Emotional+Behavioral+Disorders

=﻿Learning Traits/Behavioral Characteristics:=

Definition:
Often difficult to define. Difficulties in defintion arise from inconsistent defintions of what is "appropriate" mental health and "normal" behaivor. Also the prescence of emotional problems or problematic behavior may be a result of another disability category affecting the student's abiltity to perform appropriately. Areas of agreement between current defintions include:
 * Extreme behavior, or behavior that is consistently and noticeably outside the norm
 * Chronic emotional or behaivoral problems, exist in multiple environments
 * Engagement in behavior or emotional states that are deemed unnacceptable by the community in which they occur

The National Mental Health and Special Education Coalition proposed the follwoing defintion that is widely accepted.
 * Emotional or Behavioral Disorder (EBD) refers to a condition in which behavioral or emotional responses of an individual in school are so different from his/her generally accepted, age appropriate, ethnic or cultural norms that they adversely affect performance in such areas as self care, social relationships, personal adjustment, academic progress, classroom behavior, or work adjustment.
 * EBD is more than a transient, expected response to stressors in the child's or youth's environment and would persist even with individualized interventions, such as feedback to the individual, consultation with parents or families, and/or modification of the educational environment.
 * The identification of EBD must be based on multiple sources of data about the individual's behavioral or emotional functioning. EBD must be exhibited in at least two different settings, at least one of which is school related.
 * EBD can co-exist with other disabilities.
 * This category may include children or youth with schizophrenia, affective disorders, anxiety disorders, or who have other sustained disturbances of behavior, emotions, attention, or adjustment

Characteristics:

 * **Intelligance and Achievement**: Students with EBD often demonstrate less than average intelligence. Students with EBD often demonstrate academic acheivement at a much lower rate than same age peers. One common myth of students with Emotional and Behavioral disorders is that they are not impacted academically or cognitively, years of investigation have shown this to not be the case.
 * **Social and Emotional Characteristics:** Students identified with eomotional/behavioral disrders may often be rejected socially by peers or drawn to socailize with deviant peers. Students with EBD are generally described as having either //externalizing// or //internalizing// behavior.
 * **Externalizing**: This type of disordered behavior involves acting out towards others or self. These students are often aggressive verbally or physically, may cause damage to property, and/or act out in other disruptive fashions.
 * **Internalizing**: This type of disordered behavior often involves more mental or emotional difficulties and is most often associated with disorders such as depression, anxiety, and delusional behavior.
 * *** Students may consistently demonstrate both internalizing and externalizing behavior. For example a student suffering from depression may act out aggressively towards self or others, or may disrupt learning environemnts for adult or peer attention***