EBD = EI

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EBD = EI
By Barb

Hi,

I am from Michigan where its known as EI if I am thinking correctly. In Michigan, its Emotional Impairments...I'm thinking EBD is Emotional Behavior Disorders. Am I right? I was an EI major but am now teaching Autism
(AI, some states ASD).
If I'm right...here are a few ideas I would suggest...
One suggestion that I've heard many people use is Skillstreaming by Goldstein. I've heard this is a great social skills curriculum. You may want to look into this or something like this for your classroom.
Make sure you have a solid behavior management system with clear expectations and consequences!!!

State your expectations in the POSITIVE...not in the negative (Tell them what they SHOULD do...not what they shoud NOT do...)and clearly describe what the expected behaviors should be like. You can role play the first week or so of school of appropriate and inappropriate behavior in response to certain situations. Don't just take away from them in your management system...give them something positive to work for...i.e. after they've achieved a goal of 15 days in a row without a certain negative behavior, you can buy them a large fry from McDonald's...something like that..but make sure your rewards are something they are willing and motivated to work for...i.e. 6th graders don't really care much about stickers anymore...ya know? (just giving an example...all depends on the ages and abilities of your students)

Maybe have a time each day where students discuss social issues they've encountered at home or at school. They can in a *safe* environment (****Make sure you set ground rules on behavior, attitude, and participation***) share recent experiences and the group can discuss what they could/should do next time they are in that same situation, how to handle it, and how to help control their behavior.

Work on teaching self-management/monitoring...make the students responsible for their own behavior and consequences.

Develop behavior plans if needed. Make sure you include positive behavior supports! Discuss appropriate target behaviors.

When you teach a student about their inappropriate behavior...don't just tell them NOT to do it...give them an appropriate behavior to do instead. Have the students try to help think of appropriate, alternative behaviors together.

As far as other curriculum, are the students in a self-contained classroom or just in your room parts of the day? If you are responsible for teaching all parts of the curriculum, check in with gen. ed. teachers at the grade levels of your students to see what they use and teach for the core subjects and you can use that as a basis...just adapt the lessons to your students' needs and abilities.

I hope you can use some of these suggestions! Good luck! let me know if you have any other questions! I'd be happy to help. ;-)
Barb