Handbook of Research on Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Interdisciplinary Developmental Perspectives on Children and Youth

Thomas W. Farmer, Maureen A. Conroy, Elizabeth M.Z. Farmer, Kevin S. Sutherland, Thomas W. Farmer, Maureen A. Conroy, Elizabeth M.Z. Farmer, Kevin S. Sutherland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138320703
• eBook ISBN: 9780429841699
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

The Handbook of Research on Emotional and Behavioral Disorders explores the factors necessary for successful implementation of interventions that foster productive relationships and ecologies to establish, reinforce, and sustain adaptive patterns of emotional and behavioral functioning across childhood and into adulthood.

Although there has been a concerted focus on developing evidence-based programs and practices to support the needs of children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders, there has been less emphasis on the developmental, social, and environmental factors that impact the implementation and effectiveness of these approaches. Chapters from leading experts tackle this complexity by drawing on a range of disciplines and perspectives including special education; mental health services; school, clinical, and community psychology; social work; developmental psychology and psychopathology; and prevention science.

An essential resource for scholars and students interested in emotional and behavioral disorders, this volume crafts an essential framework to promote developmentally meaningful strategies for children and youth with even the most adverse experiences and intensive support needs.

Part 1

Developmental Processes and Timing

1 The Development, Prevention, and Treatment of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

An Interdisciplinary Developmental Systems Perspective

Thomas W. Farmer, Lisa Gatzke-Kopp, and Shawn J. Latendresse

Introduction

The purpose of this volume is to provide a broad view of children and adolescents who experience, or are at risk of, emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) at some point during their development. We are purposefully wide reaching and inclusive in our focus, as youth with EBD and the services they need represent an extensive continuum. This continuum necessitates understanding the linkages and supports required for youth with potential risk to youth who manifest disorder and who are at risk for chronic and serious difficulties across the lifecourse.

The term EBD refers to a range of characteristics and patterns of behavior. Depending on the scope, definition, and measurement frame, prevalence estimates of EBD vary widely. For instance, rates for youth who experience an emotional or behavioral problem at some point in childhood and adolescence have been estimated to range from 4% to 40% (Forness, Freeman, Paparella, Kauffman, & Walker, 2012). In a recent review of rates of children’s mental health service use, Ringeisen and colleagues found a similar range and conclude that single prevalence estimates may not be realistic (Ringeisen et al., 2018). They suggest estimates are needed for different developmental periods (e.g., infancy, childhood, adolescence) that focus on both the presence of a mental disorder and impaired functioning. Despite higher estimates of prevalence, only ~1% of students receive special education services for EBD (NCES, 2019). In recent years, schools are increasingly providing mental health services within a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) aimed at addressing the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of all youth (Anello et al., 2017; Atkins, Cappella, Mehta, Shernoff, & Gustafson, 2017). Still, the question remains as to whether and how we are providing comprehensive, integrated services that wrap around the complex and multifaceted needs of youth with EBD articulated in the systems of care literature (see Boothroyd, Evans, Chen, Boustead, & Blanch, 2015; Brannan, Brashears, Gyamfi, & Manteuffel, 2012; Epstein, Kutash, & Duchnowski, 1998; Garcia, Kim, Palinkas, Snowden, & Landsverk, 2016; Miller, Blau, Christopher, & Jordan, 2012; Stroul & Friedman, 1986).

Although there has been a concerted focus on developing evidence-based programs and practices to support the learning and behavioral needs of children and youth with/at risk of EBD, there has been less focus on developmental, social, and environmental factors that impact the implementation and effectiveness of these approaches. Natural developmental processes should be harnessed as an intervention ally. Youth with EBD come from a wide variety of ecological contexts and are served by a complicated set of child-serving sectors and services. Many children and youth with EBD experience social and environmental ecologies that contribute to their adjustment difficulties. Additionally, the developmental timing of interventions often is not considered, which may impact the effectiveness and durability of intervention outcomes. In order to ensure positive outcomes, there needs to be a balance between the services and supports these children and youth receive, and recognition of their diverse developmental backgrounds, ecologies, and service resources that impact their responsiveness to intervention.

Development involves the transactional interplay between bio-behavioral and cognitive characteristics of the individual and the social/ecological contexts in which children and youth are embedded (Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Sameroff, 1983). To increase the effectiveness of intervention, we need to link intervention to social and ecological factors that: (a) prevent the negative reorganization of a system of positive factors that may contribute to the initiation of maladaptive patterns in children and youth who are at risk of developing EBD and (b) promote the positive reorganization of a system of negative factors that sustain maladaptive patterns in children and youth who have already developed EBD (Farmer & Farmer, 2001). The purpose of this handbook is to move beyond what we “know” is effective and focus on a complex array of factors that may contribute to the successful implementation of interventions to foster productive relationships and ecologies to establish, reinforce, and sustain adaptive patterns of emotional and behavioral functioning across childhood and into adulthood. To address this complexity, we assembled papers from researchers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives including: special education; mental health services; school, clinical, and community psychology; social work; developmental psychology and psychopathology; and prevention science. These perspectives are presented across four sections: (1) Leveraging Developmental Processes and Timing; (2) Targeting Social Processes and Environmental Ecologies; (3) Selected Effective Programs and Practices; and (4) Preparing and Supporting the EBD workforce.

To establish a common background for the chapters, the purpose of this introduction is to provide an overview of the conceptual foundations for understanding the development of EBD and how our knowledge of development can be utilized in the intervention process. First, we consider the development of EBD from a dynamic systems perspective. Then we discuss the developmental subsystems and their interplay in the prevention and treatment of EBD. Next, we discuss developmental cascades and correlated constraints perspectives as complementary models for understanding the prevention and treatment of EBD. From this backdrop we discuss Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Tiered Systems of Adaptive Support (TSAS) to promote positive growth and success for students with EBD. We conclude with considerations for future research, program development, and workforce training to support youth with EBD.

Developmental Systems and EBD

The Developmental Systems Framework

Children develop as an integrated whole within the contexts they experience during daily activities of living (Cairns & Cairns, 1994). Factors both within (i.e., biological, cognitive, psychological) and external to the child (i.e., cultural, ecological, sociological) are bidirectionally linked and collectively function as a dynamic system with each factor (i.e., subsystem) both influencing and being influenced by the others (Sameroff, 2000; Smith & Thelen, 2003). As Bronfenbrenner (1996, p. xvii) suggests, development is a process of continual adaptation that involves “on one hand, individual human beings as active, holistically functioning biopsychological organisms and, on the other hand, the equally dynamic multi-level environmental systems in which they live their lives.” Within this process, behavior plays a leading edge in development as it is open to rapid reorganization and serves as a conduit to link the various subsystems and their potential adaptation to each other (Cairns, 2000).

The dynamic systems perspective has important implications for understanding the functioning and (mal)adaptation of children and youth with EBD. As Hobbs (1966) proposed in his ecological framework for the treatment of children with EBD, it is helpful to view problems as not being situated in the child or the environment but in the transactions between the two. EBD involves difficulties in the processes of developmental adaptation and intervention should include a focus on supporting the positive and productive alignment between the characteristics of the child and her or his ecology (Farmer, 2013). Accordingly, it is important for researchers and interventionists in the field of EBD to understand developmental processes from early childhood to adulthood, to consider how these processes contribute to patterns of maladaptation, and to clarify how natural developmental factors and processes can be systematically utilized as an ally in intervention (Farmer & Farmer, 2001; Sameroff, 2000).

Patterns and Pathways from Birth to Adulthood

Children who experience chronic, intensive, and sustained EBD tend to have poor outcomes including academic failure, truancy, school dropout, involvement in crime and substance use, teen parenthood, and poor educational/vocational attainment (Bergman & Magnusson, 1997; Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Chen, Culhane, Metraux, Park, & Venable, 2015; Cullinan & Sabornie, 2004; Dishion & Patterson, 1998; Farmer, 1995; Lipsey & Derzon, 1998; Wagner & Newman, 2012; Walker & Sprague, 1999). Two concepts in the developmental literature are particularly useful for understanding how students with EBD have elevated levels of deleterious life experiences and inauspicious outcomes: developmental cascades and correlated constraints.

The concept of developmental cascades builds from research showing that youth with EBD tend to experience risks that exacerbate existing problems and expand the individuals’ exposure to additional risk factors, leading to an accumulation of adverse outcomes over time (i.e., cumulative risk model), spreading across developmental subsystems and canalizing (i.e., creating a channel or constrained pathway) the manifestation of disorder (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010; Sameroff, 2000). For example, early childhood emotional and behavioral regulation problems are often not responsive to typical parenting approaches and may escalate into ineffective parenting responses to the child’s difficulties (i.e., continuum of caretaker casualty: Sameroff, 1983) that may build into a coercive family system in which the child’s problem behavior is maintained by harsh discipline accompanied by negative reinforcement (Patterson, 1982). Extending this process, a confluence model of development suggests that as they begin school, children from a coercive family system are likely to have social skills deficits and self-regulation difficulties that result in peer rejection and eventual affiliations with deviant peers who support and complement problem behavior (Coie, 1990; Dishion & Patterson, 1998).

The cascade model is sometimes interpreted as meaning that risk processes accumulate in a linear and sequential fashion and become resistant to intervention once disorder manifests (Farmer, 2013). This view is consistent with the distinction between early and late onset conduct problems and the proposition that late onset problems are temporary whereas sustained early onset problems are predictive of continuity into adulthood (Moffitt, 1993). Although the early/late onset model is descriptive of epidemiological trends, developmental research suggests that this distinction reflects a false dichotomy (Gatzke-Kopp, DuPuis, & Nix, 2013). We view the development of disorder as involving multiple risk factors operating as parallel processes with complex bidirectional transactional influences that sustain each other, but that nonetheless maintain a degree of malleability and the potential for intervention. Although early and cumulative problems can become difficult to change the longer they manifest, the concept of correlated constraints suggests that adaptation (i.e., reorganization of developmental systems and realignment of developmental trajectories) is possible across the lifecourse (Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Masten, 2001; Robins & Rutter, 1990).

The correlated constraints perspective posits that because development operates as a dynamic system with multiple subsystems bidirectionally linked to each other (see Figure 1.1), different subsystems (i.e., developmental factors) tend to be correlated in terms of their general functioning (Cairns, 2000). Problems in one domain tend to be associated with problems in other domains, and as problems persist they may result in increasing severity or expansion of the number of problems across domains (Farmer, Gatzke-Kopp, Lee, Dawes, & Talbott, 2016; Magnusson & Cairns, 1996). In this way, adjustment difficulties can become canalized and appear to be intractable because the individual is embedded within a system of risks. Targeting individual behavior in isolation of the contextual system of risks is likely to be unsuccessful, whereas adaptation is possible when changes in the system promote, or are supported by, changes within other subdomains in the system (Cairns, 2000). For children who have manifested EBD, intervention should be carefully coordinated to ameliorate risks and build strengths across the different domains in a systematic way that is likely to require comprehensive services that bridge the educational, mental health, health, social services, juvenile justice, and community recreational domains and agencies (Farmer & Farmer, 2001; Farmer, Farmer, Estell, & Hutchins, 2007; Sutherland, Farmer et al., 2018).

Figure 1.1 Correlated Constraints Model of Emotional and Behavioral Adaptation

The developmental cascades and correlated constraints models are complementary rather than competing perspectives of EBD (Farmer, 2013). Both models suggest that EBD develops over time, involves multiple risks that accumulate, and reflects transactions among subsystems both within t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• PART 1: Developmental Processes and Timing
• PART 2: Targeting Social Processes and Environmental Ecologies
• PART 3: Selected Effective Programs and Practices
• PART 4: Preparing and Supporting the EBD Workforce
• Index