Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology
School-Related Behavior Disorders
Download 9.82 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- What Is Wrong With Behavior Disorders 518
- Promoting Skills Acquisition 525 Enhancing Skills Performance 526 Removing or Eliminating Competing
- Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders 513
- CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING THE FIELD OF BEHAVIOR DISORDERS
- The Current Landscape of Behavior Disorders as a Field
- What Is Right With Behavior Disorders
School-Related Behavior Disorders HILL M. WALKER AND FRANK M. GRESHAM 511 CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING THE FIELD OF BEHAVIOR DISORDERS 513
The Current Landscape of Behavior Disorders as a Field 513 What Is Right With Behavior Disorders? 514 What Is Wrong With Behavior Disorders? 518 ADOPTION AND DELIVERY OF EVIDENCE-BASED INTERVENTIONS 522
THE CONTENT OF SCHOOL INTERVENTIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH BEHAVIOR DISORDERS 523
CONCLUSION 527 REFERENCES 527 The focus of this chapter is on the behavior disorders of chil- dren and youth, which are increasingly manifested within the context of schooling. Children by the thousands now appear at the schoolhouse door showing the damaging effects of prior exposure to family-based and societal risks (abuse, ne- glect, chaotic family conditions, media violence, etc.) during the first 5 years of life. Our society has begun to reap a bitter harvest of destructive outcomes among our vulnerable chil- dren and youth resulting from such risk exposure and from our seemingly diminished capacity to rear, socialize, and care for them effectively. It is now not uncommon for as many as half of the newborns in any given state to suffer one or more risk factors for later destructive outcomes and poor health (Kitzhaber, 2001). The characteristics, needs, and demands of these children and youth have overwhelmed the capacity of schools to ac- commodate them effectively. Ironically, our school systems have been relatively slow to recognize the true dimensions of the challenges that these students pose to themselves, to the social agents in their lives, and to the larger society. Recent estimates by experts of the number of today’s youth with significant mental health problems reflect the destructive changes that have occurred in the social and economic condi- tions of our society over the past 30 years. Angold (2000) estimated that approximately 20% of today’s school-age chil- dren and youth could qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Fourth Edition (DSM-IV; American Psychologi- cal Association, 1994). Hoagwood and Erwin (1997) argued that about 22% of children and youth enrolled in school set- tings have mental health problems that warrant serious atten- tion and treatment. Slightly less than 1% of the school-age population is served as emotionally disturbed under provi- sions of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA, 1997), which illustrates the enormous gap that currently exists be- tween need and available supports and services for these stu- dents in the school setting. In a recent Washington Post investigative report on the changed landscape of problem behavior and its impact on schooling, Perlstein (2001) provided elaborate documentation of the increasingly outrageous forms of behavior displayed by younger and younger children and concluded that our schools are “awash in bad behavior” (p. B1). She described elementary school students who defied their teachers and called them obscene names, who threatened them with physi- cal violence, who attacked their peers for no apparent reason, who brought drugs and weapons to school, who destroyed classroom furnishings when disciplined, and whose parents denied their child’s culpability in these incidents and refused to take ownership or responsibility for dealing with them. In addition, Perlstein provided compelling evidence of national trends involving the rising use of school suspensions and ex- pulsions of very young children, the creation of school-based detention centers, and investment in alternative educational
512 School-Related Behavior Disorders programs and personnel—all increasing dramatically at the elementary school level. Educators perceive the costs of these accommodations as taking dollars away from needed school reform efforts designed to increase educational accountability and achievement levels. The larger society has finally begun to express concern about our troubled children and youth and to assemble experts from multiple disciplines to create policy, develop legislative initiatives, and construct action plans that will address this growing national problem. For example, in September 2000, the U.S. Surgeon General convened a national conference on children’s mental heath, involving a collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Educa- tion, and Justice, to develop a national action agenda that balances health promotion, disease prevention, early detec- tion, and universal access to care. This conference produced an influential report titled Report of the Surgeon General’s Conference on Children’s Mental Health: A National Action Agenda, which provides a blueprint for action on this critically important topic. In a more reactive vein, the widely publicized school- shooting tragedies of the 1990s have shocked us into action and cast a national spotlight on the problems that young peo- ple daily experience with bullying, emotional abuse, and ha- rassment at the hands of their peers. It is estimated in media reports that approximately 160,000 U.S. students miss school each day because of bullying. When mixed with mental health problems (severe stress and anxiety, depression, paranoia) and the desensitizing effects of pervasive exposure to violence in the media, the toxic consequences of bullying can pose a real risk of tragic outcomes in the context of an abused student seeking revenge—a recurring pattern that we have seen in school shootings. Kip Kinkle, who went on a school-shooting rampage at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, in 1998 after murdering his parents, was an exemplar of this combination of destructive attributes. The Thurston shooting prompted a collaborative effort between the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice (in which the senior author was a participant) that created a national panel of experts who pro- duced two resource guides sent to every school in the country: Early Warning/ Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools and Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide. Implementing Early Warning, Timely Response. The first document focused on warning signs and early detection; the second provided guidelines for implementing the Early Warning/Timely Re-
Schools have now realized that these complex problems cannot be dealt with through a business-as-usual approach. School administrators are searching for and considering an array of strategies that will help make schools safer and more effective; they are now open to prevention approaches in ways that have not heretofore been in evidence. The spate of tragic school shootings over the past decade prompted a strong investment in school security technology by educators and created pressures for the profiling of potentially danger- ous, troubled students. Neither approach has been demon- strated as particularly effective in making schools safer or free of the potential for violence. Profiling has very serious downside risks for student victimization through damage to reputations (Kingery & Walker, 2002). School administrators have been generally open to, but less enthusiastic about, investing in comprehensive, positive, be- havioral-support approaches that (a) create orderly, disci- plined school environs; (b) establish positive school cultures; and (c) address the needs of all students who populate the school. Perhaps this is the case because these programs require up to 2 years for full school implementation. Two of the best known and most cost-effective approaches of this type are the
tervention programs developed respectively by Horner, Sugai, and their associates at the University of Oregon and Knoff and his associates at the University of South Florida. Both of these proven model programs are profiled in Safeguarding
The development of comprehensive interagency collabo- rations that address primary, secondary, and tertiary forms of prevention is an investment that schools have yet to make to any significant degree. However, to reduce and actually reverse the harm caused by the broad-based risk exposure experienced by today’s children and youth, it will be neces- sary to scale up and mount such collaborative initiatives with good integrity (Eddy, Reid, & Curry, 2002). Behaviorally at-risk children and youth provide a funnel through which the toxic social conditions of our society spill over into the school setting and destructively impact the capacity of our schools and educators to provide for these vulnerable students the normalizing and protective influences of schooling. This growing student population increasingly stresses and disrupts the teaching-learning process for every- one connected with schooling. The peer cultures of schools grow ever more corrosive, and there are more incidents of challenges to school authority and operational routines by angry, out-of-control students. School personnel, perhaps un- derstandably, regard members of this student population with suspicion because of the large number of school-shooting tragedies that have occurred over the past decade. At the other end of the spectrum, significant numbers of today’s students experience severe anxiety and depressive disorders primarily of an internalizing nature. Critical Issues Affecting the Field of Behavior Disorders 513 This chapter focuses on the topic of behavior disorders (BD) in the context of schooling and is written from the perspective of the school-based professionals (school psy- chologists, special educators, school counselors, early inter- ventionists, behavioral specialists) who are specialists in addressing the needs and problems of this behaviorally at-risk student population. Herein, we address three major topics as follows: (a) the critical issues that have shaped and continue to influence the field of behavior disorders; (b) the adoption and delivery of proven, evidence-based strategies that have the potential to divert at-risk students from a de- structive path and that contribute positively to school engagement and academic success; and (c) the content of in- terventions for addressing the adjustment problems of BD students within the school setting. The chapter concludes with some brief reflections on the future of the BD field and directions it should consider for its future development. CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING THE FIELD OF BEHAVIOR DISORDERS BD professionals working in higher education and school and agency settings are uniquely positioned, and qualified, to have a positive impact on the needs, challenges, and prob- lems presented by the behaviorally at-risk student popula- tion. They have intimate knowledge of schools and their cultures; they know instructional processes and routines; and they are experts in behavior change procedures. No other professional combines these types of skills and knowledge. As a rule, BD professionals are strongly dedicated to improv- ing the lives of these children and youth through the direct application of the strategies and techniques that they have been taught for changing behavior in applied contexts. How- ever, as our society’s problems have worsened, the results of their intervention efforts look less and less impressive in the face of schools that have been transformed into fortress-like structures and student populations that continue to be out of control.
The BD field has developed some seminal contributions to our understanding of school-related behavior disorders along with methods for addressing them, but this knowledge base and these proven practices are often not in evidence in the daily operation of schools. The gap between what is known and proven and what is practiced is no where greater than in the field of school-related behavior disorders. This section is divided into two major topics that focus, respectively, on “What is Right with Behavior Disorders?” and “What is Wrong with Behavior Disorders?” We believe that the critical issues affecting the BD field can be effectively illustrated using this dichotomy. Before dealing with this set of issues, however, we would like to put the BD field in context relative to its role as a resource to schools in dealing with behav- iorally at-risk students and its status as a subspeciality of the larger field of special education. The Current Landscape of Behavior Disorders as a Field The field of behavior disorders, as a disciplinary subspecialty of general special education, is a relatively new field dating from the early 1960s. Frank Wood (1999) recently profiled the history and development of the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders (CCBD) in this regard. Although encompassing diverse philosophical and theo- retical approaches, the field has generally maintained a consistent focus on empirical research and has provided im- portant journal and monograph outlets for the contributions of its researchers and scholars. The Journal of Behavioral Disorders, the CCBD Monograph Series, the Journal of Emo- tional and Behavioral Disorders, and Education and Treat- ment of Children are excellent examples of peer-reviewed publications that publish high-quality research and commen- tary in the BD field. These outlets and their respective editors have advanced the field’s development and have contributed enormously to the cohesive knowledge base that we see today relating to the social, emotional, and behavioral status of at-risk children and youth in the contexts of school and community. The field of behavior disorders can trace its roots to the use of behavior change procedures with mentally ill children and youth within highly restrictive settings (mental institutions, residential programs) and to the delivery of mental health services for the emotional problems of vulnerable children and youth within school and community settings. Over the past three decades the number and severity of the problems manifested by children and youth, who are referred to as having emotional disorders (ED) or behavior disorders, have changed substantially (Walker, Zeller, Close, Webber, & Gresham, 1999). Early in our field’s development the children and youth referred and served as having emotional disorders had primarily mental and emotional problems (depression, social isolation, self-stimulatory forms of behavior, etc.). Problems representing critical behavioral events, sometimes involving a danger to self and others, such as severe aggres- sion, antisocial behavior, vandalism, cruelty to animals, and interpersonal violence, were rarely dealt with by BD professionals. It is clear that thousands of young children in our society are being socialized within chaotic, abusive family and com- munity contexts in which they are exposed to a host of risk 514 School-Related Behavior Disorders factors that provide a fertile breeding ground for the develop- ment of highly maladaptive attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral forms. These risk factors can operate multiply on an individ- ual across family, community, school, and cultural contexts. They are registered in unfortunate life paths that are often tragic and involve huge social and economic costs. We now see comorbid mixtures of syndromes (conduct disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD) in school-age children that are efficient predictors of adult psychopathology (see Gresham, Lane, & Lambros, 2000; Lynam, 1996). Professionals in the field of behavior disorders are charged with effectively accommodating this changed population of children and youth within the context of schooling. The pres- ence, risk status, and intense needs of these students place powerful stressors on the ability of schools to serve them; they present a continuing and significant challenge to BD professionals and to the field. Increasingly, educators are having to forge partnership arrangements with mental health and other social service systems in order to meet the needs of these individuals, their families, and their caregivers. In our view, the field of behavior disorders possesses the knowledge and skills necessary to accommodate the majority of behaviorally at-risk children who must be served by schools. However, for those children who enter the school- house door having severe tertiary-level involvements, schools will find it necessary to continue forging effective partnership arrangements with nonschool service systems such as mental health. We see this development as a positive one that should be promoted and enhanced. The advent of family resource centers, attached to school districts, provides an excellent ve- hicle for the coordination and delivery of such approaches. Today, BD professionals at all levels are challenged as they have never been before. Continuing to serve students having mental health needs primarily under the aegis of the ED category of special education is no longer viable. The in- tensity of need and the sheer numbers of affected individuals are simply too great, and the consequences of not serving this growing student population are both tragic and ominous. Schools, in collaboration with community agencies, must find new ways of responding to this service need that contin- ues to grow and expand. The BD professional can play a powerful role in building a new service delivery infrastruc- ture for meeting this critical need and making sure that schools are key players in developing viable solutions to this societal problem that we all own collectively.
Because of the quality of the BD field’s cadre of profession- als, its consistently empirical focus, strong commitment to best and preferred practices, and the diversity and rigor of its methodological tools and approaches, the field has a well- developed capacity to contribute innovations that can lead (a) to important outcomes in the lives of youth with emo- tional disorders and (b) to the enhancement of the skills and effectiveness of online BD professionals (Walker, Sprague, Close, & Starlin, 2000). Many of these contributions can be documented as they operate currently within general educa- tion contexts. Some examples include the following: • The roots of many standards-based school reforms and performance-based assessment systems can be traced to behavioral psychology and applied behavior analysis. • The current emphasis on teaching social skills as part of the regular school curriculum to reduce conflicts and pre- vent violence results from initiatives by BD and related services professionals. • The development of behavior management approaches for managing student behavior in specific school settings re- sults from prototype models developed by the BD field. In recent years the BD field has contributed some advances that (a) increased our understanding of how behaviorally at- risk children and youth come to engage in and sustain their destructive, maladaptive behavior patterns over time; (b) doc- umented how some of our interactions with students with emotional disorders in teaching-learning situations control both teacher and student behavior in negative ways; (c) pro- vided for the universal screening and early identification of school-related behavior patterns that facilitate effective early intervention; (d) documented the relationship between lan- guage deficits and conduct disorder among at-risk children and youth; (e) investigated the metric of disciplinary referrals and contacts with the school’s front office as a sensitive mea- sure of the following school climate, the global effects of schoolwide interventions, and the behavioral status of indi- vidual students; (f) developed effective, low-cost models of school-based intervention that allow access to needed ser- vices and supports for all students in a school; (g) contributed schoolwide, disciplinary and positive behavioral support sys- tems that improve outcomes for the whole school; (h) re- ported longitudinal, comprehensive profiles of the affective, social-behavioral status of certified, referred, and nonreferred students; and (i) developed the concept of resistance to inter- vention for use in school-based eligibility determination and treatment selection decisions (Walker et al., 2000). Ulti- mately, these advances will improve the BD field’s capacity to meet the challenges and pressures of a changed population with emotional disorders and to address proactively the vul- nerability of schools in preventing and responding to the violent acts of very disturbed youth such as Kip Kinkle |
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling