Understanding and Supporting Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Presented by Skip Greenwood, Ph.D. Vern Jones, Ph.D.

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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.

Four Areas For Educators To Develop and Enhance Their Skills

• Understanding key Concepts and Assumptions of supporting students with EBD
• Understanding key characteristics of students with EBD
• Creating classroom and school environments that support positive academic gains and behavior for students with EBD
• Assisting students with EBD in developing new skills to be successful in school

Key Concepts and Assumptions Related to Effective Supports for Students with EBD

• A foundational understanding of the complex factors that contribute to EBD provides educators with a pathway to develop effective supports.

• All School Staff Assigned To Work With Students Experiencing EBD Face Challenges and Require Support, Including Advocacy from Strong Leadership, Ongoing Performance Feedback and Coaching and Attention to Their Own Wellness.

• How Staff Members Think About and Use Control and Authority Impacts the Effectiveness of Their Support for Students Experiencing EBD.

• Effective Support For Students Experiencing EBD Begins With All Teachers Skillfully Implementing a Wide Range of Classroom Management Methods.

• Whenever Possible Interventions Implemented With Students Experiencing EBD Will Integrate Social‐Emotional Learning.

• Students Experiencing Serious EBD Benefit from the Development, Implementation, and Monitoring of a Behavior Support Plan (BSP).

Developing a Foundational Understanding of EBD

• Pieces of the puzzle
• Appreciate complexity
• Develop accurate conceptualizations
• Utilize a developmental perspective
• Be knowledgeable about risk and protective factors
• Recognize key characteristics of students with EBD
• Utilize helpful methods and practices
• Understand and utilize mental health systems and perspectives

Recognize Key Skill Deficits and Unique Characteristics of Students With EBD

• Executive function / Self‐regulation
• Relationships
• Social cognition: Distortions and misperceptions
• Language and communication skills
• Individual characteristics

Individual Characteristics

• Problems in developing an accurate and positive identity
• Unmet needs for significance, competence, and control
• Low self‐worth and self‐esteem
• A sense of alienation and a reduced sense of meaning

How the quality of teacher‐student relationships affects students

• Level of loneliness
• Social anxiety
• Level of depression
• Negative response to trauma
• Academic motivation
• School engagement
• Behavior problems
• Academic work
• Drop out status
• Effectiveness of behavior interventions
• Peer relationships
• Likelihood of being bullied
• Skill of self‐regulation

Characteristics students indicate they value in their teachers include:

• Creating a safe and well organized classroom
• Explaining content clearly
• Helping students with academics
• Knowing the students and their lives
• Showing respect for students
• Establishing caring relationships with students
• Making learning fun
• Holding high expectations for students
• Remaining calm when responding to students’ disruptive behavior

Important Factors Related to School‐Based Peer Relationships

• Students rate peer relationships as the most important and valued aspect of their school experience.
• Students with EBD report significantly higher rates of peer victimization.
• Positive peer relationships may protect students from social‐emotional adjustment problems.
• Positive peer relationships can help reduce the negative effects of trauma on students’ school engagement.

Important Factors Related to School‐Based Peer Relationships (cont.)

• Positive peer relationships can reduce bullying in classrooms and schools.
• Supportive peer relationships can enhance positive academic engagement and achievement.
• Low peer acceptance appears to be an antecedent of students’ anxiety, depression, and withdrawal.
• Peer rejection is a strong indicator of later serious conduct problems.

Potential classroom interventions related to peer relationships

• Teach peers to invite the student to be involved in peer activities and academic work.
• Teach peers to provide positive feedback to the student when he is behaving responsibly. Teach students to ignore the inappropriate behavior of other students.
• Teach students to send an “I” message when another student violates their rights.
• Implement peer acquaintance activities, and peer team building activities.
• Teach students how to effectively serve as peer tutors.

General Concepts Related to Disruptive Student Behavior

• Teachers list students with ongoing behavior problems as their greatest concern.
• 34% of teachers indicated that student behavior problems significantly interfered with their teaching.
• Teachers receive less than adequate training in how to respond to disruptive student behavior.
• The percentage of challenging behavior to which teachers responded appropriately is very low and is stable across grade levels.

General Concepts Related to Disruptive Student Behavior (cont.)

• Punitive responses to disruptive behavior serve to intensify students’ sense of anger and alienation.
• Educators need to possess skills in preventing and responding to student behavior that disrupts the learning environment.
• Violent student behavior is less in schools where students perceive greater caring and support and less aggressive behavior from teachers.
• Relationship‐based discipline is associated with more responsible student behavior than is more assertive/aggressive teacher responses.

Skills Enhanced Through Problem Solving

1. Alternative potential solutions - The ability to generate different options or behavior alternatives to the consideration of the consequences of potential solutions.
2. Consequential thinking - The ability to consider the consequences of a solution.
3. Causal thinking - The ability to relate one event to another and how a particular event happened or will happen over time.
4. Interpersonal sensitivity - The ability to perceive that an interpersonal understanding exists.
5. Means–ends thinking - The step-by-step planning and consideration of alternative actions to reach a given goal.
6. Perspective taking - The ability to recognize that different individuals have different motives and facts.

Five Key Social Emotional Competencies

• Self‐awareness and understanding (assessing feelings, interests, values, strengths, maintaining self‐confidence)
• Self‐management (regulating emotions, controlling impulses, persevering in overcoming obstacles)
• Social awareness (understanding different perspectives, empathizing)
• Relationship skills (maintaining healthy relationships, resisting inappropriate social pressure, preventing/resolving interpersonal conflicts, seeking help when needed)
• Responsible decision making

Specific Methods for Increasing Students Social‐Emotional Learning and Developing More Successful School Behaviors

• Self‐management: Regulating Emotions and Behavior
• Mindfulness
• Relaxation
• Self Instruction / Self Talk
• Self Monitoring
• Self‐awareness and understanding
• Behavior specific feedback
• Brain‐behavior relationships
• Perspective taking
• Social/behavior skills development
• School behavior skills training
• Scripted social problem solving

Understanding the behavior support process

• A Behavior Support Plan includes a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP); FBA + BIP = BSP.
• School staff are able to conduct FBA’s that lead to effective BIP’s.
• Use of FBA and BIP has become a best practice process.