Revisiting Cost-Benefit Relationships of Behavior Management Strategies: What Special Educators Say About Usefulness, Intensity, and Effectiveness

Abstract

In this study, the authors determine special educators' judgments of the use, intensity, and effectiveness of communication and behavior management strategies. In an earlier study, F. H. Wood (1991) examined general educators' cost-benefit considerations in managing behavior of students with emotional or behavioral disorders. As an extension of the earlier study, the authors asked 211 special education teachers about the use, effectiveness, and labor intensity of 24 communication and 33 behavior management strategies, as well as their judgments of the likely use of these approaches by general education teachers. The results indicate that the approaches most likely to be used by special and general education teachers are also strategies the participants consider highly effective. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for preservice and in-service training in behavior management.