ORIGINAL PAPER Effectiveness, Acceptability, and Feasibility of the Soles of the Feet Mindfulness-Based Intervention with Elementary School Students Joshua C. Felver & Jennifer L. Frank & Amber D. McEachern # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Children with high rates of disruptive behavior in elementary school are at risk for future psychosocial difficul- ties. Professionals who work in today's schools are in need of effective interventions to reduce rates of disruptive behaviors in schools in order to ensure optimal outcomes for students. We detail a pilot study of a brief mindfulness-based intervention, Soles of the Feet (SOF), for elementary school students. Three non-disabled students with high rates of off-task behavior during general education periods were selected and taught the SOF intervention. SOF took place over the course of five 20–30-min sessions in a public school setting. Using a multiple-baseline single-subject study design, results obtained via direct observation of student behavior during general edu- cation instructional time in the classroom suggest that SOF may be an effective intervention to reduce off-task behavior and increase academically engaged behavior for behaviorally challenging students. Questionnaires administered to these students and their teachers suggest that SOF is socially valid, feasible, and acceptable intervention for use in public schools. Conclusions extend the research of the effectiveness of SOF, and suggest that SOF is an effective short-term, resource non- intensive, and socially valid intervention for use with typically developing students with disruptive behavior in a public school setting. Keywords Mindfulness . Children . Schools . Teachers . Students Introduction The types of behaviors a student engages in during school have serious long-term implications. Academically engaged behavior in the classroom is related to prosocial psychosocial adjustment. Longitudinal research suggests that students who display more academically engaged behavior have better out- comes on measures of academic achievement and are less likely to drop out of high school (Greenwood et al. 2002; Fredricks et al. 2004). Conversely, disruptive and aggressive behaviors in school can lead to deleterious psychosocial out- comes. Disruptive behavior in youth frequently increases in severity throughout childhood (Silver et al. 2005), is correlated with later academic difficulties (Kim-Cohen et al. 2005), pre- dicts later adolescent delinquent behavior (Broidy et al. 2003; Tremblay et al. 1992), and can result in adult psychopathology and incarceration (Schaeffer et al. 2003). Children who are more academically engaged during the school day are more likely to be met with long-term success, whereas children who have more disruptive behavior during the school day are at risk for long-term psychosocial difficulties. Specialized interven- tions which increase academic engagement and reduce prob- lem behavior are therefore needed in today's classrooms. Among the armamentarium of interventions used in schools to address student behavior, mindfulness-based inter- ventions have received relatively little attention from school- based intervention scientists. Mindfulness, or “the self- regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience … [and] is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance” (Bishop et al. 2004, p. 232) has in recent years become increasingly popular as a method of psychoso- cial intervention (Brown et al. 2007). Over the last decade, mindfulness-based interventions have become an increasingly J. C. Felver (*) Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA e-mail: jfelverg@uoregon.edu J. C. Felver Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA J. L. Frank Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA A. D. McEachern Mid America Health, Greenwood, IN 46142, USA Mindfulness DOI 10.1007/s12671-013-0238-2