Understanding and Supporting Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Vern Jones, Al William Greenwood

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781681255743
• eBook ISBN: 9781681255804
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Students who experience serious emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD) are at risk for a wide range of negative outcomes, from limited academic progress to problems with employment and community life after they leave school. Positive educational experiences can help, and this textbook fully prepares educators, school psychologists, and administrators to create supportive K–12 learning environments that help students with EBD thrive.

This comprehensive text gives professionals a deep understanding of the key issues associated with EBD and practical, trauma-informed approaches for working with these students in a variety of settings, from general education classrooms to specialized intervention programs. Readers will discover how to:

• Recognize key factors that influence each student's behavior, such as developmental history, personal characteristics, skill sets, and social perceptions
• Help students develop positive, supportive personal relationships with adults and peers in the classroom
• Deliver meaningful, engaging instruction within safe and supportive learning environments
• Involve students in creating behavioral standards that support engagement in instruction
• Develop effective behavior support plans that include assessment and intervention
• Respond with proven strategies when students fail to follow established behavior standards
• Engage students in problem solving and conflict resolution
• Implement social–emotional learning strategies that help break down obstacles to school success
• Develop and assess a program that provides specialized support in a more contained setting for students with more intensive needs
• Create a plan for staff development and support of staff working in programs for students with EBD

Special features throughout the book—such as chapter outcomes, summaries, reflection activities, forms, sample lessons, checklists, and case studies—ensure comprehension and help readers successfully implement the concepts and methods. Also included is a complete package of online companion materials for faculty, featuring PowerPoint slides, a test bank, and sample syllabi.

An essential textbook and an important inservice professional resource, this book gives readers the knowledge and skills they need to support students with EBD and help them succeed in school and in life.

1
	Key Concepts and Assumptions Related to Effective Support for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

CHAPTER 1 OUTCOMES

At the end of this chapter, the reader will be able to:

• Outline the current state of affairs in supporting students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD).
• Understand the key factors influencing an educator’s ability to support students with EBD in becoming successful learners.
• Describe the key assumptions that support effective school-based supports for students with EBD.

Students with special needs, like all students, are our future. If we fail to assist them in developing productive behavior, we throw away a valuable resource while creating a group of students who will demand educators’ and society’s attention and resources for many years. Students with EBD may be among our most effective staff development specialists. Staff and students develop skills and sensitivity when responding effectively to students with special learning and behavioral needs. The extent to which we learn to respond sensitively to their needs is an indication of our skill, compassion, and dedication.

Emotionally disturbed (ED) is a special education eligibility category under the current revision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004). The term is used to describe a population of students who have chronic and severe social–emotional and behavioral difficulties markedly different from the majority of students, and through a series of assessments and interventions, they have been found to be eligible to receive special education services. Emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is a synonymous term that is widely used in both research and practical settings. Neither ED or EBD is a clinical diagnosis, nor do they represent a clinical condition.

When referring specifically to students identified under IDEA for special education services, we have used the term identified as EBD. There are, however, a number of students experiencing chronic and significant social–emotional and behavioral difficulties who, for any number of reasons, have not been found eligible for special education services (Forness et al., 2012). In order to be inclusive, we use the term EBD in this book as it refers not only to students with special education eligibility but also to those nonidentified students experiencing persistent problems in school due primarily to social–emotional and behavioral factors. The population of students with EBD includes those identified as EBD under IDEA; students with other identified disabilities who, whether determined eligible as EBD or not, struggle with these issues; and students who have not or should not be identified under IDEA but whose social and emotional struggles are a significant factor limiting their ability to benefit from their educational experiences. Although their application may vary depending on student needs and severity of challenges, the concepts, strategies, and methods we promote in this book apply to the inclusive EBD population.

When available, we have used research based directly on studies with students identified as EBD. We have also cited supporting research based on work with students with unidentified behavioral challenges who are served in general education settings. In other cases, we have cited our experiences based on observation or unpublished data. We agree with noted writers in the field of EBD:

Finally, successful and pragmatic reform recognizes and legitimizes that educators and others who directly work with students with EBD will of necessity base their instructional, management, and other decisions on a variety of approaches and styles, including scientific thinking, logical judgment, common sense, personal experiences and attitudes, and so forth. (Simpson et al., 2011, p. 233)

SERVICES AND LEVELS OF SUCCESS FOR STUDENTS WITH EBD

In a national study on programs serving students with EBD, Knitzer and colleagues (1990) reported a negative picture of special education programs focused on control rather than innovative, individualized interventions. In response to the level of concern expressed in this report, a group of leading scholars who named themselves the Peacock Hill Working Group (1991) met to develop a summary of current research-based practice and recommendations for providing services for students with EBD. Twenty years later, a group of scholars noted that little progress had been made in implementing current research into practice in serving this student population (Lewis et al., 2010). About the same time, another group of leaders in the EBD field summarized services to this student population.

There is little reason to believe that most students identified as EBD are currently receiving an education based on effective methods and that all educators who work with these learners are well prepared to use strategies, curriculum and procedures that are associated with the best outcomes. (Simpson et al., 2011, p. 231)

Bettini and colleagues (2016) reported similar findings in their review of the research on the working conditions of special education teachers serving students with EBD in self-contained classrooms. They noted that “conditions necessary for learning and implementing evidence-based practices are seldom present in these settings” (p. 83).

Nearly 30 years after publication of At the Schoolhouse Door and the Peacock Hill Working Group’s findings, a group of 25 scholars, called the Creek Bend Consortium, met for 2 years to review the most current issues related to educational services for students with EBD. In 2019, members of this consortium published five articles in the Journal of Behavioral Disorders to present their findings. Several of these articles support the concept that although strategies exist for serving students with EBD, these are too seldom implemented with fidelity, and the outcome is continued low rates of academic and behavioral success for students identified as EBD.

The complex needs of students with EBD require school personnel to make concerted efforts to provide multifaceted, synchronized, and validated supports (Zaheer et al., 2019, p. 118).

Unfortunately, widespread implementation of effective interventions to prevent the development of ED or ameliorate the problems of these students when they first appear has not been achieved (Mitchell et al., 2019, p. 78).

At the classroom level, teachers of students with EBD infrequently use evidence-based practices (EBPs) in their instruction (Lloyd et al., 2019, p. 88).

Our experiences working with general education administrators, general education teachers, and special educators serving students with EBD validate these findings. Although we have seen instances of excellent services for students with EBD, the delivery of services both in general education and special education programs rarely reflects current best practices. This has been especially true for students with the most severe behavior problems. This book is written to provide educators with the tools to improve these conditions.

Leaders in the field of serving students with EBD indicate that at any one time at least 12% of students in Kindergarten (K)–12 classrooms have a relatively serious behavioral and emotional disorder, and 20% experience mild to serious problems. In addition, approximately 38% of all students will experience severe or moderate emotional and behavior problems during their K–12 school years (Forness et al., 2012). As many as 12% of students in the United States experience serious emotional and behavior problems (Ringeisen et al., 2016), and individual students with serious and/or frequent behavior problems are responsible for between 15% and 28% of behavior violations within classrooms (Owens et al., 2018). Researchers discovered that when universal mental health screening was incorporated, there was a 180% increase in students “identified with behavioral risk or need for mental health interventions” (Splett et al., 2018). These numbers help explain why many teachers report that students with ongoing and serious behavior problems are their greatest concern (Alter et al., 2013; Burkman, 2012) and why 43% of teachers agree or strongly agree that student behavior problems interfered with their teaching (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2018). Perhaps surprisingly, given the impact their behavior has on their learning and that of others, less than 1% of all students are determined eligible for services as emotionally handicapped (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019).

Students identified as EBD are almost three times as likely as children with any other disability to be removed from school and to receive either an in-school or out-of-school suspension (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). Students with emotional and behavior problems in childhood require the most extensive and expensive societal resources (Groenman et al., 2017; Institute of Medicine, 2009). Research suggests that significant numbers of students with an eligibility of EBD show decreases in academic engagement and increases in disruptive behavior across time in school (Gage et al., 2017). Students with externalizing behavior problems struggle with academic achievement during the transition from elementary to middle school (Palmu et al., 2018). In a study of students identified as EBD and receiving services in self-contained and full-inclusion classes and in high- and low-poverty schools, these students made no significant progress on reading or math achievement or behavioral progress (Siperstein et al., 2011).

Behavior problems during preschool years are the best predictor of a variety of negative long-term outcomes (Chen et al., 2011; Whitted, 2011). Although some students with EBD—especially those less severely affected—do make progress similar to their peers (Ysseldyke et al., 2017), the majority of students with EBD “consistently lag behind their peers academically and behaviorally, are likely to be excluded from school, drop out more frequently, and face higher incarceration rates and a host of other negative outcomes as adults” (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 97).

Students with behavior problems experience less-than-ideal educational experiences in both general education and special education classrooms. In general education settings, they receive higher rates of negative feedback, only one positive statement for every 3.8 negative or corrective statements, and many fewer opportunities for academic responses; they also have lower rates of academic engagement than their classmates (Hirn & Scott, 2014; Scott et al., 2017). Students with behavior problems also receive higher rates of reprimands, and they respond to these reprimands with increased negative behavior (Downs et al., 2019). Research suggests that general education teachers seldom adjust their behavior management or instructional methods for students with EBD (Scott et al., 2017).

Another important area requiring improvement is the overrepresentation of certain groups of students in the EBD category. A higher proportion of African American students is identified as EBD, and African American students are overrepresented in more restrictive placements (Downs et al., 2019; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019). In a study of data from Wisconsin, African American students were seven times more likely and Latino/a and Native American students were twice as likely as White students to be identified as EBD (Bal et al., 2019). Cultural awareness, culturally sensitive teaching, and the quality of adult–student relationships are important issues that must be addressed when considering how school personnel think about and respond to behavior that they believe is disruptive to the learning environment. Welsh and Little (2018) offer an insightful and important examination of discipline disparities and why currently popular schoolwide methods for reducing discipline problems may not be having a significant impact on reducing the overrepresentation of African American students in school suspensions. These authors note:

Black students are disciplined more irrespective of behaviors, and the vast majority of disciplinary infractions for which students receive a disciplinary consequence are subjective. This suggests that student-teacher matches and interactions, teacher discretion, as well as cultural mismatches play a key role in explaining the discipline disparities. (p. 780)

Given the information presented in this section, it is not surprising that attrition among teachers who educate students identified as EBD is extremely high (Bettini, Cumming, et al., 2020; Billingsley & Bettini, 2019). “Special education teachers (SETs) who teach students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in self-contained settings are often less qualified, more stressed and burned out, and more likely to leave teaching than other SETs” (O’Brien et al., 2019, p. 41). An...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Chapter 1 Key Concepts and Assumptions Related to Effective Support for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
• Chapter 2 Developing a Foundational Understanding of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
• Chapter 3 Developing Relationships That Support Students With EBD
• Chapter 4 Developing Behavior Standards and Increasing Students’ Motivation to Learn
• Chapter 5 Responding Effectively to Disruptive Behavior
• Appendix
• Chapter 6 Developing Individualized Behavior Support Plans: Planning for Student Success
• Chapter 7 Social–Emotional Learning Methods for Supporting Student Success
• Chapter 8 Developing an Effective Program for Students Identified as EBD
• Index
• Back Cover