The Availability of Program Descriptions among Programs for Seriously Emotionally Disturbed Students

Abstract

This article addresses the value of program descriptions for the field of serious emotional disturbance/behavioral disorders and presents data collected on the availability of written programs for this population of students. The development and field testing of instrumentation used to collect these and other data on the characteristics of district-wide programs for seriously emotionally disturbed children and youth are described. The availability of program descriptions was assessed in eight areas: philosophy, student needs and identification procedures, student and program goals, instructional methods and curriculum, community involvement, program design and operation, exit procedures, and evaluation. Findings indicated that relatively few comprehensive program descriptions are available to program planners and developers in the field of behavioral disorders, leading to a conclusion similar to one drawn by other writers with regard to the availability of program descriptions in the professional literature — while many high quality programs are likely to exist in the field they have not been adequately described on paper.