Interventions for Students with Combined Learning and Behavioral Difficulties

Across school age, a considerable proportion of students show difficulties with learning or behavior.
While learning difficulties can be classified as global (affecting all subjects) or domain-specific (e.g. mathematics, reading, and writing), behavioral difficulties can be classified as internalizing (e.g. depression or anxiety) or externalizing (e.g. aggression or attention problems).
Learning and behavioral difficulties often co-occur. Studies suggest that about half of the students with difficulties in one of these domains also show difficulties in the other. Accordingly, about one in ten students show combined learning and behavioral difficulties. Several theories explain how comorbid learning and behavioral difficulties might develop. For example, learning difficulties could be a source of behavioral difficulties (e.g. bad grades leading to conflicts at home) and vice versa (e.g. attention problems leading to less time on task). Another explanation is that a common factor causes both learning and behavioral difficulties (e.g. violent home situations leading to aggressive behavior and school absenteeism).
Recent studies have shown that while there has been an exponential growth in general intervention studies across the past decade, very few studies have addressed students with combined learning and behavioral difficulties. However, combined learning and behavioral difficulties are a significant challenge for students, teachers, and parents. Given the intertwined causal relations between learning and behavioral difficulties, interventions that focus only on one difficulty might fall short in effectiveness, since the other difficulty persists. Thus, there is a need for evidence-based interventions for students with combined difficulties.
The need for targeted interventions could be addressed by investigating the extent to which existing interventions meet the specific needs of students with combined learning and behavioral difficulties.
Where existing interventions are less efficient for students with such difficulties, the interventions need to be adapted or new interventions need to be designed. To this end, such interventions should integrate approaches that target both domains. Nevertheless, depending on the causal relations of learning and behavioral difficulties, the focus of the interventions might differ.
This Research Topic welcomes empirical and theoretical studies on interventions for students with combined learning and behavioral difficulties.
Besides empirical studies investigating the effectiveness of interventions for students with such combined difficulties, studies focusing on moderating effects for effectiveness and studies investigating the implementation of interventions are of great interest. Different research designs will be welcomed, such as randomized control group designs (interindividual comparison) and single-case designs (intraindividual comparison). Studies involving students from primary school as well as secondary school are favored. Interventions may focus especially on learning or behavioral difficulties, or address both equally.
Theoretical manuscripts might provide an overview on interventions or intervention approaches for students with combined learning and behavioral difficulties, e.g. in the form of meta-analyses or systematic reviews. In addition, studies that conceptualize how interventions for learning and behavioral difficulties can be designed are also welcome.