Educating Exceptional Children: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Educating Exceptional Children: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Introduction

Educating Exceptional or Rare children has always been a concern for proactive, socially-responsible scientists throughout the history of social, as well as medical sciences. Although, in earlier eras, there have been attempts for "learning problems", and their solutions by the help of experimental studies, but by the start of 21st century, there have been many discoveries that have been proved to be beneficial when it comes to execution. Such discoveries are related to the art of educating special children by modern methods.

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Definition

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) may be summed up as those disorders which are not caused by perceptible organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major agitation of emotions is predominant (Naggar et al., 2012).

Characteristics

The academic characteristics of children with emotional and behavioral disorders have been observed as; children who are likely to disrupt classroom activities, being impulsive, inattentive and/or distractible in a classroom setup, being mentally caught up, does not seem to be abiding by the classroom rules, having poor levels of concentration, transitions in routines, irrelevant contribution to lectures, demonstrating aggressive behavior, lacking to fulfill optimal attendance, lower self-esteem having self destructive behavior, anti-group contributor and often manipulative of situations.

If a student who demonstrates above listed behaviors, they may be considered to have a behavioral and/or emotional disorder. A behavior specialist or psychologist is likely to be able to provide adapted diagnosis for the child, based on his observations, behavior documentation and checklists (Gallaudet University, 2011).

Symptoms

An "Emotional and Behavioral Disorder" (EBD) is an emotional disability which can be observed in a child who has consistent or inappropriate feelings / behavior under normal conditions, the incapability to learn, maintain or build sufficient interpersonal associations with friends, family or teachers and/or displaying extensive mood of depression and unhappiness, pains and unreasonable fears associated with personal or academic problems.

Prevalence

According to the estimate by The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), approximately 1% of all students have EBD. Many scholars, however, believe that the percentage is higher, (3-6%) but is just not diagnosed. There is a considerable gap between students who are receiving treatment and those who might not have EBD because there is no substantial definition of what an EBD is. Over females, males are more likely to be characterized as having a behavioral disorder. For Hispanic and Asian-American populations, behavioral and emotional disorders are less prevalent than in the overall population. On the other hand, African-American populations, emotional and behavioral disorders are almost two times as prevalent as compared to the overall population (Smith, 2010).

Prevention

Amongst various steps of preventing the EDB, one is to determine which children demonstrate display behaviors that are often extrapolative of later problems. Principles for usual behavior alter as children grow up through the stages of their lives. Distinctive activities of children from what is predictable for their age group become a reason for apprehension. For example, activities of a child aged 8 years old ...