ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the ways adjustment difficulties are conceptualized, and considers some of the influential factors affecting behaviour and emotional development. Many children cause concern to their parents and teachers because of emotional and behavioural difficulties. It may be that they behave in ways that are difficult for adults to manage, or in ways which suggest they are unhappy or distressed. The official report concerning maladjustment was not until ten years after the 1945 Regulations, when the Underwood Committee reported on the medical, educational and social problems of the maladjusted child. Maladjustment is an educational not a medical term, and is used to indicate that a special form of schooling is considered desirable. The overlap between educational and psychiatric terms probably reflects the fact that in the past psychiatrists and school medical doctors played a dominant role in diagnosing and treating emotional and behavioural problems presented at school, as well as making recommendations about special schooling.
