A Corrective Teaching Approach to Replace Undesired Behaviors in Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) typically exhibit significant behavioral excesses or deficits that interfere with their learning and sometimes that of their peers in the classroom. These behaviors can generally be described as either external and easily noticed (e.g., disruption, aggression) or internal and easily overlooked (e.g., withdrawal, anxiety). Both types of behavior, however, contribute to a lack of external and internal motivation. A lack of intervention for this population of students usually results in low grades, school dropouts, and even incarceration (Wagner, 1995). Across many school districts today, intervention teams composed of teachers, administrators, parents, and other student supporters are working collaboratively to design appropriate academic and behavioral instruction to benefit students with EBD. In this article the authors define the concept of "corrective teaching" in the context of producing a change in the behavior of students with EBD. They describe when corrective teaching can be used, provide steps to using this approach, and demonstrate its efficacy through a case study.