Teaching Practices in Classrooms for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: Discrepancies between Recommendations and Observations

Abstract

An important issue in the study of classrooms for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) concerns understanding teacher behavior and the teacher-student interaction patterns as coactive forces in the development and maintenance of problem behavior. Recent descriptive work in the area of teacher-student interactions suggests that teachers are employing less than optimal teaching practices. This article highlights a number of recommended best teaching practices, selectively reviews the research literature on teacher interactions in classrooms for students with E/BD, provides a possible interpretative framework for the apparent discrepancies, and makes recommendations for future research in this area.