ABSTRACT
The federal definition above drew heavily, indeed nearly verbatim, from one provided by Bower (1960, 1981), based on his research with thousands of children with what he termed “emotional handicaps.” Though Bower’s original defi nition was deemed far from perfect (see Kauffman & Landrum, 2009), it provided a logical and workable framework for thinking about EBD in the context of schools. Among the diffi culties with Bower’s defi nition were the meanings and interpretations of such terms as “to a marked degree,” and “over a long period of time.” These obviously call into question what are normal, versus abnormal, emotional or behavioral responses. While much of Bower’s language represented challenges of interpretation, the statements added to Bower’s work when the federal defi nition was developed, in contrast, “come close to making nonsense of it” (Kauffman & Landrum, p. 18). One addition was “that adversely affects a child’s educational performance” in section (i), which is diffi cult to interpret both in terms of what counts as adverse effect and what is meant by educational performance (failing grades? some number of disciplinary referrals? suspension or expulsion from school?). Moreover, might a student exhibit one or more (or even all) of the characteristics enumerated in A-E, thus demonstrating signifi cant emotional or behavioral diffi culties, yet still earn passing marks in school, and thus be ineligible for services under this category?
