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.

Prevalence of children with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) is a critical component in the discussion of underidentification of children served in special education. This discussion has previously focused almost exclusively on point prevalence or the number of children with EBD presumably needing services at any single point in time. Cumulative prevalence, on the other hand, is the number of children who have had EBD at some point in their lives before high school graduation. In the authors’ review of both types of prevalence, they found that estimates of the latter far exceed those of the former, significantly highlighting the service gap that exists between prevalence estimates and special education identification. Even when point prevalence is limited just to children with moderate or severe disorder, special education identification in the emotional disturbance category appears restricted to less than the bottom tenth of all children in need. Implications for special education are discussed, including issues around underidentification, misidentification, underservice, and related issues concerning children with EBD.

No abstract

Popular rhetoric supports prevention, but action does not match the rhetoric. Legitimate concerns are promoted to primacy, precluding preventive action. Prevention may be thwarted by expressing overriding concernfor labels and stigma, objecting to a medical model andfailure-driven services, preferring false negatives to false positives, proposing a paradigm shift, calling special education ineffective, misconstruing the least restrictive and least intrusive intervention, protesting the percentage ofchildren receiving services, complaining that special education already costs too much, maintaining developmental optimism, denouncing disproportional identification, defending diversity, and denying or dodging deviance. The mechanisms explaining the avoidance ofprevention include delayed negative reinforcement ofprevention, immediate positive reinforcement ofcompeting behaviors, social punishment of prevention, and modeling. Implications for practice are suggested

The rhetoric of the social model of disability is presented, and its basic claims are critiqued. Proponents of the social model use the distinction between impairment and disability to reduce disabilities to a single social dimension-social oppression. They downplay the role of biological and mental conditions in the lives of disabled people. Consequences of denying biological and mental realities involving disabilities are discussed. People will benefit most by recognizing both the biological and the social dimensions of disabilities.

Exceptional learners is the term used in the United States to refer to students with disabilities (as well as those who are gifted and talented). The majority of students with disabilities have cognitive and/or behavioral disabilities, that is, specific learning disability (SLD), intellectual disability (ID), emotional disturbance, (ED), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The remaining have primarily sensory and/or physical disabilities (e.g., blindness, deafness, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy). Many of the key research and policy issues pertaining to exceptional learners involve their definitions and identification. For example, prior to SLD being formally recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in the 1970s, its prevalence was estimated at approximately 2% to 3% of the school-age population. However, the prevalence of students identified for special education as SLD grew rapidly until by 1999 it reached 5.68% for ages 6 to 17 years. Since then, the numbers identified as SLD has declined slowly but steadily. One probable explanation for the decrease is that response to intervention has largely replaced IQ-achievement as the method of choice for identifying SLD. The term intellectual disability has largely replaced the classification of mental retardation. This change originated in the early 2000s because of the unfortunate growing popularity of using retard as a pejorative. Although ID used to be determined by a low IQ-test score, one must also have low adaptive behavior (such as daily living skills) to be diagnosed as ID. That is the likely reason why the prevalence of students with ID at under 1% is well below the estimated prevalence of 2.27% based solely on IQ scores two standard deviations (i.e., 70) below the norm of 100. There are two behavioral dimensions of ED: externalizing (including conduct disorder) and internalizing (anxiety and withdrawal) behaviors. Research evidence indicates that students with ED are underserved in public schools. Researchers have now confirmed ADHD as a bona fide neurologically based disability. The American Psychiatric Association recognizes three types of ADHD: (a) ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive Type; (b) ADHD, Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type; and (c) ADHD, Combined Type. The American Psychiatric Association recognizes two types of ASD: social communication impairment and repetitive/restricted behaviors. The prevalence of ASD diagnosis has increased dramatically. Researchers point to three probable reasons for this increase: a greater awareness of ASD by the public and professionals; a more liberal set of criteria for diagnosing ASD, especially as it pertains to those who are higher functioning; and “diagnostic substitution”—persons being identified as having ASD who previously would have been diagnosed as mentally retarded or intellectually disabled. Instruction for exceptional children, referred to as “special education,” differs from what most (typical or average) children require. Research indicates that effective instruction for students with disabilities is individualized, explicit, systematic, and intensive. It differs with respect to size of group taught and amount of corrective feedback and reinforcement used. Also, from the student’s viewpoint, it is more predictable. In addition, each of these elements is on a continuum.

Special education is experiencing great pressures toward change. We face three immediate tasks created by these pressures: keeping the issue of place in perspective, choosing idea over image, and avoiding fanaticism. To achieve substantive reform, we must disaggregate special education populations, repair and elaborate our conceptual foundations, and strengthen our empirical base. Lasting change is more likely to be achieved by persistent, mundane, but carefully chosen activities than by fashionable actions and images of radical reform.

Ten characterizations of contemporary special education and five major implications for the future of the field are offered. Special education today is characterized as (a) ignorant of history, (b) apologetic for existing, (c) preoccupied with image, (d) lost in space, (e) unrealistic in expectations, (f) unprepared to focus on teaching and learning, (g) unaware of sociopolitical drift, (h) mesmerized by postmodernist/deconstructionist inanities, (i) an easy target for scam artists, and (j) immobilized by anticipation of systemic transformation. The implications are (a) changes in the boundaries of special education, (b) shifts in service delivery patterns and staffing patterns for special educators and in special education's relationship to general education, (c) changes in state standards and patterns of funding for special education and in personnel preparation, (d) additional changes in state and federal legislation and regulation, and (e) possible loss of special education's focus on the scientific understanding of instruction. A final note of optimism is offered, as special education is a relatively young profession with a history that includes reliable research and considerable capacity for self-correction. We could turn our attention unambiguously and forcefully to empirical research—generating reliable common knowledge of effective instruction of students with disabilities.