Laura DG Hudak

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Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

• Laura DG Hudak
• Educ 325 E

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IDEA Definition

• Emotional Disturbance is a condition accompanied
  by one or more of the following characteristics
• An inability to learn that cannot be explained by
  intellectual, sensory, or health factors
• An inability to build or maintain satisfactory
  interpersonal relationships with peers and
  teachers
• Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under
  normal circumstances
• A general pervasive mood of unhappiness/depression
  
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears
  associated with personal or school problems
• Section 300.7c(4) of IDEA -- 1997

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Statistics

• 2003-04 0.7 of students received special
  education services due to an emotional
  disturbance
• Gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors
• White males 3.8 times more than white females
• Black females 1.4 times more than white females
• Black males 5.5 times more than white females
• Acting out and aggression identified in 1/3 of
  preschool Head Start students

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Characteristics

• 3 Principal Characteristics
• Emotional Traits
• Behavioral Traits
• Cognitive/Academic Traits

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Emotional Characteristics

• Anxiety Disorder
• Excessive fear, worry, or uneasiness
• Includes
• Separation anxiety disorder
• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Phobia
• Panic disorder
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Can impair academic/social functioning
• Often treated with physician prescribed
  medication

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Emotional Characteristics

• Mood Disorder
• Involves an extreme deviation in either a
  depressed or elevated direction
• Depression
• Changes in emotion, motivation, physical
  well-being, and thoughts can signify depression
• Prevalence of depression has increased over past
  decades
• Highest rate occurs in adolescent females
• Depression can lead to suicide
• Four factors of suicide-risk
• Hopelessness, hostility, negative self-concept,
  isolation

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Emotional Characteristics

• Mood Disorder (continued)
• Bipolar disorder/Manic depression
• Oppositional defiant disorder
• Conduct disorder
• Schizophrenia

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Behavioral Characteristics

• Externalizing behavior
• Persistently aggressive, acting-out, or
  non-compliance
• Students are more likely to exhibit
  high-intensity, but low-frequency behavior events
• Setting fires, assaulting someone, exhibiting
  cruelty
• Students are often referred to special education
  because they disrupt the classroom
• Often referred to office, suspended, given
  detentions, and expelled
• IDEA protects students against total cessation of
  education if they have been evaluated and receive
  services under IDEA

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Behavioral Characteristics

• Internalizing Behavior
• Poor social skills and are less accepted than
  peers
• Includes
• Withdrawal
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Obsessions
• Compulsions
• Because behavior is not disruptive, students are
  not referred as often to special education
  services

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Cognitive/Academic Characteristics

• Students with ED may be gifted or have mental
  retardation, but most have IQs in the low average
  range
• More than half have concurrent learning
  disabilities
• Students
• Tend to achieve below grade level in math,
  reading, and writing
• Drop out of school at a higher rate than other
  students with exceptionalities
• Less likely to attend post-secondary schools than
  other students with exceptionalities

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Causes

• Biological causes
• All behavior is in some way genetically
  influenced
• Environmental stressors
• Stressful living conditions
• 38 of youth with ED family income under
  12,000
• Another 32 -- family income 12,000-24,999
• 44 from single-parent households
• IDEA 2004 law requires state and local
  educational agencies to cooperate with social
  services to reach out and enroll homeless
  students and then assures them of IDEAs benefits

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Causes

• Environmental Stressors (continued)
• Child maltreatment
• Neglect failure to provide for the childs
  basic physical, educational, and emotional needs
• Physical abuse a physical injury to the child
• Sexual abuse activities including incest, rape,
  sodomy, indecent exposure, and commercial
  exploitation
• Emotional abuse constant criticism, threats, or
  rejection that impedes a childs self-esteem and
  emotional development
• School Factors
• Students academic underachievement tends to
  spawn behavior problems and academic failure

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Inclusion of ED students
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Inclusion of ED students

• Students with emotional/behavioral disorders have
  one of the lowest rates of inclusion in general
  education classrooms
• 3 times as many students with emotional/behavioral
  disorders as all other students with
  exceptionalities are served in residential
  settings, hospitals, or homes
• Although incarcerated youth typically have
  academic achievement below grade level, the
  extent of special education services in
  correctional facilities tends to be two-thirds
  less than offered in public schools

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Lesson Plan

• Action is Character Exploring Character Traits
  with Adjectives
• Author Traci Gardner
• Grade Level 6-8
• Overview Students become one of the major
  characters in a book (Harry Potter and the
  Sorcerers Stone) and describe themselves and
  other characters using lists of accurate,
  powerful adjectives. In class discussion,
  students support their lists with details from
  the novel.

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Lesson Plan

• Objectives
• Students will
• Review the characteristics of adjectives
• Define the literary term character trait and
  explore how to provide details that support their
  influences
• Conduct research using Internet reference
  resources to find accurate and descriptive word
  choice
• Explore perspective by writing descriptive word
  lists from the point of view of a character in a
  novel theyve recently read

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Lesson Plan

• Standards National Council of Teachers of
  English
• Students apply a wide range of strategies to
  comprehend, interpret, evaluate and appreciate
  texts. They draw on prior experience, their
  interactions with other readers and writers,
  their knowledge of word meaning and of other
  texts, their word identification strategies, and
  their understanding of textual features.
• Students apply knowledge of language structure,
  conventions, media techniques, figurative
  language, and genre to create, critique, and
  discuss print and non-print texts.
• Students use a variety of technological and
  information resources to gather and synthesize
  information and to create and communicate
  knowledge.
• Students participate as knowledgeable,
  reflective, creative, and critical members of a
  variety of literacy communities.

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Lesson Plan

• Accommodations/Adaptations
• Use of computer with word-processing software
• Allow group work
• Reverse-role tutoring

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Lesson Plan

• Accommodations for Assessment
• Students with emotional/behavioral disorders may
  have more difficulties completing tests due to
  heightened anxiety problems
• Accommodations include
• Extended time to take tests
• Individual administration of tests
• Testing with breaks

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Co-teaching Chart
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School Accommodations/Adaptations

• Peer-assisted self-management
• Decrease dropout rate
• Establish a student advisory program
• Involve students in extracurricular activities
• Provide vocational education
• Monitor risk-factors associated with dropout

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National SED Agenda

• US Department of Education -- 1994
• National SED (Serious Emotional Disturbances)
  Agenda
• Expand positive learning opportunities and
  results
• Strengthen school and community capacity
• Value and address diversity
• Collaborate with families
• Promote appropriate assessment
• Provide on-going skill development and support
• Create comprehensive and collaborative systems

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Effective Instructional Strategies

• Early Childhood
• Classroom-centered intervention
• Mastery-learning and good-behavior games
• Family-school partnership
• Improve parent-teacher communication and parents
  behavior management strategies
• Elementary/Middle School
• Service learning
• Learn important skills
• Contribute to their community

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Effective Instructional Strategies

• Secondary/Transition
• Conflict-resolution skills
• Three skills
• Effective communication
• Anger management
• Taking anothers perspective
• Student need to learn about
• Negotiation
• Compromising
• Problem solving
• Decision making

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References

• Gardner (2006). Action is Character Exploring
  Character Traits with Adjectives. Retrieved
  October 22, 2007 from www.readwritethink.org/lesso
  ns/lesson_view_printer_friendly.asp?id175.
• National Dissemination Center for Children with
  Disabilities (2004). Disability Info Emotional
  Disturbances. Retrieved November 6, 2007 from
  www.nichcy.org/pubs/factshe/fs5txthtm.
• Simbeck (2007). Emotional Disturbances. Retrieved
  November 6, 2007 from www.twu.edu/inspire/Fact_She
  ets/emotional.htm.
• Turnbull, Turnbull, and Wehmeyer (2007).
  Exceptional Lives Special Education in Todays
  Schools (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ
  Pearson.