SETTING EVENTS AND BEHAVIORAL-DISORDERS OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH - AN INTERBEHAVIORAL FIELD ANALYSIS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

Students' behavioral disorders, particularly acting out behaviors (agg ression, opposition, tantrums, etc.), have constituted a major area of study for researchers and a continuing challenge for teachers, school counselors, and mental health workers. A number of theoretical models have been advanced, but learning models have been particularly succes sful in identifying the immediate environmental events that contribute to the development and maintenance of children's behavior problems an d in helping researchers develop effective, practical intervention pro grams. There also has been increasing recognition that a student's beh avior is determined not only by the immediate social antecedents and c onsequences of that behavior, bur also by the physical and psychologic al ''contexts'' in which those interactions occur. This article focuse s on the expansion of social learning to incorporate contextual variab les in an empirically acid conceptually consistent fashion. Kantor's i nterbehavioral field model and, particularly, his concept of ''setting events'' are outlined. Classroom applications and implications for st udents with behavioral disorders are discussed through: (a) a review o f procedures and instruments for assessing the effects of setting even ts on students' behavioral problems, (b) a discussion of methods for i ntervening in setting events, and (c) suggestions for future research issues in setting event assessment and intervention.