Self-Monitoring for Elementary School Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances: Classroom Applications for Increased Academic Responding

An unobtrusive self-monitoring procedure was used to teach four elementary school students with serious emotional disturbances (SED) to monitor their behavior while working independently on newly taught materials. A withdrawal design was used to assess two dependent variables: percentage of on-task behavior during math seatwork and percentage of math problems completed by each student. A modest positive relationship between self-monitoring and the targeted behaviors was found. Classroom implications are discussed.