Sasha Long, a former special education teacher and behavior analyst, explains why students struggle with waiting and how to teach it explicitly. Use visual time tools, transition cues, and choice menus so students know how long they're waiting and what to do. Practice in real situations like bathroom lines and snack time, not timed drills.
A common problem I see in classrooms is that teachers expect waiting to happen without actually teaching it. I'm Sasha Long. I'm a former special education teacher and board-certified behavior analyst, and I want to talk about why teaching waiting is so essential. And you need some tools to do it. First off, waiting is hard. We have to do it in times when we don't want to, when there's not a motivating factor involved. So we need to break down waiting Identify why waiting is a struggle for that student, and then use the appropriate tool. So first off, waiting is hard because we aren't clear on how long we have to wait for. I really like tools like this for breaking down waiting time. You can make your own version of this by just cutting up a picture of literally anything or using little token pieces and using this to visually break up how much time you have left. This one's great 'cause it can mean any amount of time. This can— each piece can mean 10 seconds 1 minute, whatever you want it to do. You can put this up in front of your class and say, hey guys, we have 3 minutes till gym, and about every 30-40 seconds you add another little piece until we're all done and we're ready to go to gym. Same thing with this, the clock is just an arbitrary idea that is visually depicting waiting. I like doing this with a reinforcer. If you're waiting for a reinforcer, take a picture of that reinforcer like the iPad and give a little piece of that picture Every few minutes to show when waiting is over. Another reason why waiting can be so difficult is not knowing when that transition for waiting is coming. So I like using a transition cue to show when we're almost done. I also really like this for transitions, which typically we have to wait in transitions. So we can say, you know, it's not time yet, and then give that warning right when we get close to Changing stations to being done waiting, then we can go ready to go. This is useful for so many things. Print one of these in your class, make 10 copies, have it in every area so you can give that transition warning to show when waiting is almost over. The last reason that I think waiting can be really difficult is what do we do when we're waiting? That's hard for you and I as adults to even empathize with because honestly, We don't wait without doing anything very often. Think about the last time you waited in a long line or sat in your car at a long railroad crossing. I always use this example in trainings. What were you doing? You were probably on your phone. We are constantly engaged that we don't even know as adults how to be bored. So I like giving ideas of what to do while we're waiting. You can do something. You can talk quietly. You can write in your notebook. You can do a little bit of work. You can get headphones. Give ideas that are appropriate and use curated choice. Curated choice is such an essential strategy. We're not letting them do whatever we want. We're giving options for what to do while we're waiting. How do you want your hands to be? Do you want them by your side, in your lap, or folded? Do you wanna be sitting at a table or on a chair? We're giving choices here of what to do while we wait. This is really critical because it's giving that child autonomy and showing some ideas that are appropriate that they can do while waiting. They're not just sitting staring at a wall, which can be very hard. One of my biggest themes on teaching waiting is that we have to do it in real-world-based scenarios. I've seen this mostly in like ABA clinics and in-home therapy where we teach this arbitrary waiting, like wait 10 seconds, wait 15 seconds, wait 20 seconds, just sitting there waiting. I don't love that because I see that as very hard to generalize, and I see that we're losing out on all of the real-world-based opportunities for waiting to teach that skill. We know generalization happens best when it mimics the real-world setting as much as possible. So let's work on this skill in the real-world setting, and we have so many opportunities. You have to wait your turn to go to the bathroom, your turn to wash your hands, your turn to get snack, your turn with the game. You've gotta wait to go out to the playground, to go to gym. You've gotta wait for lunch. There's things you're waiting for all day. So use all of these strategies in those real-world settings. If you are looking for proactive antecedent-based interventions like this for your classroom, click follow because we are sharing all kinds of behavior strategies that are actionable, real-world-based, and work in a real classroom.
