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Students who exhibit emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) typically have high frequencies of disruptive and noncompliant behavior including physical and verbal aggression (VA). Physical aggression attracts great concern from school professionals yet VA is often overlooked, despite being a highly pervasive and harmful social act. We surveyed 279 first to 12th grade teachers of students with EBD to assess their perceptions about the harmfulness of VA, students’ intent to harm, their concern about the frequency and/or intensity of VA, and concern about types of verbally aggressive messages. We investigated if these perceptions differed when teachers considered students with EBD compared with typical peers and if special education certification related to responsiveness to VA. The majority of teachers reported that VA was either somewhat or very harmful and perceived students with EBD to be just kidding around and not intending to hurt others when perpetrating VA. Compared with noncertified colleagues, certified teachers reported more concern about VA, more intent to harm when students with EBD exhibit VA, and they were more likely than their noncertified counterparts to report the use of a structured intervention/curriculum to reduce VA. We discuss implications for special education teacher preparation and offer suggestions for further research.

School professionals may provide behavioral support for students using a tiered framework of intervention. Students who display problem behaviors and sustained resistance to interventions within these tiers may require special education services under the category of emotional and behavioral disorders. By the time students receive special education services, they will have experienced changes in intervention intensity, such as increased behavioral reinforcement or modification of functional assessment‐informed individualized behavior plans. Yet, simply intensifying interventions quantitatively (more frequent reinforcement or progress monitoring) may not increase sufficiently students’ abilities to function successfully in school, because their needs may require behavioral and social‐emotional skills instruction. Evidence highlights the importance of skill‐based instruction that is sequenced, active, focused, and explicit. Therefore, after discussing current educational practices, we describe an intensive intervention that is responsive to student behavioral excesses and deficits through explicit skill instruction delivered through special education services, and consider research and practice implications.

Verbal aggression (VA) is the most prevalent form of aggression perpetrated, experienced, and witnessed by students with victims experiencing a variety of adverse outcomes. Furthermore, VA is known to contribute to physical aggression, especially for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Despite the high prevalence, researchers suggest that school personnel may not understand the harmful nature of VA. We summarize research about VA, suggest schoolwide initiatives, and propose effective interventions for perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.