Characteristics of Emotional Disturbance Among Female Students

Abstract

This article reports data on characteristics of emotional disturbance (ED) among female students with and without ED. Teachers rated a national sample of 689 girls on the Scale for Assessing Emotional Disturbance, to measure the five characteristics of ED and a variable called social maladjustment. We compared the two categories (with ED, without ED), three school levels (elementary, middle, high), and two races (African American, European American). Girls with ED exhibited more maladaptive functioning on all variables, but category by school level and category by race interactions varied according to different characteristics. Girls with ED showed a high level of comorbid ED characteristics, again with differences by school level and race. The results have implications for understanding girls with ED and educating them appropriately.

Equity in the Evidence Base: Demographic Sampling in Intervention Research for Students With Emotional and Behavior Disorders

“…Indeed, intervention effects may reflect a gender by ethnicity interaction. Cullinan, Osborne, and Epstein (2004) posited that special education interventions and services may be more efficacious for White females with ED than their Black female counterparts with ED.…”

Oral Reading Fluency Development for Children with Emotional Disturbance or Learning Disabilities

“…Although no gender differences for students with ED were reported in initial reading level, males with ED grew significantly faster than females with ED, on measures of letter word identification and passage comprehension. However, the authors suggested this difference in reading rate might be due to the severity of learning problems among girls with ED in light of the underidentification of girls with this designation (Cullinan, Osbourne & Epstein, 2004). …”

Gender Differences in Risk and Protective Factors Among Youth With EBD: Findings From the NLTS2

“…Existing research provides some insight into the academic, social-emotional, and interpersonal functioning of females with EBD. Cullinan et al (2004), for example, used teacher ratings to assess the characteristics of females with EBD across all grade levels ( n = 218) and found that elementary females with EBD had significantly higher levels of relational problems and physical symptoms/fears compared to secondary female students with EBD. Cullinan et al also found approximately one third of their sample had comorbidity (i.e., two or more) of the five EBD criteria, indicating the needs of females with EBD may be complex and multifaceted.…”

“…Although research has identified each of the factors detailed above as salient RPFs associated with postsecondary outcomes among youth with EBD, previous research is limited in its exploration of gender differences in these RPFs, despite variation in the prevalence and presentation of EBD for males and females (Demmer et al, 2017; Lindsay et al, 2018). Current intervention approaches assume similar RPFs for both males and females with EBD (Reddy et al, 2009) and further research is needed to discover possible gender differences in the prevalence of identified RPFs to inform tailored intervention efforts (Cullinan et al, 2004; Gage et al, 2012). In the current study, we explore gender differences in RPFs for youth with EBD based on parent, teacher, and youth reports to address the following research question: To what extent do RPFs related to postschool outcomes differ between male and female students with EBD?…”

“…Failure to identify females with EBD may result in a lack of individualized services or supports designed to meet their unique needs (Kann & Hanna, 2000; Young et al, 2010). Among youth without disabilities, researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of gender-specific interventions targeting antisocial behaviors specifically for female students (e.g., Leff et al, 2007; Splett et al, 2015), and, according to Cullinan et al (2004), females with EBD may also benefit from gender-specific prevention and intervention approaches. However, studies attending to gender differences among students with EBD are scarce (Kann & Hanna, 2000; Leve et al, 2015; Pepler et al, 2010).…”