Simple Visual for Change of Schedule

Sometimes students just need to "see" how the changes of a schedule will affect them.

During our standardized testing window, specials and lunch changed school-wide, which prompted a change in my reading and math blocks.  I had one student this year who mainstreamed for a large portion of the day, but she started her day with me to organize her schedule and any known changes, and then returned to me in the late afternoon.  Under normal circumstances, she knew when she would have time to "hang out with her BFF."

Although she is very bright, she didn't "see" when she was going to be able to have time with her best friend within all of our schedule changes.  This particular child is very high functioning on the autism spectrum and we have found that often writing things down helps her process information.  She was quite anxious about the multiple schedule changes and started to move into her "whiny" voice. This is usually a pre-cursor for more intense behavior (throwing books, tipping chairs, yelling), so if we can catch her during the "whine," we can usually prevent the major meltdowns.

I loved this intervention because it was "quick and dirty."  There is nothing pretty or fancy about it, but we completed it in about 3 minutes during our morning check in and it resolved her anxiety. When she started to whine about when she was going to have time with her friend, I simply asked her, "Would you like me to write down both afternoon schedules so you can see when you have time together?"  She said yes and then added her comments on when they could "hang out."

Quick and simple but very effective!

PBS: "All" means all

When I was in college and learning about the social foundations of education, I remember being surprised to learn that the word "all" meant different things to different historical / theoretical contributors. Sometimes "all" included landowning men, sometimes it included women, sometimes it included children and sometimes it include people with disabilities, but very rarely did it mean "all."

A few weeks ago I attended a train-the-trainer workshop to teach PBS strategies to families. As I reflect more on the tenets of PBS and begin to schedule our family workshops, I came back to a slide that a friend and I created when we were training new teachers how to set up their V.E. classrooms. We came to the conclusion that when implementing positive behavior support systems and philosophies, "all" should really mean "all."

the kids who raise their hand and the kids who yell out

the kids who bathe every night and the kids who need to

the kids who write with their pencil and the kids who throw their pencil

the kids who say “I love you!” and the kids who say “ $#@% you!”

the kids who use a tissue and the kids who wipe their snot on you

the kids you’d take home in a heartbeat and the kids you hope are absent

the kids with parents that support you and the kids with parents that challenge you

the kids who respond to your interventions and the kids that exhaust your bag of tricks

the kids who consistently get their meds and the kids who don’t


Our main purpose of posing the above statements was to encourage teachers to reflect upon the following question:


Am I providing a safe learning environment for all learners?

Positive Behavior Support: Solution Board

Throughout my district (as with many others) there is a large push for the implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (PBS). I am also fortunate enough to work in a community that has received a large grant to support strategies that increase mental health for children in early childhood settings. One of the initiatives funded through this grant is PBS training and materials.

Our early childhood PBS training is based on the pyramid model and training modules from CSEFEL.

One of my favorite strategies that I learned from my PBS training is the "Solution Kit." The solution kit is a strategy that teaches young children the options they may try when a conflict or disagreement arises. It helps them to learn how to independently (or with less prompting) solve problems.

You can watch a video of a teacher modeling the "solution kit" here.

Two years ago, I started using the solution kit with my pre-schoolers. I had a small plastic suitcase very similar to the one in the video and housed the kit at child level near my circle time area. While I loved the concept of the solution kit, I found the implementation to be difficult for my students. The suitcase with the clips was difficult for some of them to manage with fine motor deficits and the solutions all in a pile became quickly disorganized and overwhelming for them. I didn't want to give up on the positive aspects of using the solution kit, so I had to figure out a way to make it work for my population. Our solution kit evolved into a "solution board."


I simply printed and laminated the visuals from the solution kit and then taped them to the side of my desk. They became a permanent fixture in the classroom. The board allowed me to organize the solutions in a manner that was easier for my students to track visually and also eliminated the need for them to be able to open the kit. Towards the end of the year, for many of my students getting ready to transition to kindergarten, I could be across the room and just verbally prompt them to try using the solution board. I even had two parents who saw us using the solution board in the class and asked for the visuals to use at home!

I think the power of the solution board or solution kit (however the concept evolves for you) is that it teaches the children skills for managing their own conflicts. It gives children a measure of control over the resolution to the conflict and does not require an adult to intervene and "fix" the problem. And, ultimately, that's what we want.....for children to independently be able to come to a peaceful solution to a conflict.

Free Stories about Anger Management and Impulse Control

This site offers two free books that address social skills.

The first book teaches students a strategy to manage anger using deep breathing and "train yoga." I like how it actually teaches children the words and the actions to take when they are angry and then encourages them to think of a solution. (It's very similar to Tucker Turtle from the CSEFEL site, but it's nice to have another avenue to teach the strategy.)

Jennifer (the author) is planning to add two more books to the site in September.

Free Children's Stories

Tips for Addressing Challenging Behavior

The University of Minnesota has a website that has great Tip Sheets for addressing challenging behavior in the classroom.

I particularly like the ones on "choice making" and "requesting a break." These are two very powerful strategies that can be embedded into almost any learning task.

Memorable Moment #5/ Functions of Behavior Revisted

Have you ever had one of those moments in the classroom that could be recorded and published in text book as a classic example?

We had one today. In Memorable Moment #4, we looked at functions of behavior. To re-cap, every behavior that any person exhibits has a function. That means it gets the person something he/she wants or needs. There are four functions of behavior:

Attention: to get someone's attention (positive or negative attention)
Escape: (to get out of something)
Tangible: (to get something tangible)
Sensory: (to get some kind of sensory stimulation)

Trenton is a four year old boy with a developmental delay in the social emotional domain. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we set up a center rotation that includes 5 centers with a staff person at each station. Today's centers were: 1) playing store with my assistant in the dramatic play area, 2) playing in toys and being pulled one-on-one with me for baseline assessment data, 3) playing hopscotch with the assistant next door, 4) speech/language therapy group, 5) playing in blocks and being pulled one-on-one with the teacher next door for baseline assessment data.

Trenton was assigned to start in the dramatic play area. He wanted to start in my center. I reminded him that everyone would get a chance to go to every center, but he had to do "store first and then toys." He told me again that he wanted to come to my center. I reminded him that his job was at the "Store center."

The students all transitioned to their appropriate centers and we began our lessons.

Trenton sat on the floor and howled. Picture a low toned and constantly repeated "no, no, no." He also threw in a few "uhhn, uhhn, uhhn" moans for us.

He was sitting on the floor and wasn't hurting himself or anyone else. All of the other students were engaged and playing in the the appropriate places. I was at my center working, my assistant was at her center playing with children, and the teacher next door was at her center working with students. All of the children were playing except Trenton. He continued with his moaning and howling.

Within 5 minutes, Trenton had stopped moaning and howling and moved to his assigned center. He approached my assistant and said "Please, I can play?" Of course she replied yes and asked him to find some items that he would like to "buy." He entered the center and began playing with the other students and my assistant.

So what do you think? What would you hypothesize was the function of Trenton's behavior?




We hypothesized it was attention seeking. He wanted to start in my center and thought that if he couldn't get there with a request, then maybe I would pay attention to him if he acted out. The aspect that struck the staff as being classic was that he was truly denied ANY attention. All of the children were engaged, all of the staff in the room were busy with other children, and Trenton was just left space to cry on the floor. He eventually figured out that his behavior was not getting what he wanted and he stopped.

Memorable Moment #4: "Bad" Behavior/Communication Tool

We all know that behavior communicates something. The trick is to figure out what the "something" is and then react in a way that does not reward the "bad" behavior but honors what the child needs/wants. Let me tell you...that's a great trick!!!

Behavior analysts will tell you that every behavior supports a person's needs/wants (not just a child, not just a student....adults, too.) Behaviors are exhibited to get us what we need/want. Most of the time we identify the four reasons (functions) for behavior as: to get attention, to escape a demand or task, to get something..tangible, to stimulate our senses...sensory.

My teaching partners and I found the following "bad" behavior to be quite humorous. Of course, we have to deal with the behavior and why the student was doing it, but.....the process of that can be quite funny. (Note: Make sure when "bad" behavior is funny, you don't let your student know that it's funny because they could get conflicting messages. Chances are it's only funny the first or second time....after that it's just "bad.")

See if you can figure out what the following student is telling us.... :-)

Libby is a three year old student with Down's Syndrome. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we set up a 6 center rotation where children travel from center to center according to a timer. We organize this within two classrooms that are connected by a middle door. This can be quite demanding for some students.

Libby reached her 4th or 5th center for the day which happened to be her Language Therapy lesson. In the middle of the lesson she decided she was done!

Libby hopped off of her chair and ran from the Language Therapy room to my classroom. (The speech/language pathologist (SLP) was right on her heels.) She tried to shut the door on the speech pathologist! keep in mind...a 3 yr old, shutting the door on the speech path!

Well, the SLP and I happen to be good friends, so when we saw a 3 year old attempting to shut the door in her face, we both wanted to laugh. :-) Fortunately for us, we had our wits about us. Libby was redirected back to her group with a firm voice and reminded that group was finished when the timer "beeped." (by the way....we laughed later!!!!)

What was Libby telling us through her behavior? What was the reason/function for her behavior?

If you guessed "escape," then your hypothesis matched ours. We suspect that she was telling us that she needed to get away from work at that point.

What did we do? We try to get Libby's group within the first few rotations before she gets fatigued. This way we can ensure that her time at language therapy is time well spent. We follow up her groups with gross motor or low demand activites that support her need/want for escape. In short, we go straight back to the "Pre-mack principle." (see previous post: http://michellespecialeducation.blogspot.com/2008/04/benefits-of-daily-routine.html ).

Memorable Moment #3

My pre-k class and I are very fortunate to be included within our school community. Sometimes pre-k classes are physically located within a school, but function as an independent unit (not wholly integrated into school activities).

At the pre-k level, one of our most important areas of skill development occurs within the social/emotional domain. Positive experiences within the social/emotional domain prepare children to be more successful in learning activities in later years.

One afternoon in January, we went to the cafeteria to participate in the Jog-a-Thon Kick-Off Assembly. One of my students who has autism (Andy), was completely overwhelmed with all of the sensory input, and we needed to leave the assembly. This really bothered me because I thought about how much of his elementary school experience he would miss if he couldn’t enjoy an assembly, school play, guest speaker, performance or concert.

What could I do, as his teacher, to help him organize an overwhelming amount of sensory input?

Throughout the next year, each time there was a class assembly or a grade level assembly, Andy and I would go to the cafeteria early (we were the first to arrive) and wave to our friends as they entered the cafeteria. I would point out people we knew and say "Hi, book buddies. Look, Andy, there's Mrs. Smith. Hi, Mrs. Smith. " We went to everything! We would also sit near the side of the cafeteria, close to a door (just in case we had to make a quick exit.) The idea was to try to point out the things and people that were familiar to him before it was a huge crush. I was hoping that once he realized that in that mess of kids and noise, there were students he knew, teachers he knew, cheers he knew, songs he knew and that he was safe.

As the noise level started to increase, he would sit with me with headphones on and watch the performance. We gradually started to attend bigger and louder assemblies and tried small moments of time without the headphones.

The following year, we had a test. It was time for the school's Winter Concert. Andy and his parents came really early so they would be the first to arrive in the cafeteria. I asked his mom to point out all the people she and Andy knew. Andy stood on the stage with his class, in front of a packed cafeteria and sang Jingle Bells! Smiling and shaking the jingle bells the whole time!

Andy is now in kindergarten and participates in school-wide assemblies without support. We recently had our noisy, stimulating jog-a-thon assembly and Andy sat in the middle of his class participating, smiling and cheering throughout the assembly