Student Services
Emotional / Behavioural Disorder (EBD)
Background Information
Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning uses the term EBD to refer to children with severe behaviour problems that have strong underlying emotional causes. There are many children with behaviour problems who do not have the types of severe traumatic experiences that require the behaviour intervention planning process outlined on this site.
Some children who demonstrate behaviour and social-learning problems have underlying learning difficulties that impact their abilities to learn academic and/or social skills. These children may require differentiated teaching strategies, adaptive approaches, specialized instructional strategies, and even modification to curriculum outcomes.
Others have been raised with codes of conduct, expectations, beliefs or values that differ between home and school. These differences may not be a problem until the child enters school. School-wide discipline programs and classroom management strategies may be the most effective ways to address these differences.
Other children have organic or psychiatric disorders that require specific adaptations and accommodations. Programming for some of these children is quite straightforward, based on the disorder they experience. Pharmacological and behavioural interventions seem to be effective in many situations. Sometimes it is necessary to teach the children specific interpersonal and intrapersonal strategies for dealing with problems.
Some children have life experiences that have threatened their personal survival and psychological integrity. They have learned ways of viewing life and coping with people that enabled them to survive traumatic events. They bring these views and strategies to the classroom. Programming for these children is more challenging because their need to apply survival strategies must be addressed while teaching them different interpersonal and intrapersonal strategies. This is complicated by the fact that many of these children have been harmed, failed, and even abandoned by people in positions of trust. Their trust, hope, and sense of community have been damaged. These are the children who are appropriately labelled emotionally/behaviourally disordered. They require a behaviour intervention planning process that addresses more than the organic or psychiatric disorders and does more than medicate and/or 'consequate'.
The behaviour intervention planning process presented here is designed to address the programming needs of children whose emotionally-based behavioural problems are severe. Some children, who have been more profoundly affected by their life experiences, may require even greater intensity in programming. These children may require coordinated multisystem planning which is sometimes referred to as circle of care planning. A sample of this can be found at the Individual Educational Plan Resource site for Tim.
