Emotional or Behavioral Disorders

If surveyed across several generations, casual inquirers would not be hard-pressed to discover differing attitudes about current behavior challenges in schools today. While many structures have been established and documents written, one cannot deny the changes in focus that are now required to accommodate new attitudes and behaviors in many children in our public education system. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act maintains a formal definition of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) which led to this disorder being included in the list of IEP-warranted classifications. Children who exhibit symptoms within the listed criteria often are identified as demonstrating predominately externalizing behaviors (the most common) or internalizing behaviors (Heward, 2009). Getting out of seat, yelling, blurting out, hitting, fighting, complaining, excessive arguing, lying, stealing, non-compliance and destruction of property are some examples of externalizing behaviors. Contrarily, internalizing behaviors may include limited peer interactions, daydreaming, fantasies, fear of certain things, frequent complaints of being sick or hurt and feelings of depression (Heward, 2009)