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Special education in the USA is, in most respects, a 20th century phenomenon and is now governed primarily by federal legislation first enacted in 1975. The federal law in its most recent reauthorization (2004) continues to require a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students with disabilities, a full continuum of alternative placements (CAP) ranging from residential or hospital care to inclusion in general education, an individual education plan or program (IEP) for each student identified as needing special education, and placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) that is thought best for implementing the IEP. Parents must be involved in the special education process. Approximately 14 percent of public school students were identified for special education in 2004–2005, but the number and percentage of students identified in most high-incidence categories as needing special education have declined in recent years (the total for all categories was about 8.5 percent of public school students in 2010). A variety of evidence-based interventions can be used to address the wide range of instructional and behavioral needs of students with disabilities and their families, including transition to further education or work, family services, and teacher education. Special education in the USA may find new sources of support and thrive or may become less common or be abandoned entirely due to criticism and withdrawal of support for social welfare programs of government.

This chapter addresses emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in the larger context of special education. The author suggests that EBD, like special education more generally, has been distracted by issues such as labeling, disproportionality, and inclusion rather than keeping a clear focus on instruction. Revisionist history has led to misunderstanding of what special education is and does. A more promising future for the field depends on focusing on instruction, embracing scientific research, developing checklists and manuals to guide practice that are based on scientific evidence whenever possible, working for sustained student success, and using language more carefully and precisely.

Recently, a national priority has been set to improve mental health services for children and families. It has been identified in epidemiological literature that in the United States, an approximate 15% of youth meet diagnostic criteria for emotional or behavioral problems. Furthermore, less than one in every five children that present with such needs receive mental health services. Individual, family, and system barriers such as transportation, competing demands, and long waiting lists have negatively impacted access to mental health services. Therefore, the school system has become the “de facto” mental health system for children and adolescents, in part because of the significant time students spend at school. However, meeting the needs of students with behavioral or emotional problems within the school system poses its own challenges. Schools have reported being limited in their ability to deliver basic mental wellness to students due to the lack of available resources. Specifically, there is a shortage of school-employed mental health personnel and the ratio of student to mental health professional is two to three times larger than recommended. Expanded school mental health programs are partnered systems that utilize existing services and collaborate with community mental health (CMH) professionals at each level of the three-tiered system. This partnership enables CMH staff gain access to youth with emotional and behavioral problems, resulting in increased prevention and intervention services for students. Additionally, a coordinated effort such as student-transition services has an integral role of facilitating the process from the school system to postsecondary employment, training, and or additional education.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are one of the most underserved populations in today's schools (Kauffman, Mock, & Simpson, 2011). Many of these students also have additional disabilities in conjunction with an EBD identification, such as Learning Disabilities (LD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), among other psychiatric disorders (Henley, Ramsey, & Algozzine, 2009; Kauffman, 2005).

Because the identification of EBD examines behaviors that tend to be more subjective in nature than other disabilities and because these pervasive behaviors are manifested in a variety of forms, EBD is one of the most misidentified disability categories (Skiba, Poloni-Staudinger, Gallini, Simmons, & Feggins-Azziz, 2006). For students with EBD, the behavior(s) they exhibit contribute to learning difficulties in multiple academic and functional areas. This chapter provides in-depth information on the common characteristics and behavioral dimensions of this population. Additionally, the in-school performance and long-term outcomes of students with EBD are discussed.

There is a clear national trend toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms. This trend poses particularly vexing challenges for delivering appropriate programs for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). This chapter describes the complexity of determining appropriate inclusive placements for students with EBD within the historical, legal, and philosophical context of inclusion and related to what we know about these students and how we can improve outcomes. Recommended practices for maximally appropriate placements include a comprehensive approach that integrates academic and behavioral interventions, and robust professional development in research-validated instructional practices for teachers. Shifting roles and shared responsibility of the professionals who are now working with students with EBD must be considered. Finally, issues currently being addressed that will shape the future direction of service delivery for students with EBD are discussed including the need for systematically and objectively manipulating key variables, including educational placement, to impact student achievement across settings.

Malice – knowingly doing harm – has been attributed to special education, threatening its continued existence. Malicious education may include inferior education, exclusion from opportunities, miseducation, unnecessary stigmatization, or failure to meet individual needs. Malice may be overt or covert, unselective or selective, or be directed toward those included or those excluded. Attributions of malice may be evaluated by a series of questions comprising a decision model, and this decision model may be applied to attributions of malice to special education. Suggestions that special education is malicious are not confirmed by application of the decision model. False accusations that special education is malicious are derived from inappropriate comparisons, unreasonable expectations, and assertions that are not grounded in realities.

Students with emotional and behavioral challenges are significantly impacted by mental health issues. Teachers and other school staff need mental health knowledge to work more effectively with these students. Collaboration with mental health professionals and sharing of information is essential.

Running-in is a transient process prior to steady state and of great importance for mechanical performance. To reveal the fractal behavior in the running-in process, the steel-on-steel friction and wear tests were performed.

The friction coefficient, friction temperature, friction noise and vibration were recorded, and the surface profile of lower sample was measured on line. The signals and profiles were characterized by correlation dimension and box-counting dimension, respectively.

The signals have the consistent fractal evolvement law, that is, the correlation dimension increases and tends to a stable value. The box-counting dimension of one surface becomes close to that of the other surface. The running-in process can be interpreted as a process in which the fractal dimension of friction signals increases, and the counter surfaces spontaneously adapt to and modify each other to form a spatial ordered structure.

The results reveal the running-in behavior from a new perspective.

Fire performance of materials used in transportation vehicles has become of increasing concern in recent years. Bus fires in Washington, DC, in Cincinnati, and in St Louis have highlighted that concern.