Emerging Research and Issues in Behavioral Disabilities

Timothy J. Landrum, Bryan G. Cook, Melody Tankersley, Timothy J. Landrum, Bryan G. Cook, Melody Tankersley

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787560864
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

The challenges associated with the education and treatment of children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have proven to be both persistent and exceedingly complex. Thus, our best hope for improving outcomes for students with or at risk for EBD lies not in miracle cures or the eradication of all disorders, but in the incremental progress that furthers our understanding of the nature of EBD, enabling us to systematically refine interventions. Toward these goals, this volumefocuses on emerging research and issues related to students identified with or at risk of EBD.
Chapters within the volume include reports of original research, and summaries of new and emerging research issues. Specific topics include: bullying; technology-based self-monitoring; issues around the direct observation of both student and teacher behavior; the characteristics of youth served in residential or other alternative settings because of their EBD; and the application of function-based logic to social skills intervention. Two additional chapters examine issues around identifying evidence-based practice in EBD, including guidance for practitioners who may be overwhelmed by the challenges of teaching students with EBD, as well as the vast array of resources they must sift through to locate credible and reliable information on effective interventions.

BULLYING AND STUDENTS WITH BEHAVIORAL DISABILITIES: EXAMINING THE INTERSECTION OF DEFINITION AND BEHAVIORS

Chad A. Rose, Taylor Webb and Gloria McGillen

ABSTRACT

Bullying is a complex phenomenon that is grounded in intricate interactions between an individual and the social and environmental systems that surround the individual. At the present time, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted bully prevention legislation to reduce the prevalence among school-aged youth. Unfortunately, bullying is associated with adverse long- and short-term outcomes, where students with disabilities, including those with behavioral disabilities, may be at escalated risk for involvement and difficulty navigating the effects of prolonged exposure to bullying. Given the complexity of bullying, several participatory roles have been established to help guide identification and intervention delivery by recognizing the reciprocity between bullying and victimization. Most importantly, interventions should be situated within a multitired or component framework and grounded in skill development, where bully prevention programming is delivered to all students based on individual need. By recognizing the risk characteristics and understanding the various student profiles, especially as they related to youth with disabilities, schools can development, adopt, and implementing prevention programming that is designed to simultaneously increase academic, functional, and behavioral development, while decreasing bullying involvement.

Keywords: Bullying; victimization; aggression; behavioral disabilities; bully prevention; disability; special education

Every day, millions of school-aged children fear, engage in, support, defend, or ignore one of the most pressing issues facing our educational system to date. Stories of hurt and despair have become all too common in local and national media, resulting in increased legislative efforts, research activities, and condemnation or glorification by popular culture (Kim & Telleen, 2017). The issue is bullying, and it negatively affects those who are identified as perpetrators, victims, and bystanders (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine [NASEM], 2016). Although reducing bullying has emerged as a priority for American schools, the intricacies of bullying greatly complicate assessment of the outcomes of prevention programs because bullying is a dynamic process that is grounded in peer interaction, where involvement may fall at many different points along a continuum (Hong & Espelage, 2012). Therefore, it is critical to understand the construct of bullying, factors that place students at risk, the profiles of those involved, and interventions that target bully reduction and skill development.

UNDERSTANDING BULLYING

Defining Bullying

As of 2016 in the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted legislation that prohibits bullying in school, on school grounds, and at school functions (Yell, Katsiyannis, Rose, & Houchins, 2016). Additionally, federal civil rights legislation prohibits harassment, or bullying, based on gender (Title IX of the Education Amendments of, 1972), race, color, national origin (Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of, 1964), or disability (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of, 1973: Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of, 1990; Maag & Katsiyannis, 2012; Yell et al., 2016). While legislative efforts are necessary to enact policies and procedures to respond to bullying, the behaviors that constitute bullying are subject to variability in state definition and interpretation (Casper, Meter, & Card, 2015). In their comprehensive definition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that bullying is:

Any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths, who are not siblings or current dating partners, that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014, p. 7).

This definition mirrors Olweus’ (2005) conceptualization of bullying, which includes an imbalance of power, intent to cause harm, and repetition. The construct of bullying is grounded in social interactions, and includes direct and indirect forms of pervasive peer aggression, including physical, verbal, relational, and cyber aggression, as well as damage to property (Hong & Espelage, 2012). While these components provide a framework by which to evaluate bullying, it is unclear how these components might be associated with or vary across specific subpopulations of youth, for example, or how such a framework might help guide intervention efforts (Rose, 2017). Toward this concern, the American Educational Research Association Task Force on Bullying suggested that researchers have rarely evaluated bullying through a common lens, resulting in variability in reported prevalence rates, participant profiles, and intervention outcomes (AERA, 2013). Given this variability, the construct of bullying remains subject to continued debated.

Theoretical Understanding

Bullying is a social construct and subject to the intricacies of individual peer and group interactions, as well as how one navigates their social environment (Hong & Espelage, 2012). For example, Rose, Simpson, and Moss (2015) argued that bullying is a dynamic process, where involvement, or lack thereof, is relatively fluid. Bully prevention scholars have adapted Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) Ecological Systems Framework to understand the complex interactions between an individual and the social and environmental contexts or systems that influence bullying involvement (Hong & Espelage, 2012). Specifically, these complex interactions are influenced by individual characteristics, as well as familial factors, peer group associations, teacher–student relationships, school climate and culture, community factors, societal influence, and the passage of time (Nickerson, Aloe, & Werth, 2015). For example, in a cross-sectional study, Rose, Espelage, Monda-Amaya, Shogren, and Aragon (2015) reported that high levels of peer social support predicted lower levels of victimization, bullying, fighting, and anger. However, role stability is based on time and social context, where instead of maintaining static roles (i.e., pure bully, pure victim), youth shift between victimization, neutral bystander, and perpetration as a function of changes in social interactions and environmental circumstances (Gumpel, Zioni-Koren, & Bekerman, 2014; Ryoo, Wang, & Swearer, 2015; Salmivalli, 2010).

It should be noted, however, that bullying is regarded as pervasive peer aggression. Viewing bullying through this lens, allows for the examination of behavioral development. Specifically, behavior is functional, communicative, and lawful (Rose, 2017). According to Bjorkqvist, Osterman, and Kaukiainen (1992), behavioral development follows a distinct pattern, where, over time, students learn, employ, and master physical, verbal, and social skills in a sequential fashion. For example, preschool youth engage in higher rates of physical bullying (Rose, Richman et al., 2016; Son, Parish, & Peterson, 2012), whereas middle- and high-school youth engage in higher rates of social exclusion (Rose, Simpson, et al., 2015). While behavioral development is critical to understanding bullying involvement, Farmer, Lines, and Hamm (2011) argue that adults play a critical role in supporting and shaping the behaviors of youth. Farmer et al. coined the term “invisible hand,” and suggested that teachers impact the peer ecology through

student-teacher relationships, fostering supportive and productive general classroom climates, developing and utilizing knowledge of social dynamics to augment academic instruction and classroom behavior management, and scaffolding the social opportunities and activities of students to correspond with their developmental abilities and needs. (Farmer et al., 2011, p. 252).

This distinction is notable because it suggests that as students develop social skills, adults can establish environmental conditions to support this development, as well as contrive situations to reinforce socially appropriate behaviors that reduce bullying involvement.

Outcomes Related to Bullying

Bullying has received increased attention from educational professionals, legislators, and researchers due to the short- and long-term outcomes associated with those who are victimized, those who engage in bullying, and those identified as bully victims (Swearer & Hymel, 2015). These outcomes drive a general understanding of bullying involvement, as well as highlight predictive and protective factors. By understanding factors that condition youth to bullying, or place students at greater risk of victimization, more appropriate interventions can be implemented within the school environment to reduce the prevalence of involvement.

Outcomes Related to Victimization

Youth who are victimized report higher levels of physical health problems or symptoms (Bogart et al., 2014; Gini & Pozzoli, 2013; van Geel, Goemans, & Vedder, 2015), psychosocial symptoms and internalizing behaviors (Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Rose, Simpson, & Preast, 2016; Ttofi, Farrington, Lösel, & Loeber, 2011), risky behaviors (Reijntjes et al., 2011), decreased academic performance (Espelage, Hong, Rao, & Low, 2013), and higher dropout rates (Cornell, Gregory, Huang, & Fan, 2013) when compared to those who are uninvolved in bullying. Most alarming, however, is that students who experienced victimization by their peers were 2.2 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and 2.6 times more likely to attempt suicide than students who did not experience victimization from their peers (Gini & Espelage, 2014).

Outcomes Related to Perpetration and Bully Victimization

Youth who engage in bullying also experience negative short- and long-term outcomes related to bullying. Specifically, students who engage in bullying report higher levels of psychosocial symptoms (Gini & Pozzoli, 2009; Rose, Simpson, et al., 2016), poor academic outcomes, low levels of engagement in school, and increased levels of delinquent behavior (Espelage, Hong, et al., 2013) compared to youth who are uninvolved in bullying. Similarly, youth who are both victimized and engage in bullying report comorbid outcomes that are related to both victims and perpetrators (NASEM, 2016), including risk of future poor health, increased risk of drug and tobacco use, and poor relations in the workplace (Sigurdson, Wallander, & Sund, 2014). Given the poor outcomes associated with involvement of any type in bullying, it is critical that resear...