Neurodiversity-Affirming Behaviour Support in Schools
As a speech therapist I have, before, found myself feeling frustrated when I make recommendations to schools about neurodiversity affirming approaches to behaviour but things aren’t implemented. I was sent an article in the Social Cipher newsletter the other day (would recommend this mailing list) which gave me great insight around this, and helped me think about how I can provide support to schools, and adapt to the barriers they’re facing when it comes to implementing neurodiversity affirming behaviour support.
In a recent webinar, Social Cipher polled over 800 education professionals across 40 US states and 5 countries. The question they were exploring is: what’s getting in the way of neurodiversity affirming behaviour support in schools?
The main barriers identified included:
access to resources
teacher buy in
not enough staff
class sizes too large to manage individual needs
classes that combine neurotypical and neurodivergent students without additional supports
lack of teaching assistants and high student-to-staff ratios
The article made me think about lots of things. The question I was left was with: How, as an SLP, can I build resources that don’t ask more of stretched staff?
And how I can support kids to communicate their own needs, so some of the guesswork comes off the adults around them?
With regards to access to resources, some things that may help could include:
Offering resources that build capacity without requiring more time from staff.
Creating individualised resources for clients rather than just reccomending them.
Supporting students to self advocate and communicate their needs and supports to help take some of the guess work off staff
And I also reflected on how we might support teach buy-in, which includes:
Recognising that repeated exposure to new strategies tends to work best
Giving teachers the chance to see a strategy modeled in a real classroom moment
Continued practice through coaching, follow-up sessions, or a shared classroom tools can also give the needed support
Although as speech language therapists we can’t ‘fix’ these problems it’s worth considering what we may be able to do to support our clients and their communication partners.
Link to article: https://www.socialcipher.com/post/what-800-educators-say-is-blocking-neurodiversity-affirming-behavior-support
