Relationship of Behavioral Characteristics to Educational Needs

Autor: Joyce Alexson, Esther Sinclair
Rok vydání: 1992
Předmět:
Zdroj: Behavioral Disorders. 17:296-304
ISSN: 2163-5307
0198-7429
0083-0003
DOI: 10.1177/019874299201700408
Popis: The present study focused on children referred to a psychiatric outpatient facility from the regular classroom for evaluation of behavioral and school-learning prob lems. Behavioral problems noted during the initial evaluation for each child were coded according to a master list of over 60 behavioral characteristics grouped into seven broad categories: conduct disorders, emotional disorders, social relation ship disorders, attentionsI disorders, hyperactivity, language disorders, and devel opmental delays/physical disorders. Then classroom placement recommendations were made by a school interdisciplinary team and categorized according to four classroom integration options ranging from total integration to integration for less than 1-2 hours daily. Results indicate general trends in the relationship between placement option(s) and the incidence and severity of presenting behavioral pro files. The meaning of these results is discussed in relation to research that empha sizes the lack of concordance between clinical, psychoeducational test profiles, psychiatric classification schemes, and classroom placement recommendations for special education students. An extensive body of research has been devoted to the behavioral characteristics attributed to various categories of exceptionality. Accumulated evidence suggests that while behav iorally disordered children can be distinguished from normal children on the basis of their behavioral characteristics or behavioral presentation, other groups of special-needs excep tional children cannot be distinguished from one another on the basis of behavioral charac teristics or a behavioral profile (Bullock, Wilson, & Campbell, 1990; Safran & Safran, 1987; Stainback & Stainback, 1984). The research in this area appears to follow two general lines of investigation. The first line deals with the behavioral similarities of children identified in different categories of spe cial education. For example, Hallahan and Kauffman (1977) concluded that learning dis abled (LD), mentally retarded (MR), and behaviorally disordered (BD) children shared many behavioral similarities. Gajar (1979, 1980) also found similarities among these three special education groups on affective, cognitive, and demographic variables. The clinical/behavioral similarities among LD and BD children have been widely discussed (Bryan, 1978; Cullinan, Epstein, & Lloyd, 1981; Epstein & Cullinan, 1983; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1986; Wright, 1974), as have those among MR and BD children (Russell & Tanguay, 1981; Wehman & McLaughlin, 1979). Thus, while the behavior profiles of children with various special educa tion labels often reveal more similarities than differences (Olson, Algozzine, & Schmid, 1980; Sinclair, Forness, & Alexson, 1985), the diagnostic significance of this fact has yet to be firmly established. The second line of investigation focuses on the similarities in behavioral and academic achievement presentations among children with behavior problems irrespective of their spe cial education eligibility label (Bender, 1987; McKinney & Forman, 1982; Sinclair & Alexson, 1986; Webster & Schenck, 1978). Apart from identifying children in need of special education by differentiated behavioral profiles (Fiedler & Knight, 1986; Forness, Sinclair, & Russell, 1984; Simpson, 1989), there is the issue of the definition of behavioral disorders as a distinct category (Benson, Edwards, Rosell, & White, 1986; Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders, 1987, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1990; Forness & Knitzer, 1990; Smith, Wood, & Grimes, 1988). Focusing on behav iorally disordered children, teachers and school psychologists have been unable to agree on the evaluation protocol and informational content of the psychoeducational reports, let alone Preparation of this manuscript was supported by Grant No. G008300036 from the U.S. Office of Education. 296 [Vol. 17 No. 4 296-304] August 1992 Behavioral Disorders This content downloaded from 207.46.13.158 on Tue, 15 Nov 2016 03:54:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms how the information should be interpreted (Adelman, Taylor, Fuller, & Nelson, 1979; Morris & Arrant, 1978; Smith, Frank, & Snider, 1984). Relatedly, school psychologists reading the same psychoeducational reports frequently disagree on nomenclature and often interpret evaluation results differently (Sinclair, 1980; Sinclair & Kheifets, 1982). In an attempt to clarify the issue of differentiating among categories of exceptionality, var ious authorities have focused on the relationship between the diagnostic scheme utilized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (known as DSM lll-R, American Psychiatric Association, 1987) and the multiple criteria utilized by states and local school systems to determine eligibility. Available evidence suggests that the two classifications do not fit well together (Rutter & Shaffer, 1980; Sattler, 1983; Sinclair & Forness, 1987). The present study newly examines the relationship between psychiatric classification and special education needs by looking more directly at the clinical/behavioral observation data upon which the DSM lll-R diagnoses are based. Two questions that pertain to behavioral classification are yet to be resolved. First, do children and adolescents naturally "sort themselves" into different educational placement options on the basis of different behavioral profiles that are determined from information in psychiatric reports? Second, what is the "reliability index" among educational psychologists on the number and types of behavioral observations noted in psychiatric reports? As previ ously stated, past research suggests an inability to differentiate among most special educa tion populations on the basis of their behavioral characteristics as well as a lack of agree ment among educational psychologists when interpreting the content of psychoeducational reports. Would this finding occur with psychiatric reports as well?
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