The Effectiveness of Self-Management Interventions on the Nonacademic Behaviors of Students with Emotional Disturbance: A Review of the Literature
JAASEP 21(1) (2026) 28-48
Abstract
Previous research suggests that self-management interventions are effective across a variety of disabilities, behaviors, and settings to curb maladaptive classroom behaviors. However, based on a recent literature review, there is an overall lack of research focused specifically on interventions for the Emotionally Disturbed (ED) student population and an even greater void of research studies that intervened on non-academic behaviors with his population (Garwood et al., 2021). Thus, this current study sought to expand the 2021 review by 1) focusing on only on intervention studies and 2) going beyond flagship EBD journals to be more inclusive of published peer-review work. As a result, the current study reviewed 34 studies (1990-2021) that implemented self-management interventions on the behaviors of 97 students with ED. Each of these studies were carefully reviewed to investigate the effectiveness of the interventions on the participant’s target behavior. Using percentage of nonoverlapping data (PND) and percentage of data exceeding the median (PEM) to calculate effectiveness, findings suggest that self-management interventions were moderately to highly effective across settings, including the general education setting, and across target behaviors. All findings are presented detailing the specific intervention’s effectiveness based on behavior targeted. In addition, social validity and limitations are discussed to aid in the continuation of research that delves into strategies that help teachers address the unique behavioral characteristics associated with students with ED.
Keywords: self-management, emotional disturbance, social validity, percentage of nonoverlapping data, percentage of data exceeding the mean
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64546/jaasep.616
