Deconstructing and Reframing Challenging Behavior: From Understanding Children’s Needs to Supporting Development Across Contexts

Division for Early Childhood Monograph Series — Issue 1

Call for Manuscripts

The Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC) will publish its first monograph in the DEC Monograph Series in 2026. The topic of this inaugural issue is children’s behaviors that adults perceive as challenging.

The series will be aligned with DEC Racial Equity Point of View. Racial equity is both a process and an outcome. It is the intentional and continual practice of changing policies, practices, systems, and structures by prioritizing measurable change in the lives of people most impacted by structural racism and ableism. As an outcome, racial equity is realized when race and ability no longer predict opportunity, and every child and family has what they need to thrive.

The DEC Racial Equity Point of View (RE POV) identifies five strategies for advancing racial equity across the organization and the field: organizational structures and leadership; research, data, and evidence; community engagement; conferences and events; and publications and products. These strategies, grounded in foundational principles of inclusion, accessibility, and shared power, guide how DEC advances its mission through equitable practices across all aspects of early intervention and early childhood special education. Additional information about the DEC RE POV can be found here.

Purpose and Scope

Deconstructing and Reframing Challenging Behavior seeks to move the field beyond “behavior management” toward understanding, relational, and equity-centered support. This issue integrates developmental science and social justice to create a unified conceptual scaffold for interpreting and responding to children’s behaviors across systems and relationships.

We are interested in manuscripts that explore the social-emotional, relational, and systemic dimensions of behavior, from physiological regulation and co-regulation to the environmental and attitudinal factors that influence how adults perceive and respond to children. Submissions should address how external stimuli and systemic conditions such as trauma, bias, or inequity shape behavior and how equitable, developmentally responsive, culturally and linguistically sustaining environments can transform those responses. We welcome work that connects the immediate needs of supporting and intervening with children to larger systemic shifts, including attitudes, adult behaviors, and environmental conditions.

Types of Manuscripts

To reflect DEC’s commitment to expanding what counts as knowledge, Issue 1 invites two complementary submission formats that represent a progression from insight to action.

1. Scholarly Manuscripts (Research and Conceptual Contributions); 10-15 double-spaced pages

We invite manuscripts that deepen understanding of young children’s behaviors that adults perceive as challenging and that contribute to building a conceptual framework from what is known through developmental science toward the systemic shifts needed in practice and policy. Submissions may focus on developmental and physiological aspects of behavior, such as regulation, co-regulation, and trauma, or examine systems, relationships, and professional practices that influence how adults interpret and respond to children. We are especially interested in manuscripts that 1) explore how adults’ perceptions of behavior evolve through reflection, collaboration, and partnership with families and communities, 2) demonstrate how environments and routines can be adapted to meet children’s social and emotional needs, and 3) how leadership, professional learning, or policy can create conditions for relational and regulatory support. Analyses that examine inequitable practices, such as exclusionary discipline or describe alternatives that foster belonging, inclusion, and trust are encouraged. Strong submissions will bridge research and practice, illustrating how the field can move from child-centered blame to system-centered understanding that promotes equitable, developmentally responsive support.

We particularly invite:

• Empirical, conceptual, and policy analyses that illuminate how understanding children’s physiological and social-emotional development, including regulation, co-regulation, and wellbeing, can strengthen equity-centered systems and practices that promote thriving relationships and environments.

• Research-practice partnerships and practice-based innovations that demonstrate how collaborative inquiry, reflection, and shared decision-making advance equitable approaches to understanding and responding to children’s behavior. Submissions might show how these collaborations align with Racial Equity Point of View strategies such as community engagement, leadership development, or building equitable systems of support for practitioners and families.

• Analyses that examine equitable, relationship-centered responses to behavior and show how shifts in adult perception, policy, or environment promote inclusion and trust. Submissions might highlight how programs or systems use data, reflection, and collaboration to identify patterns of inequity and implement supportive approaches aligned with Racial Equity Point of View strategies in research, evidence, and community engagement.

• Frameworks that connect scholarly insight with grounded field realities to show how practitioners, leaders, and families work together to advance racial equity through equitable approaches to understanding and supporting children’s behavior, elevating community knowledge, sharing decision-making power, and transforming systems so that children’s actions are understood within their developmental, cultural, and relational contexts rather than viewed as problems to be solved.

2. Spotlight on Strength (Lived Experience and Practice Reflections); 4-6 double-spaced pages

This submission format centers the lived experiences of families, practitioners, and leaders who have engaged directly with children whose behaviors are perceived as challenging. These contributions elevate the wisdom, reflection, and growth that occur when adults and systems work to understand behavior as communication and to support development rather than control it. Spotlight on Strength pieces should clearly describe how adults, teams, or communities have shifted their thinking or practice in response to challenging behavior. Authors are encouraged to situate their experiences within one or more of the five DEC Racial Equity Point of View (RE POV) strategies: organizational structures and leadership, research and evidence, community engagement, conferences and events, or publications and products. Submissions should show how equity-centered actions or conditions influenced their journey. These contributions should be grounded in authentic, lived experience rather than research data, but they must still offer enough structure, reflection, and clarity for readers to understand the connections among children’s behavior, adult responses, and systemic transformation. 

We particularly invite: 

• First-person or co-authored narratives, for example a family and provider reflection or a teacher and coach dialogue, that illustrate how understanding, relationships, and co-regulation transformed a child’s experience of challenging behavior.

• Case or practice stories that show how adults adapted environments, routines, or expectations to better meet a child’s developmental or emotional needs.

• Community or program examples that highlight system-level shifts, such as replacing punitive or exclusionary approaches with collaborative and supportive ones.

• Reflective essays that document professional or personal growth, including moments of discomfort, insight, and relational repair.

Each piece should:

1. Describe the behavior or context that was initially perceived as challenging.

2. Explain how adults interpreted and responded, including any biases, systemic barriers, or assumptions that were present.

3. Reflect on what changed, whether in understanding, practice, policy, or environment, and what supported that change.

4. Identify how the experience connects to one or more of the Racial Equity Point of View strategies and advances equity within that context.

5. Conclude with implications or lessons that can inform practice, systems, or professional learning across early intervention and early childhood settings.

Submission Details

To ensure representation of the full range of the DEC Racial Equity Point of View strategies and their application across diverse contexts, final selection of manuscripts will be determined, in part, by the strategy or strategies or focus areas reflected in each submission. 

The manuscript submission deadline is Monday, March 16th, 2026, 11:59 PM Eastern Time. Recommended manuscript length is 10-15 double-spaced pages, not including references. Recommended Spotlight on Strength pieces is 4-6 double-spaced pages, not including references. Manuscripts should be formatted using the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Manuscripts should be submitted here. 

Prior to the manuscript submission, a statement of intent is encouraged. Please complete and submit a statement of intent here by Thursday, January 15th, 2026, 11:59 PM Eastern Time. 

Questions

Please contact the co-editors Chelsea Morris (ctmorris@unm.edu) and Tara Toland (taraftoland@gmail.com) for additional information about the contents of the monograph and the submission process. We look forward to receiving your submission! 

For any other questions, please contact DEC at dec@dec-sped.org.