Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Emotional disorders are often referred to as “psychological disorders” that appear to affect mood, feelings, and behavior that impact relationships, daily life, and learning (Bullis et al., 2019).
The following are the different categories of emotional and behavioral disorders.

Disruptive Behaviors

• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
  • This is a persistent pattern of angry, irritable mood, defiant behavior, and vindictiveness towards authority, such as parents, teachers, or adults.
• Conduct Disorder
  • This is a behavioral and emotional disorder characterized by a consistent pattern of aggressiveness that tends to violate others’ rights. Individuals who have this disorder tend to engage in bullying, physical fights, cruelty to people and animals, vandalism, and destructive behavior.

Emotional Disorders

• Personality Disorders
  • Paranoid Personality Disorder-
    • This is a pattern of suspicion or distrust towards others’ motives or intentions.
  • Schizoid Personality Disorder
    • This is a condition where there is detachment from social relationships and limited emotional expression.
  • Schizotypal Personality Disorder
    • This is characterized by a pattern of discomfort in close relationships, along with distorted cognition and perception, and eccentric behavior.
  • Antisocial Personality Disorder
    • This is characterized by disregard and violation of the rights of others. Individuals who have this disorder are afraid of being abandoned, have emotional outbursts, inflict self-harm, and have unstable moods.
  • Histrionic Personality Disorder
    • This is characterized by a strong need to be the center of attention.
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder
    • This is a condition in which people who have this disorder possess an excessive need for admiration. They often feel that they are important, which results in a lack of empathy. They also tend to exaggerate their achievements, expect special treatment, and exploit others.
  • Avoidant Personality Disorder
    • This is a pervasive pattern of social anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to rejection or criticism.

Anxiety Disorders

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
  • This is a mental health condition characterized by excessive and uncontrollable worry about everyday things.
• Panic Disorder
  • This is a sudden, intense feeling of fear and discomfort. Individuals who have this can feel chest pains, panic, and extreme fear.
• Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
  • This is an intense fear of being judged, embarrassed, or humiliated.
• Specific Phobia
  • This is an extreme fear of a specific object, situation, or activity that poses little to no actual danger.
• Agoraphobia
  • This involves fear and avoidance of a place or situation where escape might be difficult, or help would not be available if panic-like symptoms occur.
• Separation Anxiety Disorder
  • This is an excessive fear or anxiety about separation from a loved one (parent, guardian).
• Selective Mutism
  • This is a disorder where a person can speak but is unable to speak in specific social situations (school, party, etc.).

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Related Disorders

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • This is characterized by persistent obsessions and repetitive behaviors or compulsions performed to reduce distress or prevent a feared event.
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder
  • This is a preoccupation with perceived flaws or defects in one’s appearance.
• Hoarding Disorder
  • This is a persistent difficulty throwing or parting with possessions, regardless of their value, due to the perceived need to save them.
• Trichotillomania (Hair-Pulling Disorder)
  • This is a recurrent and irresistible urge to pull out hair from the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, or other parts of the body
• Excoriation (Skin-Picking)
  • This is recurrent skin picking resulting in infections, scarring, and bleeding

Elimination Disorders

• Encopresis (Fecal Incontinence)
  • This is an involuntary or intentional passing of stool into inappropriate places.
• Enuresis (Urinary Incontinence)
  • This is also known as “bedwetting”. This is an involuntary or accidental repeated urination into bed or clothes.

Feeding Disorders

• Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
  • This is a condition characterized by a lack of interest in eating, avoidance based on sensory characteristics of food, or concern about aversive consequences of eating that leads to weight loss, nutritional deficiency, or dependence on feeding supplements.
• Pica
  • This is an eating disorder in which individuals who suffer from this compulsively eat non-nutritive or non-food substances.
• Rumination Disorder
  • This is the regurgitation of food after consumption.
• Functional Dysphagia
  • This is a swallowing disorder characterized by difficulty swallowing food or liquid.
• Food Neophobia
  • This is a reluctance or fear of new or unfamiliar foods.
• Anorexia Nervosa
  • This is an extreme restriction of food intake for fear of gaining weight or having a distorted body image.
• Bulimia Nervosa
  • This is a disorder characterized by uncontrolled consumption of large amounts of food in a short period. This often results in vomiting, excessive exercise, or fasting.
• Binge-Eating Disorder
  • Like Bulimia Nervosa, a person who has this disorder eats an unusually large amount of food in a short time. Unlike Bulimia, an individual with this condition does not experience vomiting, do excessive exercise, or engage in fasting, resulting in obesity.

3. Language and Communication Disorders

• Expressive Language Disorder
  • This is a condition where individuals who have this disorder have difficulty expressing their thoughts and ideas, though they understand the meaning or purpose of what others say.
• Receptive Language Disorder
  • This is a disorder where persons have difficulty understanding or processing the language they read or hear.
• Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder
  • This is a combination of both difficulty using and understanding the language
• Articulation Disorder
  • This is a condition where individuals have difficulty producing speech sounds correctly and fluently.
• Fluency Disorders
  • The most common of these is Stuttering. Stuttering is characterized by involuntary prolongation, blocking, or repetition of words, sounds, or syllables.
• Voice Disorders
  • This is a condition affecting the quality, loudness, pitch, or resonance of a person’s voice.
• Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder
  • This includes problems with social interactions affecting the social use of verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Aphasia
  • This is caused by brain damage, affecting a person’s ability to speak, understand, read, and write.
• Apraxia of Speech
  • This affects brain pathways involved in coordinating the muscle movements needed to say words, syllables, and sounds.
• Dyslexia
  • This is also known as a “reading disability” which affects accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Signs of this include difficulty decoding words,slow reading, spelling mistakes, or difficulty rhyming.
• Hyperlexia
  • This is a condition where an individual reads well beyond the expected age but struggles to understand spoken and written language.

Causal Factors of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

1. Biological Factors – These factors include family history (genetics), brain abnormalities, neurochemical imbalances, prenatal exposures, and birth complications.
2. Psychological Factors – These may include poor self-image, difficulty managing feelings and emotions, and cognitive deficits.
3. Family Factors- These may be attributed to parental abuse or neglect, poor discipline, family conflict and problems, and parental mental illness or substance abuse.
4. School-Related Factors- Negative school experiences like bullying, peer rejection, poor teacher-student relationships, and academic failure can be contributing factors for emotional and behavioral disorders.
5. Environmental and Socio-Cultural Factors- These can be linked to external factors, including poverty, community violence, cultural dissonance, and media influence

Characteristics of Learners with Communication and Language Disorders

Here are some observable characteristics of learners with communication and language disorders.

• Difficulty pronouncing speech sounds correctly or omitting sounds altogether
• Knows or uses fewer words
• Struggling to understand instructions, questions, or concepts
• Trouble forming phrases and sentences, using correct grammar, or retrieving the right words when speaking or writing
• Needing more time to understand what is said or asked
• Struggles using language in a social setting
• Tends to repeat sounds, words, or syllables
• Voice may be hoarse, too loud or soft, monotone, or have an unusual pitch
• Difficulty in reading comprehension, written expression, spelling, and verbal instructions

Assessment and Interventions

Assessment and Interventions for Emotional and Behavioral Disorder

• Behavior Assessment System for Children
  • This is a tool to measure the interpersonal competencies of children and adolescents.
• Conners Rating Scales
  • These are sets of questionnaires used to assess and monitor symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other behavioral and emotional problems in children and adolescents.
• Functional Behavioral Assessment
  • This is used to understand behaviors and helps design interventions.
• Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP)
  • This is used to address a specific behavior of a learner.
• Positive Behavior Support (PBS)
  • This consists of research-based strategies designed to improve the quality of life of individuals with challenging behaviors.

Assessment and Interventions for Language and Communication Disorders

• Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF)
  • This is used to assess all aspects of an individual’s communication.
• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)
  • This is a standardized test that measures a person’s receptive vocabulary and the ability to understand spoken words.
• Speech-Language Evaluation
  • This is a comprehensive assessment conducted by speech-language pathologists to determine the strengths and weaknesses of speech and language development.
• Developmental History Review
  • This is a comprehensive test of a child’s growth and development, tracking motor skills, language, cognitive development, and social-emotional development.
• Language Enrichment Activities
  • These are tasks given to the learners to improve their communication through different interactive strategies.
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
  • These are supplementary to replace spoken language for individuals who have difficulty pronouncing words.

Below are some classroom practices to help learners with emotional and behavioral disorders

• Establish classroom rules
• Reinforce positive discipline
• Be consistent with discipline
• Show genuine care
• Use behavioral and emotional assessment to determine learners’ needs
• Develop positive relationships with the learners
• Reward positive behavior
• Focus on catching learners doing the right thing
• Include in the lessons self-control, empathy, and conflict resolution
• Use role-playing or social stories to model appropriate behavior
• Identify and document triggers, replacement behaviors, and reinforcement strategies
• Implement behavior interventions
• Create a calm-down corner with stress-relief tools

Below are classroom practices to help learners with language and communication disorders.

• Use interactive or communicative teaching strategies
• Maximize macro skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing)
• Ignite learners’ interests through varied teaching strategies
• Reinforce all communication attempts, including gestures and partial speech
• Paraphrase what the learners say or indicate to confirm understanding
• Use linguistic or language scaffolding
• Incorporate tactile and visual cues like pictures and 3D projects
• Be aware of learners’ communication and language needs
• Model good speech
• Consult experts (speech-language pathologists) if necessary
• Be aware of alternative forms of communication
• Be patient when the learner is speaking
• Provide verbal cues frequently
• Give constructive feedback
• Seat the learners in a place that allows frequent monitoring
• Adapt Individualized Education Programs
• Collaborate with parents/guardians about the learners’ needs