Description/Definition
An emotional disturbance (ED) is a major uncontrollable emotional or behavioral condition, which impairs the individual to a significant degree and does not allow the child or adolescent to profit from conventional educational services. It is most often used to refer to children and adolescents in school systems. An emotional disturbance is not caused by any obvious physical abnormalities of the brain, although research in the last two decades has begun to show a neuropsychological base for these disorders (Hartlage and D’Amato 2008). Children and adolescents with ED are called by many similar names including students who are behaviorally disabled (BD), emotionally disabled, psychologically and emotionally handicapped, emotionally disordered, and emotionally/behaviorally disabled (EBD).
While services have been provided from some public schools for more than a century, it was in 1975 that PL 94–142 required all schools to serve students with ED. At this time,...
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References and Readings
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Wu, F., Chang, L., D’Amato, R.C. (2018). Emotional Disturbance. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1453
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