Tammy Wilson

She/her

Education: Bachelor of Science in elementary and special education (May 2000)

McNair Project: Contingency Management to Improve Pro-Social Behavior of a Preschool Child (1999)

Mentor: Robert Zabel, Ph.D.

At-risk children under the context of antisocial behavior are best served by timely intervention. The concept of timely intervention is best described by action taken during the primary and secondary stages. The reasons for this intervention include the stopping of unacceptable behavior and/or the introduction of a new preferred behavior. This helps to eliminate family and classroom stress as well as removing distractions that hinder the student's learning environment. This is best done by early identification by both parents and educators who are trained to identify inconsistencies in the child's interactions. These people along with social workers, counselors, and other professionals can then come together to develop strategies, and methods to facilitate child problem-solving, with the end result being a tailored intervention. One of the commonly used strategies is positive reward/positive re-enforcement. This method takes time and is most successfully implemented in a cooperative school-home team. Based on the in-depth literature review of previous research conducted on children at risk for antisocial behavior, a proposal for a single subject research was developed to corroborate the importance of early identification and the need for primary and secondary intervention.