may promote these relationships. This study explored interactions among...

The transition to kindergarten is foundational for children’s future school performance and families’ relationships with the educational system. Despite its well-documented benefits, few studies have explored family engagement across the pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) to kindergarten transition nor considered the role of geographic context during this pe...

Given that consultation has consistently yielded benefits for clients and consultees, it is likely an effective method of promoting family-school engagement. Thus, this meta-analysis examined the effects of consultation-based family-school engagement on child and parent outcomes, and complementary intervention methods used in conjunction with consu...

Both behavioral and pharmacological interventions have short-term efficacy for reducing symptomology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, intervention effects typically dissipate once interventions are removed. Scholars have advocated for a life-course model of intervention to sustain outcomes for students with ADHD. This mo...

A critical factor to move the field of physical therapy forward is the measurement of fidelity during comparisons of interventions. Fidelity translates as "faithfulness"; thus, fidelity of intervention means faithful and correct implementation of the key components of a defined intervention. Fidelity measurement guards against deviations from, or d...

Objective: To examine contextual factors that may influence child care providers' motivators for attending nutrition-related training and their preferences and barriers to attending professional development training. Design: Cross-sectional survey completed between January and April 2017. Setting: Licensed child care programs (n = 1,490) acros...

According to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000), children’s early development and learning are influenced by multiple systems, including the microsystem (e.g., family poverty level), mesosystem (e.g., home-school partnership), exosystem (e.g., community type, early education policies), and macrosystem (e.g., rural...

The current study reports the evidence for the reliability (via coefficient α, coefficient ω) and validity (via confirmatory factor analysis, correlations) of the Teacher Efficacy for Promoting Partnership measure. Participants were 255 in-service Head Start educators from all Head Start regions across the United States. Educators were sent a surve...

Challenging behavior problems are common in early childhood and, if left untreated, may escalate into more severe and intractable problems in adolescence and early adulthood. This trajectory is of particular importance in rural schools, where disruptive behaviors are more prominent than in urban and suburban schools. Conjoint behavioral consultatio...

The current study reports the results of a study examining the relationship between classroom climate and the development of the student-teacher relationship for young children at-risk. Participants were 267 children and 93 early educators. All children were from low income backgrounds and were experiencing developmental concerns in the area of lan...

When families are engaged in their education, children's academic , behavioral, and social-emotional development is indirectly supported. Many teacher-training programs (TTPs) focused on preparing teachers to communicate and work with families have been developed, although inconsistencies regarding their effectiveness exist. The current meta-analys...

School consultation is a service delivery model that increases the potential of school-based interventionists to provide services to children. This is due to consultation’s indirect nature and emphasis on training consultees. In a consultative model, a consultant (e.g., school psychologist) works with a consultee (e.g., teacher) who will deliver an...

School consultation is a service delivery model that increases the potential of school-based interventionists to provide services to children. This is due to consultation’s indirect nature and emphasis on training consultees. In a consultative model, a consultant (e.g. school psychologist) works with a consultee (e.g. teacher) who will deliver an i...

This meta-analysis examined the effects of family-school interventions on children’s social-behavioral competence and mental health. One hundred and seventeen group design studies yielding 592 effect sizes constituted the current sample. Random effects models were estimated when calculating each pooled effect size estimate, and mixed effects models...

This book explores family-school partnerships and how they can be most effectively leveraged to ensure academic success for students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds. It presents an innovative framework for building collaborative learning partnerships with culturally diverse families, for improved student achievement and more meaningful tie...

Learning in the early childhood period occurs in the context of relationships within and between numerous systems. This chapter discusses the importance of family‐school partnerships for optimizing positive early development. It describes the goals and components of effective partnerships within the framework provided by the ecological‐systems theo...

Introduction: Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2007) is a behavioral consultation procedure that engages parents and teachers in a strengths-based problem-solving process to improve students’ functioning across settings and family-school partnerships. Previous research has demonstrated that CBC is effective for a wide...

The efficacy of conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC), a family-school partnership intervention, for teachers’ practices and process skills was evaluated. Participants were 152 teachers of grades K–3 in 45 Midwest rural schools randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Treatment group teachers participated in an 8to 10-week CBC interve...

Background: There is limited research examining the efficacy of early physical therapy on infants with neuromotor dysfunction. In addition, most early motor interventions have not been directly linked to learning, despite the clear association between motor activity and cognition during infancy. Objective: The aim of this project is to evaluate...

Little research examines the best ways to improve communication between parents and teachers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its effect on child outcomes. The present study tests an innovative parent-teacher consultation model, entitled Partners in School. The goal of Partners in School is to improve parent-teacher communication...

The efficacy of conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC), a family-school partnership intervention, for teachers’ prac- tices and process skills was evaluated. Participants were 152 teachers of grades K–3 in 45 Midwest rural schools randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Treat- ment group teachers participated in an 8- to 10-week CBC i...

In the present article, we describe the translational process undergirding a particular aspect of family science: families working in partnership with schools to achieve mutual goals for children's optimal functioning. In doing so, we illustrate a translational cycle that began with identifying problems of practice and led to the development of a f...

Investigations of urban-rural context on children’s educational experiences have produced somewhat inconsistent findings, but one thing is clear, parent engagement in children’s early learning positively impacts academic outcomes. Research identifying conditions that uniquely influence parents’ early engagement in learning and literacy in rural set...

This chapter focuses on perspectives and recommendations of rural education researchers, practitioners, and policy makers about the critical role of research in rural education, the current condition of rural education research, and future directions. These perspectives were obtained from focused discussions of participants attending Connect-Inform...

Research in rural education is alive and well; the chapters in this book demonstrate that researchers are doing rural education work that is both rigorous and responsive to (and inclusive of) the communities in which it takes place. They are addressing a broad range of meaningful research questions and using multiple methods to approach the challen...

Research has established that families significantly influence students’ development, with parental engagement positively predicting academic and social-behavioral adjustment. When families and schools partner in students’ education, positive benefits for the students as well as their families and teachers are realized. Although rural schools are u...

Conjoint behavioral consultation (Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) is an empirically supported model of service delivery for children with behavioral and mental health concerns. This chapter explores the use of CBC in rural schools to promote children’s adaptive skills and alleviate behavioral and academic challenges. The CBC model, challenges associa...

Associated with complex developmental, personal, and environmental risk factors, adolescent parents have been found to display higher rates of unfavorable parenting practices than adult parents, placing their children at high risk for social, emotional and behavioral concerns. Nevertheless, interventions targeting this group often focus solely on a...

Latinx students are the largest ethnic minority school-age population, yet they have some of the lowest reading proficiency levels and highest rates of school dropout and experience significant unmet behavioral health needs. School-based interventions addressing behavioral challenges and parent engagement are recommended to support Latinx students....

The results of a large-scale randomized controlled trial of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC) on student outcomes and teacher–parent relationships in rural schools are presented. CBC is an indirect service delivery model that addresses concerns shared by teachers and parents about students. In the present study, the intervention was aimed at p...

This study reports the results of a randomized controlled trial examining the effect of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC), a family-school partnership intervention, on children's behaviors, parents' skills, and parent-teacher relationships in rural community and town settings. Participants were 267 children, 267 parents, and 152 teachers in 45...

The importance of family engagement in the early childhood years is well established. High quality relationships and partnerships between parents and early childhood educators are related to positive outcomes for young children. Five family-school partnership interventions implemented within early childhood educational environments are reviewed in...

Effective parent-teacher communication involves problem-solving concerns about students. Few studies have examined problem-solving interactions between parents and teachers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with a particular focus on identifying communication barriers and strategies for improving them. This study examined the problem...

Research has continuously demonstrated the positive effects of family–school collaboration on children’s academic, behavioral, and social development. Current trends in family–school partnership and parental involvement research suggest that interventions are most successful when (a) families and schools partner together, (b) healthy relationships...

This volume represents current and futuristic thinking of seminal rural education researchers, with the goal of providing perspectives and directions to inform the work of rural education research, practice, and policy. With an emphasis on leveraging collaboration among key rural education stakeholders, this title both outlines our current research...

The present study examined parent-teacher congruent communication within conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC). Specifically, the study purpose was to determine the extent to which congruence in parent-teacher communication (i.e., the degree to which parents and teachers view their communication in a similar fashion) moderated CBC's effects on chi...

Connections between families and schools are viewed as a key element of children’s positive adjustment, and are linked to children’s academic, social, emotional, and behavioral functioning. However, there is great variability in how these connections are defined and conceptualized. This chapter provides a brief description of some of the core featu...

The purpose of this study was to clarify equivocal findings in the parent-involvement literature and examine novel interactions in a New Zealand context. Specifically, this study tested direct effects of school year, parent education, family structure, and child gender on parent involvement in elementary school. In addition, interactions between pa...

This volume focuses on how family-school partnerships are conceptualized, defined, and operationalized as well as the research that is needed to advance these foundational issues. Each chapter integrates prevailing approaches into a research-based framework for supporting learning from pre-K through high school. The book incorporates structural and...

This volume focuses on context considerations in family-school partnership research. The book examines how cultural diversity, including differences in parenting (e.g., race, education, family history) and diverse school variables (e.g., location, population, organization,) can affect family-school partnerships. Its bio ecological perspective pinpo...

The purpose of this study is to synthesize and report on the effects of family engagement interventions involving teacher training on student’s academic (e.g., academic competence, school liking, achievement) and social/behavioral outcomes (e.g., peer relationships, social competence, behavioral regulation).. Research Questions: 1. What are the ef...

This study explores strategies used by early childhood professionals (ECPs) involved in a school readiness intervention to support parent engagement in young children’s learning. Thirty-two ECPs were recorded during home visits with young children and their families who were enrolled in Early Head Start and Head Start programming. Frequency of stra...

This study explores strategies used by early childhood professionals (ECPs) involved in a school readiness intervention to support parent engagement in young children’s learning. In this study, we used video recordings to understand the ECP-parent interactions during Early Head Start and Head Start home visits. We coded the videos for the number of...

An ecological perspective to school readiness focuses on child and family readiness by enhancing the developmental contexts and relationships within which children reside (e.g., home environment, parent–child relationship, home–school relationships). The Getting Ready intervention is an ecological, relationally based, tiered intervention providing...

Methods for measuring homework performance have been limited primarily to parent reports of homework deficits. The Homework Performance Questionnaire (HPQ) was developed to assess the homework functioning of students in Grades 1 to 8 from the perspective of both teachers and parents. The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial validity o...

Background Positive attitudes toward school have been suggested as a meaningful indicator of school engagement among elementary children. The current study was guided by a social cognitive developmental perspective which suggests that social cognitions, including beliefs, play an important role in children’s adjustment outcomes. Objective The prese...

Parental engagement is an important avenue for supporting student achievement. Positive relationships between parents and teachers are increasingly recognized as vital in this process. Most studies consider parents’ and teachers’ perceptions separately, and it is unknown whether shared perceptions of relationship quality matter with respect to chil...

This study was an examination of the possible influence of a child’s pre-identified disability on parent and teacher behavior ratings and whether a child’s disability status affected parent ratings, when controlling for parenting stress. The sample included 206 kindergarten through third grade students and their teachers and parents from a Midweste...

Now in its second edition, the Handbook of Research in School Consultation provides the field of school-based consultation with a comprehensive volume examining research perspectives and methodologies, models of practice, and future research directions. Revised and updated, this collection brings together leading experts in the field, offering both...

Writing an epilogue (i.e., an ending) to a text as forward-thinking as this one is a bit of an oxymoron. Indeed, it has been the intent of the coeditors to encourage authors not only to provide "state of the science" relative to consultation research in key areas, but also to look ahead and carve out important research agendas still facing the fiel...

Research Findings: Children's early academic achievement is supported by positive social and behavioral skills, and difficulties with these skills frequently gives way to underachievement. Social and behavioral problems often arise as a product of parent-child interactional patterns and environmental influences. Few studies have examined the role o...

This study reports the results of a randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (the Getting Ready Project) on directly observed learning-related social behaviors of children from families of low-income in the context of parent-child interactions. The study explored the moderating effect of parental depression on intervention outcomes. Par...

Table of Contents Projects Taking Bite out of Early Obesity ..................................................................... 4 Texting Sends Message about Drug Use on Streets ................................................. 6 Studies Examining Fluid Dynamics of Early Personality ........................................... 7 MAP Academy Charts...

The purpose of this poster is to introduce Conjoint Behavioral Consultation via Distance delivery (CBC-D) as a potential intervention service for rural educators. This poster provides a detailed description of the CBC-D process and practical considerations when using tele-education technology to deliver consultation services to rural schools. Impli...

Background • Children with social-behavioral concerns are at high risk of developing long-term, pervasive problems. • Interventions which aim to decrease negative behaviors and increase social and adaptive skills across both home and school settings have the potential to be particularly effective. • However, families of students with social-behavio...

Children’s developmental and educational outcomes are determined through a complex interplay of biological and eco-systemic variables. In order to best understand children’s educational success, aspects of home and school contexts have been examined, for they are the two most directly influential settings in a child’s life. Among ecological variabl...

The statistical precision by which intervention outcomes are evaluated has increased in recent years in an effort to improve their viability in addressing emotional, social, behavioral, and academic issues. Despite these advances, treatment integrity, a vital aspect in evaluating the merit of a given intervention, remains largely overlooked. Defini...

Of all that is known about children’s learning and behavior, one fact is very clear – opportunities to promote optimal educational experiences are evident across many settings. The most influential environments that predict and support learning are the home and school. Learning and development do not occur in a vacuum – events a child experiences i...

Family-school engagement in early childhood encourages positive child outcomes and helps parents feel valued in promoting their children’s learning and development. The purpose of this poster is to (1) explore the state-of-the science of early childhood family engagement intervention research, and (2) examine the prevalence of specific early childh...

The present study is a large-scale randomized trial testing the effects of a family-school partnership model (i.e., Conjoint Behavioral Consultation, CBC) for promoting behavioral competence and decreasing problem behaviors of children identified by their teachers as disruptive. CBC is a structured approach to problem-solving that involves consulta...

Children spend the majority of their early lives within the context of the family. As the composition of the family system continues to change, the caregivers’ role has become increasingly important in fostering healthy developmental trajectories for their children. Family relationships and interaction styles are central to developing competence an...

This research investigated whether parent-teacher relationship quality mediated the relation between parents' motivational beliefs and children's adaptive functioning and externalizing behaviors. The sample consisted of kindergarten through third-grade children with behavioral concerns (N=206). Parents reported on their motivational beliefs (i.e.,...

The purpose of the study is to (1) explore the prevalence of family engagement interventions in rural settings and (2) examine the specific intervention strategies that have been used to engage families in rural settings.