Teaching Online Social Skills to Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders often lack appropriate social skills. This deficit can lead to negative outcomes including peer and teacher rejection, increased behavioral problems at school, and decreased academic achievement. In order to improve the social outcomes of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, teachers will often implement direct and explicit instruction of appropriate social skills in the natural environment. Increases in the use of technology for academic and social interaction have created a new natural environment where students participate. This environment has its own set of social rules and norms that users must understand. No published results were found related to the online social skills needed for interaction in online environments or related to the best way to teach these skills to students with emotional and behavioral disorders. In order to increase access to this environment, it is important for researchers to determine the skills needed for participation as well as the best methods for addressing these skills in school environments. This study focused on teaching eight online social skills to students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Two instructional conditions were compared, traditionally-based online social skills instruction that involved practice of the skills in paper-and-pencil format and online social skills instruction that involved practice of the skills in online social environments. Data were compared to determine the effects on v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would not be where I am today without the guidance, knowledge, and support of the faculty who served on my committee. First, I give sincere gratitude to Dr. Kyle Higgins for her encouragement, direction, guidance, and sense of humor throughout the dissertation process. Words can never express how integral she was throughout my entire program. I also thank Dr. Susan Miller for her patience and willingness to lend an ear in times of stress and need. I am grateful to Dr. Tom Pierce for his mentorship, leadership, and support throughout my entire doctoral program. I thank Dr. Randall Boone for his excitement and direction throughout this project, and his support in tackling a subject in its infancy. Finally, I thank Dr. Richard Tandy for his statistical expertise and guidance in interpreting the results of the data analysis. As a group, your leadership and guidance throughout this entire program have been second to none and are greatly appreciated. I take your lessons with me, and will carry them for the rest of my life. I would like to thank all of the teachers, paraeducators, students, and families who agreed to participate in this study. Your excitement and willingness to implement the lessons that were designed allowed this dissertation to take place. I also thank my friends and colleagues for your support, encouragement, humor, and love during some of the highest and lowest points of this program. You are all wonderful. Finally, and most importantly, I must thank my family. I thank my mothe...

Improving Engagement in the Virtual Environment Through Culturally Relevant Expectations and Parent Collaboration for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

“…For students with EBD, who typically exhibit challenging behavior in the classroom and may struggle to successfully interact in the traditional school environment, the virtual environment may be beneficial as the use of technologies has been shown to improve outcomes for students with EBD (Cumming, 2013; Kern, 2015). When provided with explicit expectations, training, and practice via virtual instruction, students with EBD have been shown to be successful in online classroom environments (Hirsch et al, 2021; Morgan et al, 2016). These successes can be further supported with consistent communication and engagement with parents of students with EBD (Crouse et al, 2018; Hirsch et al, 2021; Smith et al, 2016).…”

That Really Escalated Quickly—Online Learning Moves Into the Mainstream: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Other articles from JSET and other journals from the field of special education have also focused on online learning for students with disabilities. For example, Morgan and his colleagues (2016) taught students with disabilities online social skills in an online environment. Fitzgerald and colleagues (2012) used an online strategy instruction approach for supporting reading abilities of students with learning disabilities.…”

“…The coming years need to be filled with remediation and high-quality instruction to help these vulnerable and underserved students make needed gains. That being said, despite numerous obstacles, positive learning in the online environment is possible (Fitzgerald et al, 2012; Morgan et al, 2016; Straub & Vasquez, 2015; Sublett & Chang, 2019).…”

Using Assistive Technology to Generate Social Skills Use for Students With Emotional Behavior Disorders

“…The most effective technologies are those that address a student’s functional need, ability level, and student context differences (Camargo et al, 2014). The likelihood of general education teachers providing higher implementation fidelity increases when strategies involving assistive technologies are easy to implement, require minimal time for teacher-to-student assistance, and result in an immediate and noticeable change in student behavior (Fitzer et al, 2007; Morgan et al, 2016; Sutherland, Lewis-Palmer, Stichter, & Morgan, 2008). One type of assistive technology that has been demonstrated to possess these characteristics is video modeling (VM).…”

“…E-books and VSM can be used to promote students’ independent skill use through personalization, ease of mobility, and the provision of rich detail about where, when, and with whom identified social skills can be used. Using the e-book as a vehicle for students to create and implement VSM alleviates the teachers’ need to do so and relieves difficulties cited in previous studies on teacher-implemented VSM (Fitzer et al, 2007; Morgan et al, 2016; Sutherland et al, 2008).…”