Emotional/Behavioural Difficulties - OVERT
1. General Definition:
The word 'Overt' actually means external behavior that can be observed.
Overt group are children that engages in behaviors involving personal confrontation.
2. Range of Condition
The overt group of behaviors include some symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder such as argumentative and defiant and some symptoms of conduct disorder such as bullying and fighting. A common feature in overt children was that they are involved in personal confrontation with others. Anger is frequently experienced in children involved in overt confrontations. They also often had biased perception on others' behavior, often viewing those as intentional harmful.
Pattern of Behavior
Minor aggression
Example: Angry, Resentful, Argues with adults, Defies adults' request, Stubborn, Temper tantrums, Touchy/easily annoyed, Bullying, Annoy others, Threatens, Intimidate, Blames others for mistake
↓progresses
Physical Fighting
Example: Gang Fighting, Physical Fighting, Assaults others,
↓progresses
Violence
Example: Rape, Attack, Strongarm
Reference
Child Psychopathology. Jeffery J. Haugaard. McGraw Hill (2008).
3. Characteristics
On average, children with overt conduct problems have lower IQ levels than other children. It is associated with children with lower intelligence to be less able to resist peer pressure to engage in delinquent behavior.
Social cognitive is the way children perceived about social situations. These children have a biased view of others' action, frequently interpret behaviors of peers and adults to be hostile, done on purpose or perceive as as a challenge. Their initial belief about hostility of others is less likely to change and/or notice conciliatory gestures such as saying 'sorry'. They are more likely to treat the conciliatory gestures as also being hostile. Lastly, children with overt problems often underestimate the impact of verbal and physical aggression on others.
Children who are diagnosed as emotion overt are more impulsive than other children. They tend to think less on the potential consequence of their actions therefore more likely to get themselves into trouble. In recent studies, children with inappropriate high levels of self esteem are likely to respond to perceived hostility or insults with verbal and physical aggression. Another trait known as callous-unemotional personality is also commonly presented by these children. They are found to be having low levels of guilt, sympathy for others and high level of selfishness and adventure seeking. Children posses this trait often focuses on rewards and thought less about consequences.
4. Causes of disability
Disability can be caused by:
e.g. Economic stress? =)
These may include:
May include:
Over-anxious disorders, Avoidant/ separation disorders, Childhood fears and phobia, School phobia, Obsessions and compulsions
A formulation grid of contributing factors is shown below:
Formulation grid of contributing factors
References:
See Me After School: Understanding And Helping Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Daphne Lennox. David Fulton Publishers Ltd (1991).
The Management of Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Ved P.Varma. Routledge (1990).
3. General Impact in terms of Development & Learning
Some impacts on learning are:
The Student with the disability could be hard to handle in class & affects the teacher's ability to create an effective classroom environment:
He may be disruptive in class,
His attendance may not be consistent.
He may react abusively if reprimanded
References:
"Special Education Needs" Ronald Gulliford and Graham upton. Routledge London (1992)