Emotional Behavior Disorder - Case Study Example

Issue of Practice Paper Emotional Behavior Disorder (EBD) can be loosely defined as condition in which a child’s apparent emotional problems are manifest in their behavior; it is mostly applied in the educational context. Prior to the 19th century, children who behaved or functioned differently from the rest of their colleagues were often ill-treated and isolated, for example leaners with deviant behavior would be labeled imbecilic, morons or any one of many degrading tags. They were generally assumed to academically incompetent by virtue of their undeveloped social skills and therefore little special attention was given, instead they were condemned. Although students with emotional problems were more tolerantly receive after the 18th century, it was only in 1975 that they were formally recognized and included in the Individuals with disabilities act (Glassberg, Hooper & Mattison, 1999). The objective of this paper is to carry out a research EBD as a teaching practice issue and examine the various possible solutions that can be applied assisting teachers to understand and handle the affected learners so they provide quality education in spite of the challenge. EBD children present one of the biggest challenges to teachers today owing to the fact that their behavior makes it considerably difficult for teachers and fellow students to interact with them. They often exhibit disruptive and sometimes dangerous behaviors such as acting out and fighting; they will use this and other methods to express fear or depression. The fact that EBD is often accompanied by low academic performance provides a further complication to teachers who have to contend with a binary challenge, on average, it is estimated that in elementally school EBD leaners ranks at 1.2-2 grade levels behind their peers. As they move up, the problem worsens and by high school they are often well under 3.5 grade levels behind their colleagues (Trout, Nordness, Pierce, & Epstein, 2003). EBD learners generally experience general instruction to a lesser degree in comparison to youth with disabilities, it is estimated that 16% of EBD learners receive their education from special education setting while only 9% of disabled learners do. EBD is unique in that, unlike transient responses to stressors in a child, which can easily be managed through individual intervention, EBD persists despite efforts remedial action such as consultation with parents and even modification or the leading environment. For a leaner to be categorized under EBD, the need to exhibit EBD in at least two differentiated settings one which is directly related to the school environment, it is worth noting that EBD can also coexist with other disabling conditions both psychological or and physical. Under this there are children with schizophrenia, affective or anxiety disorders, many who have undergone or sustained psychosocial disturbance and /or have adjustment that are likely to fall under this category. For example, children and youths who have been previously incarcerated in juvenile detention or who are parenting are exhibit EBD behavior as a result of difficulties in adjusting. At the end of the day, it is the duty of the teacher to develop teaching methodologies that will enable the them to successfully impart knowledge in all their students irrespective of their EBD status, this requires profession and social skills which can only be fully acquired through experience. Take for example a scenario in which student talks back to the teacher curses them and even walks in an out of class at leisure acting in a very disruptive and competitive manner even toward other learners. This are the stressor that teacher will often experience when dealing with EBD an owing to the inadequate skills many teachers hold, the end result is a tense classroom with other student trying to respond to the affected one and the teacher stuck in the middle (Rockwell, 1993). For effective teaching and learning, teacher student and student and fellow student needs must develop a working chemistry because a great deal of learning involves interpersonal interaction. In the long run, the goals and objectives of teaching transcends the short run since what the learners acquire in their formative years is a key determinant in respect to their future personal and profession lives. The scope of education goals is diverse since various individuals participate in the process with different end in mind. To be successful in handling such scenarios, the teacher must be very vigilant firm and professional, for example they may need to create a behavioral plan for the student. When as student’s acts out they may be given a verbal warning or two and after that predetermined action taken against them, furthermore, wherever possible there should be an outlet for a student to claim and collect him/herself. However one can confidently summarize although not all inclusively by postulating that the major objective of education is to provide learners with the requisite social intellectual and professional skills and competences that they require to adapt and integrate themselves in the world in various capacities (Mendler, 1994). This objective will only be achieved if the learning environment is conducive and accommodates the needs of all the leaners irrespective of their inherent differences. However, when a teacher is dealing with special needs children, such as in the case of EBD, they will find it difficult to distribute their attention to the class evenly since the EBD learners need to be looked after more than the rest. Some teachers try to deal with this by ignoring them or having them removed from the class or ignore them entirely which is made difficult by their tendency for disruption. Ideally, a teacher should balance the need of the various learners so that he/she does not end up neglecting some of them at the expense of others. These calls for a high level of professionalism and many teachers are unfortunately not trained well enough to handle the pressure, end result is in many cases is the high school dropout rate when environment becomes too stressful for them. Bearing in mind that students with EBD are often unable to acquire and master the basic academic qualifications that are essential for normal functioning in societies, the dropout rate only serves to underline the failure to achieve the educational objectives (Gunter & Denny, 1998). It is notable that in spite of the evidence of poor academic performance in the EBD leaners, it most of the intervention has been based on behavioral change as opposed to academic performance. While it is important to address the psychological issues, current research shows that special needs children actually benefits more form improved academic performance than counseling. This is likely because high academic performance serves as a boost for self-esteem and in the long run, it stands to improve the graduation rate and reduce the dropout rates. Counseling by itself is primarily focused on the problem instead the child, therefore to improve the child in an all rounded way, a good teacher should strive to maintain a balance between problem centered and child centered solutions. However, this is only possible if there is cooperation and support from the schools and education system as whole including parents, government and policy makers, (Mooney, Epstein, Reid, & Nelson, 2003). Recently, researchers at the university of Nebraska center for the at risk center services carried out a study based on the intervention of literature for purposes of improving academic skills and performance of leaners with EBD. The researchers divided the intervention in categories of peer mediated, self and teacher mediated and they studied the effects of the different mediations in various applied scenarios. In conclusion, it was found that these interventions produced positive outcomes among the participants and the recommend that whenever possible educators should try to integrate these methods when dealing with EBD students (Nelson, Benner, & Mooney, 2008). For the study, each of the researcher were required facilitate one of the three intervention by acting as the lead author and then they would combine the results of their study to make comparison and conclusions. For the peer interventions, there were several strategies to be followed; they included class wide peer and tutoring in which each student is given a chance to participate as a tutor or tutee. Then there was the corporative tutoring system in which the students make up teams through which the tutor each other jointly based on particular weaknesses and strengths. Others include peer assessment and peer modeling in which they would evaluate each other performance and try to copy the best in a given area respectively. The result was quite positive as the researchers found that peer to peer teaching helps the EBD student improve their interpersonal communication while at the same time building up their academic performance and building up self-esteem. The self-evaluation on the other hand include five steps namely self-monitoring in which a student would take part in a two stage process of observing an d recording personal behavior. Self-evaluating in which they would carry out assessment of their performance and self-instruction where they would use a self-statement to direct behavior, then there is goal setting which allowed them to determine the objective they wanted to meet and finally instruction in which they would be though test that they were expected to independently apply at problem solving. The third intervention directly involved the teacher although to a significant extent he only served as a bridge between the students and each other as he tried to foster communication. It involves numerous stages test and inter-student competition determine to challenge the learners problem solving skill, improve their critical thinking and make the disciplined and able to effectively communicate. Of the three methods of intervention, teacher mediated intervention was rated highest owing to the fact that over 90% of the studies revealed a positive outcome. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the other intervention were unsuccessful infect overall the study and other after it proved that intervention is very useful in helping EBD leaners boost their performance and get a fighting chance in a regular class (Pierce, Reid & Epstein, 2004). Given that there is verifiable evidence that poor academic frequently leads to negative outcomes for students with EBD both in the short and long run, such as a high rate of dropping out and lifelong one such a frustration and low esteem educators need to address the deficiencies that these students suffer. Educators and policy makers have the onus to incorporate the evince based procedure such intervention methods in schools, as a matter of fact, the importance of acts like the no child left behind act of 2001 was for schools to ensure that schools focus on education technique san method s whose effectiveness has been verified. After carrying out this research I discovered several things that were hitherto unknown to me about the students diagnosed with EBD, for one I realized that EBD affected learners were classified as students with disabilities. I had previously assumed that for one to be considered disabled they had to have distinct physical or mental problem which make it difficult for them to fully integrate with the “normal” society. Therefore it came as a surprise to learn that the number of students in special schools and institution as a result of EBD are more than those in similar institutions owing to disability in the conventional sense. However and understanding of the concept make it plausible that that should be the case, EBD learners after all tend to be more likely to directly try to sabotage the learning process when they act out or star fights and disputes with teacher and fellow learners. Nonetheless it is evident that despite the difficulties involved, teacher and educators can work together to facilitate their learning especially since they probably need more education attention than the normal students. Given their predisposition for aggressiveness moodiness and other characteristic that are embodied by learners with EBD they often have a higher chances of dropping out and developing social problem outside school such as drug use and crime (Davis, Young, Hardman andWinters, 2011). Consequently, on the strength of contemporarily and Ex post facto research, it is incumbent of the stakeholders involved in the provision of education for the EBD learners take remedial action and they are given as a good a chance as the other children. References Davis, S.D., Young, E.L. Hardman Susan, and Winters, R. (2011) Screening for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Retrieved from http://www.nassp.org/Content/158/pl_may11_schoolpsych.pdf Glassberg, L. A., Hooper, S. R., & Mattison, R. E. (1999). Prevalence of learning disabilities at enrollment in special education students with behavioral disorders. Journal of Behavioral Disorders, 25, 9-21 Gunter, P. L., & Denny, R. K. (1998).Trends and issues in research regarding academic instruction ofstudents with emotional and behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 24, 44-5 Mendler, A. (1994). Behavior management in the inclusive classroom. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Problems, 3(3), 59-60. Mooney, P., Epstein, M. H., Reid, R., & Nelson, J. R. (2003). Status and trends of academic intervention research for students with emotional disturbance. Remedial and Special Education, 24, 273-287. Nelson, J. R., Benner, G. J., & Mooney, P. (2008). Instructional practices for students with behavioral disorders: Strategies for reading, writing, and math. New York: Guilford. Pierce, G. D., Reid, R., & Epstein, M. H. (2004). Teacher-mediated interventions for children with EBD and their academic outcomes. Remedial and Special Education, 25, 175-18 Rockwell, S. (1993). Tough to reach, tough to teach: Students with behavior problems. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children. Trout, A., Nordness, P. D., Pierce, G. D., & Epstein, M. H. (2003). Research on the academic status of children with emotional and behavioral disorders: A review of the literature from 1961 to 2000. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 11, 198-210. Read More