Time: 7 Hours

Intended Audience: General Education Teachers and Special Education Teachers K-12

Short Description:

·      We will cover an overview of the causes of targeted behaviors and how they can be remediated through simple changes. 

·      Research indicates students with Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD) are educated in an inclusive setting, they have better behaviors. However, little has been done to prepare general education classroom teachers for the types of behaviors that can occur when a child has EBD tendencies.

·      Dr. Riffel will share the Three R’s for building a classroom that is conducive to learning for the students with and without EBD. She will share ways to Revise the Environment to set the student up for success. She will share ways to teach Replacement Behaviors that help the student “save face” by not having everyone know what behaviors they are working on in the classroom. Finally, she will share ways to Reframe our Response so we are feeding the replacement behaviors and extinguishing the targeted behaviors.

Long Description:

·      Overview: A child is considered for an EBD label in Georgia if they have one or more of the following criteria to the point that it impedes learning:

• An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers. For preschool-age children, this would include other care providers.
• An inability to learn which cannot be adequately explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.
• Consistent or chronic inappropriate type of behavior or feelings under normal conditions.
• Displayed pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
• Displayed tendency to develop physical symptoms, pains or unreasonable fears associated with personal or school problems.

·      Long term implications are that if students with EBD are co-taught in the general education classroom rather than a separate setting they fare better in high school and beyond. There are less reports of behavioral issues when this is done well (https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=maed) .

·      Dr. Riffel will share a story of a large school district she consulted in that was housing their students with EBD in separate rooms. The students with EBD had more referrals and lower grades than their peers. After a thorough examination of the behaviors and through field observations her recommendations were to disband all the separate EBD classrooms, put the special education teachers in the classrooms as co-teachers and put the students with EBD in the general education classes. They moved from “being babysat” to actually performing as well as their peers when they were challenged by interesting work and had role models that demonstrated how to self-regulate and use their words to make their point understood. The staff received training on how to teach self-regulation and voicing opinions appropriately to all students. The staff also received training how to change the set-up of the classroom to help students feel connected to each other.

·      Dr. Riffel will also share physiological things that are important considerations when working with students with the EBD Label.