TEACHING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Teaching Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities



Teaching Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities

Section 1: A Brief Description of the Instructional Technique

Although students with emotional or behavioral disorders have historically experienced poor school outcomes compared to other students with and without disabilities, a number of effective practices are available that can make special education for students with emotional or behavioral disorders special. Within the three broad intervention areas of inappropriate behavior, academic learning problems, and interpersonal relationships, we provide a brief overview of a number of empirically validated practices. We argue that teaching students with emotional or behavioral disorders demands unique interventions that are beyond that typically available or necessary in general education. We conclude that special education is special for students with emotional or behavioral disorders and that it can be even more special with greater efforts at implementing research-based practices early, with integrity, and sustaining these interventions over the course of students' school careers. Teachers adopt a number of teaching strategies for the students with emotional behavioral disabilities.

Section 2: Summary of the Five Research Articles

Describing what is special about special education for students with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) presents a uniquely difficult challenge, given that students with EBD probably experience less school success than any other subgroup of students with or without disabilities. It has been well documented that students with disabilities experience poorer outcomes than do their nondisabled peers, but for students with EBD in particular, the outlook for school and later life success has historically been quite bleak. Alberto & Troutman (2003) mention students with EBD generally earn lower grades, fail more courses, are retained in grade more often, pass minimum competency tests at lower rates, and have more difficulty adjusting to adult life than do students with other disabilities. Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to improving their outcomes is school attendance: It has been estimated that 43% to 56% of students with EBD drop out of school, a rate almost twice that for all students with disabilities (Alberto & Troutman, 2003).

This relatively negative assessment of the current state of affairs for students with EBD demands some qualification and, in fact, should not be taken as evidence of an inability to intervene effectively. For example, students with EBD are not typically identified at an early age, when their problems are most amenable to treatment, but much later in their development, when problems are predictably severe and intractable. Moreover, probably only a fraction of those who need intervention for their emotional or behavioral disorders are actually identified and served (Alberto & Troutman, 2003). In words of Gresham (2002) most likely, those served are students with the most severe problems and intense needs. Simple logic suggests that failing to identify students early and circumscribing the population to include only those with the most extreme and protracted problems does not portend success. Thus, it is not surprising that concerns about the effectiveness of special education are particularly serious with regard to students with ...