Frank Gresham, Professor
Dr. Gresham is not currently accepting new students.
Research Interests
My research interests revolve around three topics. First, I am interested in social
skills assessment and intervention for children and adolescents with or at-risk for
emotional and behavioral disorders. I am the co-author of the Social Skills Improvement
System-Rating Scales, which is a nationally standardized norm-referenced multi-informant
(teacher-parent-student) measure of social skills for children and adolescents ages
3-18 years. I am also the co-author of the Classwide Intervention Program, which is
a universal social skills intervention program for children in Kindergarten through
5th grade and the Social Skills Improvement System-Intervention Guide, which is a
targeted social skills intervention for children and youth.
Second, I am also interested in using a Response-to-Intervention (RTI) approach for
addressing academic and behavioral needs of children and youth in schools based on
data-based decision making, problem solving, and continuous progress monitoring to
continue, intensify, or terminate interventions in schools for academic and/or behavioral
difficulties. Relatedly, I am interested in the measurement of treatment integrity
of evidence-based interventions in schools. Treatment integrity is an essential aspect
of RTI approaches and deals with the degree to which interventions are implemented
as planned or intended.
Third, I am interested in the assessment of prosocial and problem behaviors of children
and adolescents using multi-informant behavioral rating scales. These assessments
are complicated by the absence of an incontrovertible “gold standard” for combining
and interpreting assessment data from multiple informant sources. Multiple informants
using behavioral rating scales frequently provide discrepant data on the same individual
and no consensus exists on how discrepant data collected from these informants should
be interpreted. I have a line of research that investigates how to make these assessments
less discrepant and more consistent across multiple informants.
I am a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), Fellow of the Division
of School Psychology, Fellow of the Division of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology,
and a Fellow of the Division of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. I am also a
member of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). I am a past recipient
of the Lightner Witmer Award and the Senior Scientist Award given by the Division
of School Psychology of APA for outstanding research contributions to the field. I
am also one of the few psychologists that has been elected Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
Teaching
- Psychology 7125 Psychological Assessment I
- Psychology 7020 Measurement of Behavior
- Psychology 7668, 7669 Practicum in School Psychology
Grant Activities
I have received over $13 million dollars in federally funded research grants from the U.S. Department of Education, the Institute of Educational Sciences, and the Office of Special Education Programs. These grants have dealt with a variety of research topics listed below:
- Overrepresentation of Minorities in Special Education
- Alternative Assessment Models for Identification of High Incidence Disabilities
- Longitudinal Affective and Social Outcomes of Special Education Placement Options
- Impact of Retention in Grade on Children with High Incidence Disabilities
- Interventions for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
- Meaning of Learning Disabilities Across Schools Differing in Poverty Level
- Early Reading Interventions for Students with Intellectual Disabilities
- Development of Multi-Tiered Social Skills Interventions
- Development of Progress Monitoring Tools for Social Behavior
- Efficacy of a Selected Social Skills Intervention: Social Skills Improvement System
Professional Experience
After receiving my Ph.D. degree from the University of South Carolina in 1979, I became an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State University. I subsequently initiated the School Psychology Program at LSU in 1981 and remained here until 1989. After leaving LSU, I became the Director of the Combined Program in Clinical and School Psychology at Hofstra University. After leaving Hofstra University, I moved to the University of California at Riverside where I started an APA- and NASP-approved school psychology program from 1991-2005. I returned to LSU in 2005 and became a member of the faculty and subsequently Program Director of the School Psychology program. I work closely with Drs. Noell, Long, and Renshaw in matters related to the training of Ph.D. level school psychology students. I am an active licensed psychologist in Louisiana and have been a licensed psychologist in both Iowa and California.
Representative Publications
Gresham, F.M. (2014). Measuring and analyzing treatment integrity in research. In
L. Sanetti & T. Kratochwill (Eds.), Treatment integrity: Conceptual, methodological,
and applied considerations for practitioners (pp. 109-130). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Walker, H.M., & Gresham, F.M. (2014) (Eds.). Handbook of evidence-based practices
for addressing school-related behavioral disorders. New York: Guilford Publishing.
Gresham, F.M. (2014). Quantitative research methods and designs. In W. Erchul & S.
Sheridan (Eds.), Handbook of research in school consultation: Empirical foundations
for the field (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gresham, F.M. (2015). Evidence-based practices in assessment and intervention with
disruptive behavior disorders. New York: Guilford Publishing.
Hunter, K., Gresham, F.M., & Chenier, J. (2014). Evaluation of check in/ check out
for students with internalizing problems. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders,
22, 135-148.
Robichaux, N., & Gresham, F.M. (2014). Differential effects of the Mystery Motivator
using chosen and unknown reinforcers. School Psychology Review, 43, 286-298.
Gresham, F.M. (2015). Evidence-based social skills interventions for students at-risk
for EBD. Remedial and Special Education, 36, 100-104.
Professional Affiliations
American Psychological Association (Fellow)
Division of School Psychology of APA (Fellow)
Division of Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics of APA (Fellow)
Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology of APA (Fellow)
Association of Behavior Analysis
National Association of School Psychologists
Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
Council for Children with Behavior Disorders (CEC)
Division for Research (CEC)