I have discovered some good advice and a five-step plan in dealing with children with behavioral disorders. I hope that this information will be helpful to all in the furture. I have copied the information below and website below:

The advice:
A consistent approach when dealing with children with behavioral concerns most often leads to more productive and positive behaviors. It is highly recommended that you plan strategies that you can implement regularly. Whether the child is acting out, involved in conflicts, bullying, or being verbally or physically aggressive; it is important to ensure that you have positive interactions and that you refrain from calling the child 'bad', it is the behavior being exhibited that you are unhappy with and the child needs to know it is not him/her it is the behavior. Acceptable and appropriate behavior is developmental - it happens over time and is greatly influenced by parental support and guidance, peers, previous experiences and the intervention techniques employed by teachers, caregivers and parents. As 'Dr. Phil' often says: "You teach people how to treat you".
Occasionally, despite your ongoing efforts, consistent applications of interventions and techniques, some children will continue to display ongoing behavioral difficulties. You cannot be all things to your child at all times. You may need to seek the advice and assistance of professionals.
The Basics:
1. Promote self-esteem and confidence every chance you can. Catch your child doing something great and praise him/her.
2. Provide opportunities for the child to become responsible. When they take responsibility well, let him/her know.
3. Always be objective and understanding - do not lose your patience even though you are tempted to.
4. Use your best judgment at all times, remain objective and seek to understand.
5. Patience, patience, patience! Even though you may be very frustrated.

Next Steps:
1. Communicate your expectations with a minimal number of rules and routines to be followed. Think big, start small.
2. Involve the child when you are establishing rules and routines. Ask for his/her assistance. Make sure they repeat them - this will help them remember.
3. Emphasize the child's strengths and minimize the weaknesses.
Set your child up to be successful when the opportunity presents itself.
4. Provide opportunities for the child to reiterate expectations. For example: "What always needs to be done before bed?"
5. Encourage the child to participate and monitor their own behavior. For example: "What is terrific about what you're doing right now?"
6. AVOID power struggles - nobody wins!
Take time to discuss appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.
7. Routines - children with behavior difficulties benefit from clearly established routines, I can't say enough about this.
8. Role play some situations based on unacceptable behaviors and discuss them.
Set up practice situations and role play those. For example: Tommy just came and stepped on your toe, you even though he did it intentionally. How will you handle this situation?
9. Teach the skills necessary for appropriate behaviors.

The Five-Step Plan:

1. Pinpoint the behavior that you want to change. Be specific.
2. Gather your information. When does the unacceptable behavior occur? How often does it occur? Under which circumstances does it occur? What event precedes the behavior? What is the child's view of the behavior? Does the inappropriate behavior always happen when the child is alone? Supervised? With others? At a specific time?

3. Now it's time for you to interpret what the information may mean from the previous step. Give it your best shot when trying to analyze the information you've gathered.

4. Plan for Change! Now it's time to set your goals - with the child. What are the short term goals? What are the long term goals? Who's involved, what will happen. The plan for change should be collaborative between you and the child. Be specific, for instance: Johnny will not yell and scream when it's time to do homework - or time to go to bed. In your plan for change, some rewards and or a reward system should be in place. For instance, when 5 instances of appropriate behavior happens, Johnny will have .............(opportunity to indulge in his favorite activity, a new sticker book etc.

5. Evaluate how your plan is working. If it isn't working, make the necessary changes collaboratively.

Remember the preventative approach is the key to dealing with behavioral disorders. Here is the website that contained the information above for future reference

http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/l/aa061503a.htm
Good Luck from Susan Courson

I would like to share a software program that I found on the Internet. The program is designed to help influence children to earn privileges rather than expect them. It is recommended by several professionals such as, Dr. Burns, a behavioral therapist. Dr. Burns stated that through his work with children that he noticed four characteristics in children who have grown into successful adults. These four characteristics are 1. Looking at learning as a process, 2. Being goal oriented, 3. Being focused, and 4. Learning to earn privileges. More information and testimonies from professionals, organizations, and most of all parents can be found at the following website www.easychild.com. I thought that this was a very interesting concept that may be used when dealing with children who have behavioral disorders.

I hope that you find this information useful, SC

I found some information that I thought would be useful for future or expecting mothers in regards to their child's mental health.

Researchers claim that mothers who are stressed or depressed during pregnancy produce offspring who are more prone to developing learning and behavioral problems, depression and anxiety as they get older. These findings could lead to mental health screenings during pregnancy to allow treatment which prevents these risks. Stress during pregnancy also increases the risk of premature birth and low birth weights.

So it seems to me that you should try to keep your life as stress free as possible during pregnancy. Not only does it call for a safer pregnancy for you, but it also helps keep your baby safer in a number of ways.
-Chaz

There are several different types of behavior disorders. Perhaps the most common of them is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD.) ADHD is a condition where the child has a hard time paying attention to any particular thing for an extended period of time. When you compound this with hpyeractivity it makes it much more complicated because the child is more likely to be fidgety in class. ADHD can be helped with medicine. However, about 50% of children with ADHD also have some other type of behavior disorder such as opposition defiant disorer (ODD) or Comorbid Disorder. When all of these disorders are combined it is easy to understand why they are so important to treat as best as possible.
-Chaz

Here is some information on Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)

Listed below are DSM-IV symptoms for ODD:
1. often loses temper;2. often argues with adults;
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules;
4. often deliberately annoys people;
5. often blames others for mistakes or misbehavior;
6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others;
7. is often angry and resentful;
8. is often spiteful and vindictive;
For ODD to be an appropriate diagnosis, at least 4 of the symptoms listed above must be present for at least 6 months; the behavior must occur more frequently than is typical child of comparable age, and the behavior must create significant impairment in a child's social or academic functioning. In addition, the oppositional behavior can not occur only during times when a child is depressed. An important difference that you will note from the symptoms of ADHD is that none of the ADHD symptoms involve behavior that is considered to be deliberate and willful. Although children with ADHD often engage in behavior that annoy others and fail to follow through on requests, such behavior is generally not deliberately and willfully initiated.The kinds of difficulties that are associated with ODD are critically important to bring under control as soon as possible, because such behavior becomes more entrenched and difficult to change the longer it persists. In addition, children with ODD are at significant risk for the development of the more severe kinds of behavioral disturbance that is characteristic of Conduct Disorder, and the long term outcomes for children with Conduct Disorder are especially worrisome.
-Courtney Tucker

I thought that I would give you some information about some of the different types of behavioral disorders. Susan

The following are types of behavioral disorders

• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is the most common type of behavioral disorders. ADHD includes inattention and hyperactivity. Most children with ADHA have a hard time staying focused and still; however, some types do not experience inattention or diatractability traits. ADHD is a very complicated disorder with three different types. These types are combined, impulsive/hyperactivity, and inattention/distractible type.
• Conduct Disorder- displays antisocial behaviors such as running away, stealing from others, physical harm to others and signs of not being responsible.
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder- Sometimes called ODD. This type displays a negative and annoying behavior. The children usually do not cooperate well with others, are very irriatable especially with adults and authority figures.

Here are some things to do for children with behavioral disorders while they are testing.

1) Be sensitive to the student's reactions to the various aspects of assessment.
2) For each student, accumulate in his or her portfolio several examples of work (quizzes, assignments, projects) that demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter or the unit of study.
3) Make special arrangements for the student with an emotional disorder according to what their special needs are and that they do not compromise the integrity of the testing situation.
4) Stay on top of student progress through informal assessment, don't wait until it's too late to discover that there is a problem.
5) Provide private room/smaller group setting/alternative test site (with proctor present); alternatively screens to block out distractions.
-Courtney Tucker

I am going to post some general strategies for behavioral disorders.

1) Expose students with behavioral disorders to other students who demonstrate the appropriate behaviors.
2) Direct instruction or target behaviors is often required to help students master them.
3) Have preestablished consequences for misbehavior.
4) Administer consequences immediately, then monitor proper behavior frequently.
5) Determine whether the student is on medication, what the schedule is, and what the medication effects may be on his or her in class demeanor with and without medication. Then adjust teaching strategies accordingly.
6) Use time-out sessions to cool off disruptive behavior and as a break if the student needs one for a disability-related reason.
7) In group activities, acknowledge the contributions of the student with a behavioral disorder.
8) Devise a contingency plan with the student in which inappropriate forms of response are replaced by appropriate ones.
9) Treat the student with the behavioral disorder as an individual who is deserving of respect and consideration.
10) When appropriate, seek input from the student about their strengths, weaknesses and goals. 11) Enforce classroom rules consistently.
12) Make sure the discipline fits the "crime," without harshness.
13) Provide encouragement.
14) Reward more than you punish, in order to build self-esteem.
15) Praise immediately at all good behavior and performance.
16) Change rewards if they are not effective for motivating behavioral change.
17) Develop a schedule for applying positive reinforcement in all educational environments.
-Courtney Tucker

I thought my first blog would simply let you all know what behavior disorders are, and how to identify them. A young person is said to have a behavior disorder when he or she demonstrates behavior that is noticeably different from that expected in the school or community. To put it in simpler terms, it is when a child is not doing what an adult wants him to do at a particular time.
Like learning disabilities, behavior disorders are hard to diagnose. There aren't any physical symptoms. The way to determine if a child has a behavior disorder is to observe behavior patterns in her over a period of time. Here is a list of things to look for:

1.) Aggression to people and animals. Some people may say that the child is wicked to others and cruel to animals.
2.) Destruction of property- defacing school desks, graffiti, vandalism, etc.
3.) Little empathy and concern for others. Shows no feelings when another is in pain, nor remorse for unkind deeds.
4.) Takes no responsibility for behaviour. Also lies, cheats and steals easily.
5.) Disregards rules and regulations. May be openly defiant.

This is a basic overview of what behavior disorders are and a checklist of how to distinguish children with them. I hope you now have a better understanding of it.
-Chaz

Hello,
In this blog we will be discussing various behavioral disorders that affect children throughout their school years. We hope that this will be educational for you and help you in your teaching careers.