Co-Teaching and Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.

I n the past decade, increased emphasis on academic instruction for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) has replaced the misguided notion that teachers must focus exclusively or primarily on behavior problems before they can effectively teach students with EBD. Numerous scholars have noted that academic instruction should be the first line of defense in dealing with the prevention, amelioration, and treatment of EBD (Kauffman, 2003; Lane, Barton-Arwood, Rogers, & Robertson, 2007). At minimum, we would argue that effective instruction must go hand in hand with sound principles of classroom and behavior management if students with EBD are to experience success in school. In the absence of sound academic instruction, the most effective behavior management systems in the world will do little to prepare students for school or later-life success. Although the shift to an academic focus represents a positive step, it is important to examine the contexts in which students with EBD receive instruction. Historically, students with EBD have been educated in more restrictive settings than students with other disabilities (Kauffman & Landrum, 2006). Even as the inclusion movement set the stage for more students with disabilities to spend more time in regular education environments with their peers without disabilities, students with EBD continued to lag behind in terms of inclusion in general education classrooms (Kauffman, 2005). Currently, students with EBD are more likely than ever to spend time in general education classrooms. This includes greater participation in academic classes as students are increasingly afforded access to the general curriculum. A number of strategies have been proposed to enhance the participation and success of students with disabilities in regular classes. These range from specific academic interventions (e.g., mnemonic strategies, graphic organizers, comprehension monitoring strategies) to broader instructional or teaching arrangements (e.g., cooperative learning, peer tutoring, direct instruction). With a push toward inclusion and access to the general curriculum, driven in part by No Child Left Behind requirements and concerns about schools making adequate yearly progress across all subgroups of children, one strategy that is increasingly implemented in schools is co-teaching (Scruggs, Mastropieri, & McDuffie, 2007). Co-teaching generally refers to any arrangement in which a special education teacher and general education teacher work together in the same physical environment to provide instruction to a group that includes students with and without disabilities. A number of different models of co-teaching have been proposed (e.g., one lead, one support; station teaching; team teaching). Researchers are beginning to explore the impact of co-teaching arrangements on a broad array of student outcomes (e.g., Murawski, 2006; Scruggs et al., 2007). Although this represents a relatively new area of research, preliminary evidence suggests that co-teaching may have positive effects in a number of ways (Austin, 2001; Dieker, 2001; D. Rice & Zigmond, 2000; Walther-Thomas, 1997). Within the small but growing body of research on co-teaching, scant attention has been paid to students with EBD, making it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the potential impact of this type of teaching arrangement on outcomes for this population. Indeed, research on specific interventions with students formally identified as having EBD is not readily available across all potential interventions and teaching practices from which educators must choose. In light of this, Landrum, Tankersley, and Kauffman (2006) suggested that a useful approach may be to delineate specific targets for intervention based on some generalizations about the behavior and learning needs of students with EBD and then to evaluate interventions relative to their potential to produce positive change in these targets. Based on this model, we will evaluate the potential impact of co-teaching on outcomes for students with EBD. Because co-teaching is increasingly used in schools as one mechanism for including students with disabilities in regular academic classes, and because students with EBD are among those students more and more likely to be included in these classes, it is important to consider what the existing research base offers as guidance to teachers. It is also essential to encourage more targeted research on the effects of this teaching arrangement on the performance and outcomes for students with EBD. In this article, we (a) provide a brief overview of the learning and behavioral characteristics of students with EBD with an emphasis on specific targets for intervention, (b) define coCO-TEACHING AND STUDENTS WITH EBD