Including Students With Disabilities in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: Experiences and Perspectives of Special Educators

As interest in proactive and systematic approaches to supporting positive student behavior grows, important questions remain about the ways in which special education staff and their students participate in school-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). We report findings from a statewide study of 849 special educators addressing (a) their involvement in their school’s PBIS framework, (b) the ways their students with disabilities participate, (c) potential barriers to such participation, and (d) the topics and avenues through which they desire professional development. Special educators rarely participated in school-wide PBIS teams, reported variability in the extent to which their students with disabilities participated in aspects of the school’s framework, indicated that they implemented some features of the framework in their classroom more than others, and highlighted salient barriers to student involvement. The views and actions of special educators working primarily with students with low-incidence disabilities differed from those of teachers working with students with high-incidence disabilities. We discuss implications for research and practice aimed at enhancing the implementation and impact of school-wide PBIS on students with disabilities.

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