Teaching Students with Emotional Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

There are few challenges as daunting as achieving positive outcomes for students with emotional disabilities. A major obstacle is the generally poor quality of classroom instruction. Too few general education teachers or special education teachers possess the knowledge and skills to adequately serve this population of learners. Various factors account for the inadequate level of teacher preparation, including licensure requirements that emphasize quantity over quality, the research-to-practice gap, a train-and-hope rather than a train-and-coach approach to teacher preparation, and the absence of an infrastructure to support sustained use of evidence-based practices. I discuss each of these factors and offer some recommendations for improving the quality of teacher preparation and, in turn, the potential for more positive student outcomes.

Citation

Gable, R.A. (2014), "Teaching Students with Emotional Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities", Special Education Past, Present, and Future: Perspectives from the Field (Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 117-140. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0735-004X20140000027008