There is much debate over the actual number of school age children affected by EBD. The debate is a result of all the controversy that surrounds the definition of emotional and behavioral disorders. Since there is disagreement among schools, medical professionals, and mental health professionals as to what defines someone as having EBD, results in disagreement over the data that is put together to represent this disability (Friend, 2014). The IDEA data, which is collected federally states that, 387,368 students age 6 to 21 received special education services as emotionally disturbed during the 2010-2011 school year, making this the fifth-largest disability category” (Friend, 2014, P.216). These numbers can be translated to: 6.7 percent of all
