What is Social, Emotional, and Behavioural Difficulties

Approaches to students with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) are frequently the subject individual interventions in schools that range from disciplinarian to medical model in flavour. The presumption is that challenging behaviour is foremost a pathology. It is rare for schools and educators to lean towards an ecological lens on SEBD, and even when these are considered ineffective, pedagogy is rarely considered with conviction as a cause for behavioural challenges. This chapter examines how the design of instruction and assessment is in fact a tool that is capable of addressing SEBD by creating meaningful engagement of the students in question within the classroom. Universal design for learning (UDL) in particular provides teachers with simple, user-friendly principles to consider how to rethink engagement for the full spectrum of diverse learners.