Manifestation Determination Decisions and Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

Sixteen general and special education teachers were randomly assigned to one of four teams that were to make manifestation determinations using two different “hidden profiles” case studies based on students with an emotional behavioral disability. One case study was constructed to support a decision of the behavior not being a manifestation of the disability and the other case study was constructed to support a conclusion that the behavior of concern was a manifestation of the disability. To fully understand the student and behavior of concern, team members were required to actively share and discuss all of the relevant information they possessed. Both the teams working with profiles supporting the manifestation of the disability reached that conclusion; however, the two teams working with profiles that supported a non-manifestation of disability conclusion reached different conclusions, one declaring the behavior to be a non-manifestation and the other declaring it to be a manifestation of the disability. Overall, participants found the manifestation determination process to be an effective way to discuss student behavior, but special and general educators approached the determination process differently. Discussion of the manifestation determination review (MDR) process is presented along with implications for practice, limitations, and future research.