Supporting Student Success
Supporting students and their families can be complex, as students with EBD may exhibit a wide variety of needs. The IEP team often has many factors to consider as they develop an appropriate program to include support for social and emotional areas, communication, and motivation, all of which impact learning. Moreover, compounding circumstances occur when student behavior is challenging and disturbing to classrooms. When this happens, teachers tend to remove the student from the environment (e.g., school or classroom) or provide strong negative consequences to the student (e.g., detention, suspension, etc.). This traditional response to challenging behavior is a reactive and punitive discipline model, which assumes that students should know how to behave appropriately. This response also assumes that students willingly choose to engage in problem behavior, and that external controls are necessary to prevent these behaviors from occurring again.
However, this model does not teach students acceptable, expected, appropriate behaviors, nor does it consider the impacts of trauma and cultural differences between students’ homes and educational environments. Even though the student may respond to the negative consequences at that moment, the effects are typically short term. Relying on the reactive and punitive model can exacerbate challenging behavior in many students. In addition, all students with disabilities are protected, so punishment connected to behaviors resulting from their disability does not happen and impedes their school success (including others’ learning). The remainder of this section and the following share proactive, positive approaches to supporting students with EBD.
Functional Behavioral Assessment
For a student with EBD, those who develop the child’s IEP must consider strategies to address such behavior, including positive behavioral interventions, strategies, and supports. This is accomplished by creating a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) and Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP). Much like how an IEP team uses reading data from various sources to design a reading goal and intervention, the FBA serves a similar purpose for students with behavior that impedes learning. Behavioral data are collected by a team of educators both indirectly (e.g., interviews, document review, checklists) and directly (e.g., observations). Then, the data are synthesized and used to help teachers understand the reason(s) (i.e., function or functions) for a student’s behavior. In many cases, challenging behaviors are an inappropriate way for a student to either obtain something desired (e.g., attention, a tangible item), or avoid something not preferred (e.g., a task or activity).
After identifying the specific variables associated with behaviors of concern and their functions, the IEP team can craft the BIP. This BIP contains positive and proactive intervention(s) that will help the student learn new, more acceptable methods of getting what they want/need. It is essential that the BIP contain an appropriate replacement behavior that addresses the same function as the problem behavior and other supports to teach and reinforce the desired behavior. This also often involves adapting the environment to avoid triggers, if possible, or teaching the student alternative but specific ways of responding to the triggering circumstance in a culturally responsive manner (IRIS Center, 2021). Research into function-based intervention demonstrates its effectiveness for students with severe disabilities, multiple disabilities, ADHD, and learning disabilities, and for those with or at risk for EBD (IRIS Center, 2021).
Meet Gunter
Let us bring in Gunter (they/them), a high school junior who identifies as LGBTQ+, to see the FBA/BIP process in action.Gunter was identified with EBD as his primary disability and a speech-language disorder as their secondary disability. Their largest challenges are behavioral. They talk excessively in class and do not listen to the points of view of other students or the teacher. They have difficulty communicating with their peers and will sometimes just sit alone in the cafeteria or other common spaces. Gunter sometimes refuses to participate in classroom activities. They receive most of their instruction in the general education classroom with a small amount of time in a resource room if they become disruptive. The speech pathologist works with them on using social language, taking others’ perspectives, and developing more complex language skills (e.g., making inferences). In the general education classroom, Gunter carries a behavior plan with an agreed-upon set of rules. Their teachers sign the checklist included in the plan each day if Gunter follows the rules and participates in class without disruption. They have difficulty comprehending grade-level text and composing/writing. Gunter’s teachers and caregivers are at a loss, so they meet to create an FBA/BIP.
The IEP team determines through the FBA process that the function of Gunter’s behavior is to avoid class work and get attention. The teacher negatively reinforces Gunter’s behavior by sending them out of the classroom. The behavior is observed to occur more often during literature class. Since Gunter engages in problem behavior to get out of doing an academic task, the discipline that involves removing the student from the situation provides the result that the student anticipates (e.g., not having to complete the academic task). Although the intention is not to reinforce or strengthen the problem behavior, using a reactive and punitive discipline model can produce these unfortunate results. Instead, a function-based intervention (contained in the BIP) that Gunter’s IEP team might design could include teacher prompts to begin work, completing chunks of assignments, and then requesting teacher feedback. Further, the team should consider support for any reading and writing skill deficits.
The school psychologist reported that when she interviewed Gunter, they identified stressors at school related to identifying as LGBTQ+ that seemed to be bordering on harassment. As a result, a referral was made to a school social worker to look into the harassment, and also the school-based mental health provider was consulted do a mental health screening. Additionally, based on the results of the screening, the team may also consider adding mental health support.
The following sections contain information from Understanding and Supporting Learners with Disabilities, remixed with permission from Lombardi (2019).
Social Skills
Social skills instruction should match the needs and functions identified in the FBA. Students with EBD often need help increasing their self-awareness, self-control, self-esteem, problem-solving, and relationship skills. These skills should be taught in a culturally responsive manner in ways that do not make them seem like punishment, “preachy,” or put a student to shame in front of their classmates. For example, if a student’s behavior is maintained by getting the attention of their peers, then social skills instruction can teach the replacement behavior of self-management. If a student’s behavior is maintained by escaping peer attention, then social skills instruction can teach replacement behaviors related to peer relationship skills.
Special educators may do one-on-one or target small group instruction with a student around specific social skills. When this occurs, the general education teachers need to know about the skill being worked on to support the student in practicing the skill across settings. Depending on students’ age or grade level, one way to design these types of social skills lessons is by reading and having students curate books/stories in which the characters model good social skills. An extension of this is the reader’s theater . Still, another extension is through programs that link an older student or adult from their community as a partner to the student at risk for behavior problems. Alternatively, in the classroom, cooperative learning activities and partner work provide students who have EBD with peer mentors/models.
Shaping
“Keeping your cool” can be especially helpful when dealing with behavior that is by nature annoying or disrupting. Strategies based on behaviorist theory (also known as shaping) may prove effective for many students with EBD due to their precision and clarity. Thus, such strategies are often included in their FBAs/BIPs. There is little room for misunderstanding expectations. This precision and clarity, in turn, decrease the likelihood that you, as a teacher, will project (many times unintentionally) negative emotions onto the student. In particular, behaviorist strategies are especially effective if students need opportunities to practice social skills that they have learned only recently and may still feel awkward or self-conscious about using them (Algozzine & Ysseldyke, 2006).
Common behaviorist techniques include (1) positive reinforcement, (2) negative reinforcement, (3) extinction, and (4) generalization. The following bulleted items contain a brief description of each:
- Positive reinforcement is a means by which teachers can increase the probability that a behavior will occur in the future. A teacher uses positive reinforcement when they provide something pleasant and is often thought of as a reward.
- Negative reinforcement is also a means by which teachers can increase the probability that a behavior will occur. A teacher uses negative reinforcement when they remove something unpleasant. Negative reinforcement is often thought of as relief from something aversive (e.g., boring classwork).
- Extinction refers to the withholding of something pleasant in order to eliminate the likelihood that a behavior will occur in the future. Teachers use extinction when they ignore a student telling inappropriate jokes instead of laughing or commenting.
- Generalization means that the student can transfer learned skills to new settings, with different people, and in varying contexts. Teachers provide training on replacement behaviors or skills in various settings, with multiple people, and in different contexts. Using the same antecedents and consequences across settings supports behavioral generalization (IRIS Center, 2021).
School-based Mental Health Support
Students with EBD may have IEPs that include psychological or counseling services that are part of their function-based intervention. These are essential related services available under IDEA and are to be provided by a qualified social worker, psychologist, guidance counselor, or other qualified personnel. These services are based on individual needs, and everyone involved in their education or care needs to be well-informed about the care that they are receiving. Coordinating services between the home, school, and community are important, keeping the communication channels open among all parties involved (Center for Parent Information and Resources, 2017). For example, a special educator may provide a social skills intervention to a small group of students. Students may also participate in individual skills building or psychotherapy with a licensed mental health professional in the school – with all support based on the FBA and connected to the BIP.
Targeted Academic Support
It is clear that students who have EBD often struggle academically across content areas. However, this group tends to struggle more with mathematics than other subjects because it requires persistence, concentration, and the ability to work in an organized manner. All of these also have implications for writing, reading, and study skills. Academic interventions such as those provided by a special educator to students with SLD can also benefit students with EBD. Further, inclusive teaching arrangements such as co-teaching, where special and general educators work together in the general education setting, support students with EBD academically and behaviorally (Vaughn & Bos, 2020).
Final Thoughts
Still, students with EBD may sometimes tempt teachers to use more substantial or sweeping punishments rather than following the FBA/BIP. This is especially true in school environments where law enforcement is regularly present, as students with IEPs are more likely to receive harsher discipline in school with a police presence than those without. As shared throughout this chapter, law enforcement tightly intersects with race and the school to the prison pipeline, as a police presence in schools impacts students of color the most negatively, Instead, remember that every IEP guarantees the student and the student’s family due process before an IEP can be changed. In practice, this means consulting with everyone involved in the case —especially parents, other specialists, and the students themselves — and reaching an agreement before adopting new strategies that differ significantly from the past.
Instead of punishment, a better approach is to keep careful records of the student’s behavior and your responses to it, documenting the effectiveness of the function-based intervention and the student’s responses to any significant disruptions. By having records, collaboration with caregivers and other professionals can be more productive and objective and can increase others’ confidence in your judgments about what the student needs to succeed. In the long term, more effective collaboration leads both to better support and more learning for the student (as well as to better support for educators).
Think, Write, Share
- What were the behavioral supports that Tokala received?
- Based on the information shared in this section, how might the existing supports be improved, and what additional supports should be added? Provide a rationale for your recommendations.
- What questions or concerns do you have?