Social Behavior of Students Who Are Seriously Emotionally Disturbed

Abstract

The social behavior of students who are seriously emotionally disturbed sets them apart from their normative classroom peers. This article provides a quantitative analysis of intervention studies dealing with the social behavior of seriously emotionally disturbed students. Social behavior was broadly defined as including social skills deficits, behavior under inadequate stimulus control, and inappropriate behavior in the classroom. Of the 28 studies located, 11 dealt with some aspect of social skills and 17 with inappropriate classroom behavior. Each study was analyzed with respect to (a) the age, gender, and classification of the subjects; (b) the setting, referral source, and therapist; (c) the dependent and independent variables; (d) type of evaluation design used; (e) reliability of the dependent and independent variable; (f) social validation; (g) programmed generalization, maintenance, and follow-up; (h) measurement of collateral behaviors; (i) functional analysis of the target behavior; and (j) efficacy rating of the results on a 3-point scale. The results are presented and discussed in terms of current status and implications for future research.

Social Skills Training for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: A Review of Reviews

“…Nine reviews were narrative (Ager & Cole, 1991;Coleman, Wheeler, & Webber, 1993;Holinger, 1987;Landrum & Lloyd, 1992;Mathur & Rutherford, 1991;Olmeda & Kauffman, 2003;Schloss, Schloss, Wood, & Kiehl, 1986;Templeton, 1990;, three were meta-analytic (Beelmann, Pfi ngsten, & Losel, 1994;Mathur et. al., 1998;Quinn, Kavale, Mathur, Rutherford, & Forness, 1999), and one was "quantitative" (Singh, Deitz, Epstein, & Singh, 1991). This last review used a method of developing coded categories across studies that could be numerically summarized.…”

Social Skills Training for Youth With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and Learning Disabilities: Problems, Conclusions, and Suggestions

“…Eight reviews focused on students with EBD. Five were narrative (Ager & Cole, 1991;Hollinger, 1987;Olmeda & Kauffman, 2003;Schloss, Schloss, Wood, & Kiehl, 1986;Zaragoza et al, 1991) , two were meta-analytic (Mathur et al, 1998;Quinn, Kavale, Mathur, Rutherford, & Forness, 1999), and one was quantitative (Singh, Deitz, Epstein, & Singh, 1991). The quantitative review used a methodology of developing coded categories across studies that could be numerically summarized.…”

“…One review focused solely on single-subject design studies (Mathur et al, 1998) whereas another focused solely on group design studies (Quinn et al, 1999). Three reviews reported on both single-subject and group designs (Ager & Cole, 1991;Olmeda & Kauffman, 2003;Singh et al, 1991), whereas three others did not specify the design type (Holinger, 1987;Schloss et al, 1986;Zaragoza et al, 1991).…”

Principles and Practice of Behavioral Assessment

“…Several papers (e.g., Lennox, Miltenberger, Spengler, & Efanian, 1988;Singh, Deitz, Epstein, & Singh, 1991) have examined the frequency with which behavioral intervention decisions are based on preintervention data on behavior problems or functional relations. All studies lead to similar inferences: Intervention decisions were most often based on nomothetic causal models of the behavior problems and infrequently based on a functional analysis of behavior problems and functional relations.…”