COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (Aug. 27, 2004) — Anyone who’s ever had to respond to a child’s challenging behavior will appreciate the new textbook by John Wheeler, associate dean of Tennessee Tech University’s College of Education, and Dean Richey, professor of curriculum and instruction.

Published by Prentice Hall, “Behavior Management: Principles and Practices of Positive Behavior Supports” is meant to help undergraduate and graduate students in education design a learning environment that promotes each child’s success and minimizes the occurrence of challenging behaviors and undesired responses.

It’s focused primarily for children with disabilities but is applicable for use with teachers of all children. In fact, Wheeler said, anyone involved in childcare might find the text useful.

“This book could potentially be helpful to parents and families and to anyone involved in childcare because it attempts to provide readers with an understanding and design of optimal learning environments and the use of teaching procedures that are specifically targeted to the developmental and behavioral needs of the individual learners,” he said.

Positive behavior supports is a relatively new concept in the field of instruction.

“Dr. Richey and I have collaborated on numerous other projects, and [we decided to write this textbook together because] this is basically a philosophy that we both believe in, coupled with a lack of texts on the market dealing with this emerging technology of instruction,” Wheeler said.

The book is available through the Prentice Hall web site at www.prenticehall.com.

--Tracey LeFevre
This information posted 30 August 2004