Stephen W. Smith’s research while affiliated with University of Florida and other places

Early adolescents entering middle school are at a pivotal developmental phase as they become less dependent on parents/guardians and seek greater autonomy while encountering a complexity of social demands requiring them to regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to achieve academic and social success. Yet, students who receive services for emotional and behavioral disorders often struggle with their emotions and externalizing behavior, contributing to a lack of motivation to attain their goals. Fortunately, researchers have found goal setting plays an important role in improving students’ self-regulation skills. As such, we describe explicit instructional techniques that align with a phased goal setting process to bolster students’ intrinsic motivation and self-regulation. First, we underscore the significance of goal setting to amplify students’ motivation and fostering self-regulation that, consequently, can create positive changes in their behavior. We provide a step-by-step guide for educators to assist students in committing to and achieving their goals.

Students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs) often have difficulty with social adjustment and academic achievement, engaging in problem behaviors such as defiance, rule-breaking, and truancy, yet one particularly challenging behavior is aggression. Researchers assert that verbal aggression (VA) is the most frequent form of aggression in schools; however, little is known about student perceptions of VA among students with EBD. We surveyed 144 secondary students with EBD finding infrequent reporting to teachers about VA victimization. According to students, the most effective teacher responses to a report of VA victimization were moving the victim away from the perpetrator, providing advice, and punishing the aggressor. Students reported that the content of teacher instruction about VA most often included reporting victimization to a teacher, avoiding the aggressor, and ignoring the verbally aggressive behavior. We discuss implications for teacher education and practice including what strategies deter VA and effective teacher responses to victimization. We conclude with recommendations for future research such as examining risk and protective factors for VA involvement, assessing whether students’ attitudes and beliefs contribute to VA, and conducting longitudinal studies.

Education researchers, policy makers, and practitioners have emphasized the role social-emotional learning and self-regulation play in children’s adjustment and connection to school, particularly as they transition from pre-school to kindergarten and the primary grades. A pretest–posttest cluster-randomized efficacy trial of the Social-Emotional Learning Foundations (SELF) curriculum for kindergarten–first-grade students found positive main effects on assessments of self-regulation, social-emotional learning, social-emotional vocabulary, and general behavioral functioning. This study is a secondary analysis using structural equation modeling to explore whether SELF effects on school adjustment were mediated by its effects on language and/or self-regulation related outcomes. Findings replicated direct effects of treatment but did not support hypothesized mediators. In contrast, direct effects of treatment on measures of competent school functioning and internalizing behavior were mediated by outcome effects on a standardized measure of social-emotional learning competence. Study findings underscore the fundamental importance of social-emotional learning to school success and suggest related measurement issues in social-emotional learning and topics for further research.

Executive function (EF), a set of neurocognitive processes, is central to students’ emotional and behavioral well-being. Despite students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) being at risk for negative long-term outcomes, there is a paucity of EF research with students at risk for EBD in early elementary school, an important identification and intervention period. Thus, we conducted a cross-sectional latent profile analysis with a sample of 1,154 kindergarteners and first graders identified as at risk for EBD to determine whether unique EF profiles existed and the extent to which profile membership was related to distinct patterns of functioning. Results indicated a theoretically supported, three-profile solution of mildly, moderately, and clinically at-risk EF profiles. Differences between EF profiles were noted such that students with moderately and clinically at-risk EF profiles demonstrated more problematic behaviors, less social competence, and greater language difficulties. We discuss implications for early identification, intervention efforts, and future research.

Executive function (EF), a set of neurocognitive processes, is central to students’ emotional and behavioral well-being. Despite students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) being at risk for negative long-term outcomes, there is a paucity of EF research with students at risk for EBD in early elementary school, an important identification and intervention period. Thus, we conducted a cross-sectional latent profile analysis with a sample of 1,154 kindergarteners and first graders identified as at risk for EBD to determine whether unique EF profiles existed and the extent to which profile membership was related to distinct patterns of functioning. Results indicated a theoretically supported, three-profile solution of mildly, moderately, and clinically at-risk EF profiles. Differences between EF profiles were noted such that students with moderately and clinically at-risk EF profiles demonstrated more problematic behaviors, less social competence, and greater language difficulties. We discuss implications for early identification, intervention efforts, and future research.

Researchers have found that verbal aggression (VA) is the most frequent form of aggression reported in schools across all grade levels. There are numerous harmful outcomes for VA perpetrators, victims, and witnesses including depression, anxiety, decreased academic performance, and low sense of school belonging. Moreover, VA is known to occasion physically aggressive responses making VA especially problematic for students who exhibit chronic maladaptive behavior profiles. In this study, therefore, we surveyed 144 middle and high school students identified with an emotional and behavioral disorder to understand their involvement with VA, response to victimization, and what VA messages lead to physical aggression. We also investigated the locations of VA incidents, student perceptions about teacher-delivered consequences for VA, and witness behavior. We discuss the implications for practice including explicit skill instruction for students and incorporating content about VA into preservice teacher coursework covering prevention and intervention strategies. Finally, we provide suggestions for future research such as conducting observations across a variety of school settings, in different regions of the country, and collecting qualitative data to enrich quantitative findings

Early identification of executive dysfunction and timely school-based intervention efforts are critical for students at risk for problematic behaviors during early elementary school. The original Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF) was designed to measure real-world behavioral manifestations of executive functioning, neurocognitive processes critical for school success. With the updated BRIEF-2, independent validation is needed with kindergarten and first grade students at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Thus, using item level analyses, we examined the factor structure of the BRIEF-2 Teacher Rating form with 1,112 students. Results indicated little evidence for the original three-index model and supported a modified two-index model, with a Cognitive Regulation Index and an overall Behavior–Emotion Regulation Index. Criterion related validity indicated positive relationships with performance-based executive functioning (Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders) and later internalizing and externalizing behaviors. We discuss implications of findings for early identification and school-based intervention efforts, as well as future research.

Verbal aggression (VA) is the most prevalent form of aggression perpetrated, experienced, and witnessed by students with victims experiencing a variety of adverse outcomes. Furthermore, VA is known to contribute to physical aggression, especially for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Despite the high prevalence, researchers suggest that school personnel may not understand the harmful nature of VA. We summarize research about VA, suggest schoolwide initiatives, and propose effective interventions for perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.

Researchers have shown that children's social-emotional growth is inextricably connected to academic learning. We developed the Social-Emotional Learning Foundations (SELF) intervention, a Grade K-1 curriculum merging social-emotional learning (SEL) and literacy instruction, to promote language supported self-regulation, specifically for primary grade children at early risk for emotional or behavioral difficulties. We report findings from a pretest-posttest cluster randomized efficacy trial with one fixed between-subjects factor to test the effects of teacher-delivered SEL instruction against those of business as usual (BAU). We recruited 163 kindergarten (K) and 141 first grade teachers from 52 schools across 11 school districts within one southeastern state. Our student sample (n = 1154) consisted of 627 kindergarteners and 527 first graders identified by teachers as at risk for internalizing or externalizing emotional and behavioral problems using the Systematic Screening for Behavioral Disorders; 613 of these students participated in the SELF condition and 541 participated in the BAU condition. We randomly assigned schools to SELF or BAU and used a multilevel model with three levels (i.e., children, classrooms, schools) to analyze data on subscales of six (four teacher-report and two direct) assessments related to self-regulation, social-emotional learning, social-emotional vocabulary, and general behavioral functioning. We found positive main effects of SELF compared to BAU on all but one measure, with effect sizes (calculated using Hedges' g) ranging from 0.20 to 0.65. Findings provide evidence for guiding future SEL intervention research and informing practice to improve student outcomes, particularly for children at risk for behavior problems.