Intervention Research for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: Who Are We Serving? A Scoping Review and Call to Action

Abstract

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) represent a diverse group of individuals, often characterized by internalizing and/or externalizing behavior patterns and comprised of students receiving special education services and those who do not. As the field seeks to identify evidence-based practices for students with EBD, we need a better understanding of the characteristics of students included under the umbrella of EBD. To accomplish this task, we conducted a hand search of the last 10 years (2015–2024) of intervention research within four prominent journals in the field of EBD. Our search yielded 102 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Once identified, we coded articles in terms of student, setting, and study characteristics, with particular focus on the procedures for screening, identification, and evaluation, to better understand the students sampled within EBD intervention research. Implications of these findings, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. These findings point to a call for future researchers to engage in (a) clear distinction of EBD terminology; (b) explicit standards for the identification and description of student participants; (c) inclusion of students with internalizing, externalizing, and co-occurring behavior patterns; (d) combined or comprehensive interventions to support the complex needs of this population; and (e) more intervention research.