Special Education and Inclusive Learning
Teaching Resources, Sensory Stories and SEND Information
When it comes to understanding the social and emotional development of young children, attachment theory has long been a cornerstone of both research and practice. Developed by British psychologist John Bowlby in the mid-20th century, the theory posits that the quality of the early relationships between children and their primary caregivers can have a profound… Continue reading Attachment and Attention-Seeking Behaviour in Young Children: Understanding the Connection
All children have a tendency to display oppositional behavior at times. After 13 years working with children with Autism, ADHD, ODD and other needs I have seen a range of reasons for opposition. With my own children I can identify factors that can lead to oppositional behaviour. This doesn’t make it easier to deal with,… Continue reading Control, Anxiety, and Oppositional Behaviour at Home and School.
This is a record of the #SENexchange Discussion in January 2020. We examined the findings and content of Centre for Mental Health briefing on Trauma, challenging behaviour and restrictive practice in schools. Download the briefing here To give you context as to my potential bias in choosing and responding to these questions I am a… Continue reading Trauma, challenging behaviour and restrictive practice in schools.
This post on sensory processing was inspired by a talk I attended by Olga Bogdishana. You can find the slides from her presentation on "Making sense of Sensory Needs and Challenging Behaviour" here. She has also written this book which gives a deeper insight into sensory perceptual issues. Sensory processing is a key part of… Continue reading Sensory Processing: Creating a First Aid Kit
Over 30 suggested strategies for effective behaviour management. #Education #Teaching.
Recognising your own emotions and identifying effective strategies for managing these is a key skill for any child.
This is blog post is primarily school-based and SEND focused, but can any education or care setting that strives to be truly inclusive should be able to use this as an environmental and relational approach based checklist or simple inclusion audit tool. Before you start looking at strategies or labeling a child's actions as challenging… Continue reading 13 Questions to ask to ensure you are an inclusive school.
These books are only those I have read and can recommend. They all follow an inclusive and positive support ethos. They all also focus on the only part of behaviour support we can control - ourselves. If your school has a zero tolerance behaviour policy read these and make it your mission to get that rewritten.I will get around to doing a second post but I need to get reading first!
This post will outline the role relationships play in behaviour support, I will also outline some of the research led practices I have used. Before I start I do want to say that I have read studies I do not agree with. I also know that a huge number of studies conducted ON Autistic children/adults focus on strategies intended to normalise social behaviours which is a huge ethical issue. Fortunately I have had the opportunity to listen to and discuss elements of my practice with actually Autistic academics and practitioners. This has greatly shaped my approach and ethos towards behaviour support, I will also admit this has slanted my view of a lot of studies that remove the human element from behaviour and reduce the children to purely objects to study. To this end I fully expect some of the approaches in the post and the presentation to be a bit controversial and I am 100% sure that at least some of them will contravene your school (or center's) behaviour policy.
Looking beyond “No apparent reason”. Internal Antecedents: Does Behaviour Really come "Out of the Blue?" Often overlooked, internal antecedents are an important element in behaviour support. This article is based on my experiences working with Autistic children who also communicate in ways we find challenging. We do our best to find patterns, clues and reasons… Continue reading Does Behaviour Really come “Out of the Blue?”
These are 10 simple ways to prevent challenging behaviour escalation by making small changes to your interactions. In our PBS training these are called active interventions. In reality there are thousands of these, the better you know the child the more adept you will become at identifying the most effective strategies in your teacher's toolkit… Continue reading 10 Simple Strategies to Prevent Behaviour Escalation.
Every day teachers, parents and carers are faced with potentially challenging situations. Many of these are defused through skillful behaviour support. These successful resolutions will have certain common characteristics. There are some essential conditions that must exist to deescalate an incident of challenging behaviour.
Social stories are a tried and tested way of teaching social skills but for some learners they are too much. I needed a way to remind a student of the rules but in a way that didn't single them out as being the focus of the story. Some people will say this won't work as autistic children can't generalise.... but anyone who has worked with autism knows a lot of what people say is actually a myth or just does not apply to an individual.
Many young people I have taught have found efficient and effective ways of communicating a need or a want at some point in the past that then becomes their primary way of communicating. Unfortunate as they grow and develop into young adults this communicative behaviour becomes a barrier to so many aspects of life. What… Continue reading Teaching Alternative Behaviours.
I was honoured to be asked to host #behaviourchat on the 23rd May 2016 discussing ways to manage our emotions at work with a particular focus on behaviour.
Positivity in the staffroom Negativity in schools in commonplace. I think it is incredibly important to be positive about the work you do. If you work with children then it is vital. However the school ecosystem is a complex organism, easily affected by external inputs. As staff we have worries and dilemmas that play on… Continue reading Get Off the Negativity Bandwagon!
When faced with displays of behaviour that challenge most schools resort to sanctions and consequences. For some this may work. If you work with Young people with a special educational need, mental health issues, or those experiencing that most troubling of all childhood issues - Puberty; need you to raise your game and think beyond… Continue reading Challenging Behaviour: 5 reasons your strategies aren’t working.
https://soundcloud.com/joe-white-358637791/differentiation-in-discipline-behaviourchat Challenging Behaviour: Differentiation in Discipline I feel this may be one of the more contentious blog posts, School discipline is a constant concern in the press and for teachers. I am the lead for behaviour, mental health and pastoral care in a UK special school for autism and children with learning disabilities. Part… Continue reading Differentiation in Discipline #Behaviourchat
For my first post I thought I would write a few ideas about making your classroom as accessible and inclusive as possible. Each student is of course an individual and these are just general ideas that may help you.
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