An Observational Study of the Rate of Academic Engagement for Children with Emotional Disturbances in Different Educational Settings : Public School and an Alternative School

Historically, students with behavioral difficulties have been educated in self-contained rooms or in separate educational settings. Recently, the educational field has moved to teaching students with special needs in an inclusive setting. In such an environment a child may be able to thrive, learn new behaviors, and make academic progress. While inclusion for students with an emotional behavioral disorder (EBD) should be maintained as a goal, the reality is that many students with EBD have a very difficult time in inclusive settings (Bullock & Gable, 2006). The focus for the current study was to examine the level of academic engagement of two students with EBD who are transitioning from an alternative educational setting to the regular educational setting. It was hypothesized that students with EBD who are transitioning would exhibit higher levels of academic engagement and task management behavior in the alternative educational setting and lower levels of competing response behaviors in the alternative setting. Results indicated inconsistent levels of academic responding, task management and competing response behaviors between the students in the different educational settings. Implications of the current findings and recommendations for future research are discussed