Technology and Emotional Behavioral Disorders

When beginning to read about students with emotional and behavioral disorders, immediately I remembered certain students that I have had in the past. Some had been diagnosed with one of these disorders, and others had not been diagnosed though I wonder if they were dealing with some of these difficulties. The definition being: the inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors. This is so broad it could be argued that most people suffer from some form of disorder. You can see where it might get tricky to classify some of these students, especially younger children where some of these behaviors are considered developmentally appropriate.

What began to spark my interest was delving into the different actions of these behaviors. Some people respond externally (arguing, hyperactive, etc.) and others deal with their issues internally (depression, anxiety, withdrawn, etc.)I had considered that people have different outlets to control these disorders but I had never tried to categorize them in this way. I found it hard to believe that these people are "accommodated" but do not qualify for special education services. Special education services were but into place to make learning a fair and equal right for all people, and personally I feel that if you are suffering from an emotional or behavioral disorder you are not given an equal chance. I can also see why more teachers are able to reference external behaviors rather than internal. For one, external behaviors stand out faster and can be seen as a "disruption" to some teachers, therefore they may take action sooner to handle these students. Secondly,  internal behaviors are harder to spot unless the student really lets you in and trusts you enough to talk to you about accommodations they may need. Reading that there is only a 1% classification rate for EBD's was astounding. I would bet that most of these people "classified" have external reactions.

After detecting these students, next is figuring out the best way to help them individually without drawing attention to them or making it stand out to the rest of the class. Assistive technology is a great tool to be used as an intervention to reduce potential triggers or to redirect the student into a positive direction. I plan to use technology to help guide these students into a positive learning direction. By giving these students the tools they need to feel successful, we may be able to change the failure rate for students suffering these disorders by giving them a fair chance to learn in their own way.