Emotional and Behavioral disorders
What is an emotional/behavioral disorder?
The category of emotional and behavioral disorders (ebd) is very broad. Almost everyone, at some point in their lives, could be classified as having an emotional and/or behavioral disorder. However, in terms of how the federal government defines emotional and behavioral disorders for children, there are more specific guidelines.
For purposes of consideration for receiving special services, a child must be classified as "seriously emotionally disturbed" or SED. The way SED is defined by the federal government is vague and can be interpreted in different ways. (see section on laws for more info). However, most states and school districts interpret the law as narrowly as possible. This result in far fewer children in the category being served (for special education) than the actual prevalance of ebd in the population suggests should be served.
General categories of emotional and behavioral disorders
To further complicate things, emotional and behavioral disorders can be defined in different ways. The psychological and medical community frequently uses the DSM-IV to classify ebd. However, this system is rarely used in the education community. Educators frequently classify students based on functional behaviors and interventions. One such classification system (Quay and Peterson, 1987) categorizes students into six categories: conduct disorder, socialized aggression, attention problems-immaturity, anxiety/withdrawal, psychotic behavior, and motor excess. The more I read about them, the more I'm not fond of any of these classification systems, and think that "categorizing" kids in these ways is not useful. Rather, I think it's better to evaluate an individual kid and treat them with mental health counseling based on his/her unique problems. Unfortunately, for purposes of receiving special education assistance or medical care (insurance), the trend is to assign everyone with some sort of code or label.
What to do if your child has an emotional or behavioral disorder
First, get a good evaluation. This should be done by a school psychologist or mental health professional (counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist). This should NOT be done by a family physician or educator; they are not qualified to make diagnosis. A good evaluation should include interviews with the student, parent, and teachers (and others involved in the students life), and testing. Ideally, this assessment process should occur over more than one time interval...ie, the entire assessment should follow the child's behavior over time, not just a one-hour thing.
Second, work as a team. Parents, students, teachers, counselors, and others should work together to help the student. A treatment plan should be devised and mutually approved of. If teachers and parents disagree, the child will probably end up not doing well.
Third, periodically re-evaluate the child. Is progress being made? If not, adjust the treatment plan.
Fourth, don't sweat it. These days there is little stigma attached to special education, or mental illness, or even to taking medications. Everyone has problems, and most people are understanding and want to work together to help.
Physical Problems:
_ Learning disabilities
_ Delay in Talking
_ Writing symptoms
_ School problems
_ Language problems
_ Reading symptoms
_ Growth failure in children
_ Delayed teeth eruption in children
_ Developmental delay in children
_ Slowed intellectual activity
_ Tallness
If a child between the ages of 3 and 5 shows two or more of these signs for more than a month, a parent would be wise to have that youngster evaluated by a child psychologist
SOCIAL PROBLEM
________________________________________
A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. Everyone would agree about some social problems, such as murders and DWI traffic deaths. Other social problems may be viewed as such by certain groups of people. Teenagers who play loud music in a public park obviously do not view it as a problem, but some other people may consider it an undesirable social condition. Some nonsmokers view smoking as an undesirable social condition that should be banned or restricted in public buildings.
Every newspaper is filled with stories about undesirable social conditions. Examples include crime, violence, drug abuse, and environmental problems. Such social problems can be found at the local, state, national and international levels. You will be focusing in the Public Policy Analyst on social problems in your own community.
Specific community locations
Your own community consists of…
• your school and your school district;
• your village, town or city;
• Your county.
The four examples of social problems above could possibly exist in all of these communities. For example, there could be a problem of increased stealing within your school or throughout the school district. Likewise, local police agencies—village, town, city and county—maintain statistics on crimes such as thefts within their jurisdiction.
When you describe the social problem in step 1, you must specify the geographical setting. Some examples include Lehman High School, the Bronx High School District, the Bronx, New York City, or New York State. As mentioned before, PPA will be used only for local and state social problems.
INTELLECTUAL PROBLEMS
• Achondroplasia ... normal intelligence
• Agenesis of the corpus callosum ... impaired mental development
• Aging ... Slight mental decline
• Agnosia ... Inability to recognize sounds, Inability to recognize people, Inability to recognize objects
• Alcohol abuse ... poor judgement
• Alternating Hemiplegia ... mental impairment
• Alzheimer's Disease ... thinking difficulty, impaired visual skills, inability to function, cognition disintegration, wandering, poor judgment
• Amphetamines ... poor judgement
• Aphasia ... trouble understanding speech
• Arteriovenous Malformation ... neurological problems
• Ataxia Telangiectasia ... Normal intelligence
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ... inability to organize oneself, inability to organize school work, difficulty managing time, difficulty with details, disorganization
• Auditory Processing Disorder ... Difficulty following instructions, Normal intelligence
B
• Barbiturate abuse ... trouble thinking
• Binswanger's Disease ... loss of cognition
• Bipolar disorder ... difficulty thinking
• Borderline Personality Disorder ... unstable relationships, difficulty with relationships
• Brain cancer ... cognitive problems
• Bulimia nervosa ... inappropriate mental attitudes
C
• Cerebral Palsy ... mental impairment, Normal intelligence
• Chiari Malformation ... mental impairment
• Cirrhosis of the liver ... degraded mental function
• Cocaine ... difficulty thinking
• Common migraine ... mental fuzziness
• Corticobasal Degeneration ... cognitive impairment
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease ... impaired thinking, impaired judgment
• Cushing's syndrome ... mental disturbances
D
• Dementia ... cognitive loss, mental decline
• Dementia With Lewy Bodies ... cognition fluctuations, cognition loss
• Depression ... difficulty thinking, relationship difficulty, mental changes, difficulty making decisions
• Depressive disorders ... difficulty thinking, relationship difficulty, mental changes, difficulty making decisions
• Diabetic hypoglycemia ... fuzzy thinking
• Drug abuse ... mental changes
• Dwarfism ... normal intelligence
• Dyslexia ... normal intelligence
• Dysthymia ... difficulty thinking, relationship difficulty, mental changes, difficulty making decisions
E
• Encephalitis ... mental changes, impaired judgement
• Encephaloceles ... normal intelligence
F
• Fetal alcohol syndrome ... intellectual impairment, problem solving difficulty
G
• Gerstmann's Syndrome ... difficulty with math, calculation dysfunction (dyscalculia), inability to distinguish right from left, inability to calculate (acalculia)
• Gulf War syndrome ... cognitive dysfunction
H
• Hangover ... difficulty making decisions
• Hashimoto's Thyroiditis ... mental slowness
• HIV/AIDS ... neurologic problems
• Huntington's Disease ... difficulty making a decision, cognitive difficulty, progressive mental deterioration, difficulty driving, difficulty learning new things, impaired judgement
• Hydranencephaly ... intellectual deficits
• Hydrocephalus ... cognition changes
• Hyperparathyroidism ... impaired thinking
• Hypoglycemia ... fuzzy thinking
• Hypoglycemic attack ... fuzzy thinking
J
• Jet lag ... cognitive difficulty, difficulty making decisions
K
• Kearns-Sayre Syndrome ... cognitive dysfunction
• Klinefelter syndrome ... normal intelligence
L
• Lupus ... trouble thinking, neurological disorders
• Lyme disease ... thinking difficulties
M
• Metachromatic Leukodystrophy ... loss of mental abilities, mental deterioration, mental deterioration, mental deterioration, mental deterioration
• Moyamoya Disease ... cognitive impairments
• Mucopolysaccharidosis I ... progressive mental disability
• Mucopolysaccharidosis II ... mental deterioration
• Mucopolysaccharidosis III ... mental deterioration in childhood
• Mucopolysaccharidosis IV ... normal intelligence
• Mucopolysaccharidosis VII ... Intellectual impairment
• Multi-Infarct Dementia ... difficulty following instructions, getting lost, wandering, problems handling money
• Multiple Sclerosis ... cognitive impairments, judgment difficulties
• Mycoplasma pneumoniae ... neurologic disorders
N
• Niemann-Pick disease ... inability to look up and down
• Noise-Induced Hearing Loss ... difficulty understanding speech
O
• Olivopontocerebellar Atrophy ... cognitive loss
P
• Panic disorder ... difficulty thinking
• Parkinson's Disease ... intellectual symptoms
• Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease ... mental deterioration
• Persistent Vegetative State ... preserved non-cognitive function, lost cognitive function
• Pick's Disease ... difficulty thinking, lack of spontaneity
• Postpartum depression ... difficulty making decisions
• Prion diseases ... severe mental impairment
• Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy ... cognition failure, mental deterioration
R
• Ramsay Hunt Syndrome Type 2 ... cognitive impairment
• Rasmussen's Encephalitis ... mental deterioration
• Rett's syndrome ... physical and neurological problems
• Reye's Syndrome ... progressive mental changes
S
• Sandhoff Disease ... progressive mental deterioration
• Schizencephaly ... normal intelligence
• Schizophrenia ... disordered thinking, Cognitive symptoms
• Septo-Optic Dysplasia ... Intellectual problems, normal intelligence
• Soto's Syndrome ... delayed cognitive development
• Spastic disorders ... mental impairment, Normal intelligence
• Stroke ... trouble understanding speech
• Sturge-Weber Syndrome ... delayed cognitive skills
• Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis ... intellectual deterioration
• Syphilis ... mental illness, neurologic problems
T
• Toxic Shock Syndrome ... mental changes
• Transient Ischemic Attack ... difficulty understanding speech
• Traumatic Brain Injury ... cognitive problems
W
• Williams Syndrome ... intellectual disability
• Wilson's Disease ... Various neurological and behavioral symptoms
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