ABSTRACT

Children who are distressed for whatever reason may‘act out’their distress and perhaps become fidgety, noisy, attention-seeking or disruptive; they may lie, steal and bully other children or they may become withdrawn, passive, dreamy and isolated, disappearing into the background, hardly noticed as long as they produce a little work now and again. When such behaviour shows a persistent pattern across a range of subjects and activities and often with a range of teachers then the pattern is regarded as indicative of emotional and behavioural difficulties.