In Need of a Research Base: Evidence-Based Reading Interventions for Elementary Students With Overlapping EBD and LD

Students with or at-risk of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) often have reading difficulties and/or undiagnosed learning disabilities (LD). Reading challenges among this group of children and youth often exacerbate associated emotional and/or behavioral problems. This systematic review and quantitative synthesis yielded seven studies focused on improving the reading outcomes of students with or at-risk of EBD at the elementary school level. Summarized are participant and reading intervention characteristics across the seven studies. Effect sizes were calculated for each study, and results are reported for both academic and behavioral outcome measures. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Keywords: emotional and behavioral disorders, reading interventions, elementary school, research synthesis