The Richard E. Shores TECBD Strand on Research in Emotional-Behavioral Disorders 2010

Some 20 years ago, a friend and colleague, Dr. Richard E. Shores, began a presentation strand at the Annual Teacher -Educators of Children with Behavioral Disorders Conference that was dedicated to show-casing and promoting research on issues related to children and youth with emotional-behavioral disorders. Dick was an early and highly influential contributor to the field of Special Education, playing many important roles but none more so than that of researcher. Even in the role of teacher-trainer, Dick was a very strong proponent of empirically based practices. He was, one might say, data-driven and he expected the same of others. Indeed, not only was Dick a major contributor to understanding the behavior and learning issues of EBD students through his own research, his influence has been equally and lastingly felt through mentoring of his students and colleagues, and their research. The Shores Research Strand at TECBD is one of those enduring contributions.

It is not easy to do research in EBD. There have been and continue to be issues around the definition and characteristics, identification, varying prevalence estimates, settings in which EBD students are best served, as well as how the behavior and learning of EBD students can or should be measured and analyzed. These issue can and do pose considerable challenges to the researcher. Yet, given that EBD students are often the least well understood and some of the most problematic students with whom teachers, therapists and parents interact, the need for scientific analyses and empirically informed practices is paramount. Thus, the purpose of the Shores Research Strand was and remains two-fold: to honor and, reinforce those who pursue applied research with EBD children and youth, and by doing so, hopefully encourage others to pursue such research. Following Dick's retirement, several of us who were influenced by him felt it was important to continue his efforts and for the last few years we have coordinated the strand. Following Dick's lead we have sought to have both prominent and developing researchers share their research along a variety of specific topics. Too, we have sought presenters that might either provide very systematic, clearly delineated analyses as well as those that might bring to light new and intriguing findings. A signal aspect of this strand is that the presentations occur successively throughout a day . The sessions are capped by a discussion session in which a panel of established researchers in EBD react to the papers and the issues they raise and the attendees at the day's sessions are highly encouraged to engage in the discussion. Though it occurs late in the day this discussion is always well attended and the participation by presenters, discussants and audience is vigorous and enlightening.

The papers in this year's special Shores Strand section of Education and Treatment of Children are good examples of the diversity of topics, analyses, and perspectives on EBD as well as research approaches and stages of research. For example, the paper by Alter, Brown and Pyle reports on a much-needed area of educational research with EBD students, a strategy-based intervention to increase the math word problem solving. Academically-related behavioral problems are common among students with EBD. As Alter and colleagues note, there is a relative paucity of math teaching research for this population and their study provides an excellent example of the use of single-subject methodology to begin to address this need and the basis for systematic replication.

Though addressing a different topic, Hawken's paper describes a point in EBD research in which an empirically validated and well-established intervention, the Behavior Education Program (or Check-in Check-out) is systematically analyzed in terms of how its effects may be altered by the function of students' challenging behaviors. Although the study's outcomes were somewhat mixed regarding how assessed behavior function operated, the study did replicate BEP's overall reductive on student office referrals and BEP received positive social validity ratings. Both the Alter et al. and Hawken papers are also notable for their documentation of treatment...