Emotional disturbance (ED) is 1 of the 13 disability categories specified under IDEIA that can allow a child to receive special education services. According to IDEIA (the definition is taken directly from the IDEIA definition in Best Practices Ch. 24), in order to qualify for special education services under the ED category, a child must demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects the child’s educational performance:
• An inability to learn which cannot be explained by limited school experience, cultural differences, or intellectual, sensory, or health factors;
• An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and school personnel;
• inappropriate types of behavior or feelings when no major or unusual stressors are evident;
• general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression;
• A tendency to …show more content…
Through RtI, all students are screened for potential difficulties very early on, which allows at-risk students to be identified sooner rather than later. These at-risk students are then given more support and effective interventions to help remediate any problems before they create severe deficits. This allows children who are struggling emotionally and behaviorally, but not to the point where they require special education services, to be identified and helped immediately rather than having to wait until they meet IDEIA ED criteria. In addition to early identification, using an RtI model eliminates the “wait to fail” model. This is extremely important when dealing with emotional and behavioral difficulties because the longer a child goes without effective intervention services, the more resistant they become when interventions are finally put in place