Angela Kulcsar explains how to tell if a behavior actually needs to change. Before intervening, ask whether it affects the student's education, independence, or relationships, or if it's just inconvenient for adults. Sensory behaviors and self-soothing are normal and should be tolerated unless they disrupt learning.
Hi guys, I am here to share number 3 of our 10 quick wins for positive behavior change. So if you missed the first 2, you can get those 2 and all 10 in my new free download. Go to theautismhelper.com/10, so 1-0, not written out, wins. And I have 10 quick wins for positive behavior change. I broke down kind of my tried and true evidence-based you know, ABA-based behavior change strategies and wrote them in simple digestible terms. You can pass these out to your colleagues, put these in your school office, and share them with your team because these are going to be the proactive interventions that you need to make real positive behavior change. So I've been kind of going through and chatting about each one, and today we're on number 3. Number 3 is make sure it's really a problem. Okay, so we want to think about the problem behavior, and you need to ask yourself this question: is it a problem for the student, or is it a problem for me? And if it's only a problem for you, you're an adult, go ahead and get over it. If it's a problem for the student, that means it is affecting that child's education, it is affecting their opportunities for independence, it is affecting their opportunities to make and maintain friendships, Cool. If that is the case, it's affecting one of those areas, then we're gonna work on that positive behavior change. But first, we want to identify, is it really a problem? Now, I'm probably preaching to the choir on this topic because you guys all get it. It's other people that we work with that maybe don't, and it's not out of wanting to be mean or, you know, be nasty to our kids. Sometimes it's just a lack of awareness and understanding. So sometimes we need to point this out to our colleagues, to the other professionals that work with our students, because our students don't work only with us. They work with specials teachers, with gen ed teachers, with cafeteria staff, bus staff, administrators, security guards. And sometimes things like sensory behaviors might annoy people. Like, why is he— why is he singing Scooby-Doo? I don't know, he likes Scooby-Doo. Who cares? Let him sing Scooby-Doo. It's not hurting anyone. Why is he flapping his hands? I don't know, calms him down. Why are you twirling your hair? So some— obviously don't come at people like that, but you get the idea. So really, I want you to take number 3, and I want you to bring this to your community, and I want you to highlight this when people seem to be getting frustrated at things that aren't really a problem. Point that out and point out that sensory behaviors are universal, because I see for number 3 here, I see sensory behaviors falling into this category a lot. So, so point out to people that we all have sensory behaviors that help us calm down and help us self-soothe. And if it's not disrupting that child or other children's learning, you know, that's okay. And we can let them engage in sensory behaviors that maybe we don't understand but is helpful for them. So that is your mission. No little one, but it's part of our job. It's part of our job to advocate for our learners in all of the settings they go to. So that was number 3. On Thursday, I'm gonna share number 4, but if you want to get all 10 quick wins right now, head over to theautismhelper.com/10wins and you can download your tip sheet. You can share it with your staff, you can post it in your office and kind of be reaffirmed a lot of the strategies you're doing. But sometimes it's just some little tweaks to the behavior management systems you already are doing that makes such a big difference. I can't wait for you to download this. I think it's gonna be really valuable to you. Have a great night.
