Academic,Social,and Behavioral Profiles of Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Educated in Self-Contained Classrooms and Self-Contained Schools: Part I—Are They More Alike than Different?

Abstract

It is assumed that students with EBD who have more severe deficits in academic, behavior, and/or social domains are placed in more restrictive settings. However, this assumption has not been empirically tested. This study compared students educated in self-contained classrooms to students educated in a self-contained school to determine if the academic, behavioral, and social deficits of students educated in the more restrictive setting actually have greater deficits. Results indicated that students educated in self-contained classrooms had higher academic skills than students educated in a self-contained school as measured by standardized and curriculum-based measures. However, teacher report data did not support these findings. Although there were some behavioral differences in students educated in these two settings, there were no differences in social skills, which were also assessed using teacher reports. Collectively, these variables explained a substantial amount of the difference (43% of the variance) between the students educated in these two settings. Limitations and directions for future research are offered.