Developing a responsive social and learning environment to support communication and

reduce unwanted behaviours

Scot GreatheadSpeech and Language Therapist

AimsHow the environment can support learning and encourage communication

Look at different levels of environmental cues

A Language Processing Model: What happens when it breaks down?

Reducing Communicative BehavioursReducing environmental demandsPrioritising which behaviour to work on firstFunctional Communication Training

Introducing an analogy for language development.

The way we have made sense of our

environment depends on how

how our ‘reality’ is explained to us

Soil = environment

The environment and language development

• Understanding of your environment is fundamental to the way you interact and access it: – determines they way you behave– helps you make sense of your world– how you adapt your social skills from setting to setting– increases security and reduces anxiety– The way you interpret your environment determines how

you interact with it and manipulate it for your own benefit– environmental cues exist within all levels of society

A compatible environment?

Very often we put students in an environment which, by its very nature, they can’t access

We can make environmental adaptations to ensure understanding across a range of settings

‘Environmental Autism’• How would your behaviour, independence and

communication skills if you were transported now into a classroom in China.– If someone were to talk to you in Chinese for an

hour and then ask you questions– If you needed to show someone you were

worried, scared or excited– How tired you would be working out new social

rules, language and reading/writing

What are we aiming to achieve?What are we aiming to achieve?• To build an environment where:

• Adults relinquishing control – giving children more control over their environment

• Increasing children’s independence and problem solving skills

• Increasing security, understanding of role and expectations within a routine

• Providing a stable, secure, predictable and meaningful environment

• A decrease in ‘negative communicative behaviours’

• An environment that children need, and want, to interact with

Connecting with your environment

Relationship with your physical

environment

Relationship with your symbolic

environment

Relationship with your

social environment

How you respond to

environmental prompts

Ability to attach meaning to

symbols

Awareness of how time is

represented

Understanding of your role

within a given setting

- TEACCH: Organising the environment into clearly defined areas -play, ‘office’, work, putting down mats to indicate where students should sit etc.- Physical prompting and backward chaining

- Labelling the environment - Written/symbol commands- Base boards- Floor markings- Menu boards- Accessible communication systems (AAC)

- Routines- Social Stories- Comic Strip Conversations - Power Stories- Scripts- All about me books- Generic ‘All about me books’- Preparation Books, ‘Guide books’- ‘Visual/Interactive’ nursery rhymes- Daily schedules

- Weekly timetables- Task schedules- Calendars- Clocks- Check lists- Diary

Adapting the environment Physical Symbolic Social

Verbal/nonverbal bar chart

Verbal skills

Non-verbal skills

•Good learning potential•Visual learners•Specific areas of strength e.g. computers, art, CDT

Model of language processingUnderstanding and thinking

Expressive language

Speech

Social skills

Attention and listening

Ongoing filtering of

internal and external

‘distracters’ and

regulation of internal state Feedback

loop

Organisation: how we apply the information from the above model to our environment

Writing

Activity: Snarbles

“Experience the effect of communication breakdown”

Demands and Capacities Model What happens when the demands of your

environment exceed your capacities to manage it effectively?

Unfamiliar routines

Don’t understand social cues

Language is ‘too fast’ for you to understand

Don’t understand the purpose of the task

Lots of effort to plan and organise yourself and your environment

Environment too confusing

Will be effected by your internal state: fatigue, stress, levels of motivation

Can’t communicate your wants / needs

How Do these Difficulties Manifest?Not trying to communicate

Use of non-verbal communication

strategies to communicate

Learned helplessness: “Everything gets done for

me”

No control over their decisions

Self Harm?

Frustration

Lack of experience in communicating

Confrontation, tantrums,

‘behavioural difficulties’

Loss of independence – reliance on others

Describing BehaviourSubjective descriptions: all based on how the make us feel

Silly, naughty, attention seeking malicious, doing it to annoy me, hyper, bad, good, sensible, excitable, lazy

Objective analysis: Based on where the problem is

Describe how a certain behaviour may be as a result of social deficit, language processing or sensory processing difficulties

Why?

Objective analysis will provide us with an opportunity to generate a hypothesis which describes why a certain behaviour is occuring. This will give us an opportunity to put support mechanims in place / teach a more appropriate behaviour

What are students communicating through behaviour?

Fearlack of control or controlStressAnxietyboredompoor flexibility,difficulties with problem solving/planningdifficulty shifting attention focus etcConfusionExcitementEnjoymentConcentration

Philosophy: defining ‘behaviour’1. Children have a fundamental need to function within their environment: All behaviours serve a function or purpose. Children may develop coping mechanisms to help them function2. Behaviours are a result of:

Children trying to meet a specific needA response to an environmental demand or stimuliA learned response or coping strategy

3. Behaviours initailly develop to meet a primary need and are maintained by the success encountered within their environment4. Behaviours are almost always maintained by more than one factor5. Behaviours that are repeated several times are learned. Behaviours that are used regularly are established.6. Children can use the same behaviour for many different reasons. Behaviours may look alike but causes may be different

Scot Greathead

Philosophy: intervention7. Attitude is critical

Believe that the child is capable of changing and overcoming their problems. Children have proven they can overcome anythingBelieve in your own abilities to change the child’s behaviour. If you believe you can the you can!Be positive, supportive and non judgmental.

8. Intervention must address the whole child: physically, mentally emotionally and sensory

If a child views an activity as pleasurable, everything associated with it will be pleasurableYou can’t eliminate a behaviour without teaching a replacement

behaviour. Focus on what you want the child to be doing, not what he or she is doing wrong.

“Is it sensory or is it behaviour?” Murray-Slutsky and Paris 2007

Reducing ‘Communicative Behaviours’

Maximising Communicative Potential1.Student is able to ‘plug into’ their environment. Is it safe and secure or does the student have to work very hard at making sense of it all (socially and physical)2.Student is managing their internal state effectively: sensory modulation, heightened levels of anxiety / stress / fatigue / over excited / focused on something else. REMEMBER what is a priority for a student may not be a priority for us. Don’t assume that it’s trivial – if it’s affecting a student’s internal state then it’s relevant and needs to be addressed. 3.Have their language needs been accounted for.4.There is a positive communicative ethos within the classroom: Students have to feel as though every communicative attempt is valued. Students should have ‘special time’ using non directive/child centered communication techniques to build self esteem, sense of self worth and facilitate spontaneous communicative attempts5.Engaged in functional activities with choices built in.

A hierarchy for reducing ‘communicative behaviours’

Setting Up The Classroom: 8 Areas

1. Designate Learning Areas

2. Label the environment

3. Differentiate between similar areas

4. Refine learning areas

5. Integrate communication systems

6. Support direction giving with schedules / timetables

7. Label the classroom

8. Consider the sensory environment

1. Setting up designated learning areas

2. Labelling Learning Areas with Base Boards

3. Differentiating between similar areas

4. Refining Learning Areas to support contextual Understanding

5. Accessible Communication Systems

6. Supporting Time concepts / Transition Schedules

7. Labelling the classroom

8. The sensory Environment

Reducing ‘Communicative Behaviours’

“We’ve done that but we still have ‘behaviour’”

Before action is taken look at:

1. Is the activity meaningful2. Is the activity reinforcing / appropriate reinforcement in place3. Does the student have an appropriate communication system in

place

Prioritising behaviours

1. Harmful to self or others

2. Destructive

3. Disruptive or distracting

4. Interferes with the ability to learn

5. Socially inappropriate

Reducing ‘Communicative Behaviours’

Functional Communication Training

Teaching a specific communicative act (speech, sign, PECS etc) to resolve a behaviour associated with a communicative gesture.

1.Look at behaviour – brainstorm with other staff members what the student may be communicating2.Put the appropriate support mechanism in place3.When student exhibits behaviour introduce the strategy using appropriate prompting strategies and fading 4.Reinforce: socially or with tangible rewards

Case Studies:CLP 1: Student keeps running out of the room to go to their old classroomCLP 2: Student doesn’t know what to do during art activities and needs lots of redirection and verbal promptsCLP 3: Student keeps saying handwriting is boring and becomes disruptive when literacy session begins