There is growing interest in coaching as a means of promoting professional development and the use of evidence-based practices in schools. This paper describes the PBIS coaching model used to provide technical assistance for classroom- and school-wide behavior management to elementary schools over the course of three years. This tier-two coaching model was implemented within the context of school-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and tested in a 42-school randomized controlled trial. We summarize some of the lessons learned by coaches regarding their efforts to gain access to the administrators, teachers, and student support staff in order to effect change and improve student outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of ways to successfully collaborate with teachers to promote effective classroom- and school-wide behavior management.

The purpose of this case study is to describe the challenges one coach faced during the initial implementation of a coaching initiative involving 33 teachers in an urban, high-poverty elementary school. Reading coaches are increasingly expected to play a key role in the professional development efforts to improve reading instruction in order to improve reading achievement for struggling readers. Data sources included initial reading scores for kindergarten and first-graders, pretest and posttest scores of teachers' knowledge, a teacher survey, focus group interviews, project documents, and field notes. Data were analyzed using a mixed methods approach. Findings revealed several challenges that have important implications for research and practice: that teachers encountered new information about teaching early reading that conflicted with their current knowledge, this new information conflicted with their core reading program, teachers had differing perceptions of the role of the reading coach that affected their feelings about the project, and reform efforts are time-intensive.

The significant increase in the numbers of students with autism combined with the need for better trained teachers (National Research Council, 2001) call for research on the effectiveness of alternative methods, such as consultation, that have the potential to improve service delivery. Data from 2 randomized controlled single-blind trials indicate that an autism-specific consultation planning framework known as the collaborative model for promoting competence and success (COMPASS) is effective in increasing child Individual Education Programs (IEP) outcomes (Ruble, Dal-rymple, & McGrew, 2010; Ruble, McGrew, & Toland, 2011). In this study, we describe the verbal interactions, defined as speech acts and speech act exchanges that take place during COMPASS consultation, and examine the associations between speech exchanges and child outcomes. We applied the Psychosocial Processes Coding Scheme (Leaper, 1991) to code speech acts. Speech act exchanges were overwhelmingly affiliative, failed to show statistically significant relationships with child IEP outcomes and teacher adherence, but did correlate positively with IEP quality.

School-wide Response to Intervention (RTI) services are growing in prevalence in U.S. schools. Most advanced are RTI programs in elementary schools, with preschool and secondary education programs beginning to discuss, develop, and experiment with school-wide RTI. At its heart, RTI seeks to account for individual differences in student learning success by discovering the instructional situations in which each student learns best and providing them for all who need them. RTI is an early intervening approach to the prevention of learning and behavior problems before they become disabilities later. The implementation of school-wide RTI approaches reorganizes school ecology at multiple levels and when implemented with fidelity, RTI schools have a distinctive "ecological footprint" that differentiates them from traditional, non-RTI schools. Implementers of RTI need consultation that provides them with information on the structure and function of their programs for use in problem solving and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to describe RTI and illustrate an ecobehavioral approach to providing RTI school staff with information they need.

Restorative Practices in schools lack rigorous evaluation studies. As an example of rigorous school-based research, this paper describes the first randomized control trial of restorative practices to date, the Study of Restorative Practices. It is a 5-year, cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Restorative Practices Intervention (RPI) in 14 middle schools in Maine to assess whether RPI impacts both positive developmental outcomes and problem behaviors and whether the effects persist during the transition from middle to high school. The two-year RPI intervention began in the 2014-2015 school year. The study's rationale and theoretical concerns are discussed along with methodological concerns including teacher professional development. The theoretical rationale and description of the methods from this study may be useful to others conducting rigorous research and evaluation in this area.

In a five-year longitudinal study of typical literacy development (grades 1 to 5 or 3 to 7) relationships were examined between (a) parental responses to questionnaires about home literacy activities and ratings of children's self-regulation at home, both completed annually by the same parent, and (b) children's reading and writing achievement assessed annually at the university. Higher reading and writing achievement correlated with engaging in more home literacy activities. Parental help or monitoring of home literacy activities was greater for low achieving than high achieving readers or writers. Children engaged more minutes per week in reading than writing activities at home, but parents provided more help with writing and reported computers were used more for homework than school literacy instruction. Parental ratings of self-regulation of attention remained stable but executive functions-goal-setting, hyperactivity and impulsivity tended to improve. Results are translated into consultation tips for literacy learning and best professional practices.

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 . The goal of is to improve parent-teacher communication aboutevidence-based practices (EBPs), and subsequently, outcomes for children with ASD. Participants were 26 teachers and 49 parents of children with ASD from a large urban public school district. Parents and teachers completed measures of their communication and child outcomes prior to and after receiving consultation through . Results indicated that parents and teachers perceived improvements in child outcomes after participation in Changes in parent-teacher communication also were associated with changes in some child outcomes. Discussionhighlights the important role of communication inconsultations targeting family-school partnerships for children with ASD.

is a consultation model with the goal of enhancing communication between two of the most important stakeholders in children's lives - parents and teachers. Using a single-group pre-post design, this preliminary study examined the effect of on parent-teacher communication outcomes and the factors associated with these outcomes. Participants were 26 teachers and 49 parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Parents and teachers completed surveys before and after participating in . Teachers reported an increase in their communication to parents. However, parents did not report an increase in their communication to teachers. Teachers' self-efficacy, expectations, and intervention fidelity were associated with increased communication to parents. Parental self-efficacy and teacher experience were associated with parents' reports of communication to teachers. Our findings suggest that family-school consultation services may be used to enhance teachers' communication with parents.

The quality of interventions for children with autism has improved thanks in part to the widespread dissemination of evidence-based practices (EBPs); however, teachers still report challenges developing focused interventions targeting the core challenges of students with autism. Tested in three randomized trials, COMPASS is a consultation-based implementation strategy that prioritizes shared decision-making in the development of goals and intervention plans using an evidence-based practice in psychology approach. To successfully train COMPASS consultants, a 16-item Intervention Plan Quality Scale (IPQS) was developed and tested with a set of nine school-based COMPASS-trained consultants who provided a total of 28 consultations. Results revealed that the IPQS had acceptable reliability and concurrent validity and was successful in helping consultant trainees develop high-quality plans over four feedback sessions. Overall, the IPQS was helpful for fidelity monitoring and appears to partially mediate child goal attainment outcomes through teacher adherence implementing the intervention plans.

is a consultation model adapted from Conjoint Behavioral Consultation where parents and teachers identify a mutual concern for children with Autism and then implement the same evidence-based practices (EBPs) across home and school. Adding parent-teacher communication training () may bolster the effects of this consultation approach. The purpose of this study was to explore parents' and teachers' experiences with , as well as examine the clinical outcomes of plus Participants were 21 parents and 21 teachers (n=21 dyads, N=42 participants) of preschool to first-grade children with Autism. Results indicated that parents and teachers both rated as feasible and acceptable, but parents rated it as more usable. There was preliminary evidence that with may be associated with improvements in parent-teacher communication, as well as reductions in the frequency of child concerns.