Classroom Management: Sensory breaks and working with your OT a must!

                In my first blog post, I talked about how important it is to make a safe environment for our students. Once the environment is established, what do you need to think about next? Classroom management is always important.  Procedures and rules are part of every workshop. The difference with a class of students on the autism spectrum or any students with learning disabilities, is managing their need for frequent breaks.  Your ADHD students need the breaks to get the wiggles and pent up energy out.  Your learning disabled and intellectually disabled students need the brain break to rest.  Your students on the Autism spectrum need the sensory break. How you manage all of this is the key to allowing your classroom management style shine.

                If you are in a mainstream class you may think this is impossible, but it is not. At the end of the class, you should have a wrap up.  You can use these few minutes for your student’s individual needs.  Put your ADHD students in charge of putting things away, straightening desks or taking notes to the office.  If you have to make up a note that says, ”Just needed to help him stretch his legs,” do it. As for your LD and ID students, ask them to put their head down or draw a picture if they are artistic.  Your students on the spectrum can have a fidget handed to them to quietly handle at their desk, a small ball, thera-putty, or some blocks.  You might have a rocker in the back of the room for the student to sit in for a few minutes or a small blanket the student can wrap around themselves to help give themselves compressions.  I have even taught one student to pull her arms inside her sweatshirt to give herself compressions in public.  All these things can be done while you are wrapping up the lesson with the rest of the class, or anytime you see your student being over stimulated during a particular assignment. Either quietly walk over and whisper directions to the student or have a prearranged signal so the student knows they are allowed the sensory break.  Not only will these breaks motivate your students to work more, but their next teacher will appreciate that they are coming to them ready to work.

                In my self- contained class, it is very easy to facilitate these breaks.  Each student has their own carrel supplied with personal fidget or relaxation needs.  Some only have thera-putty, Some have quite a variety, from head phones and chewlery to a weighted blanket depending on the sensory needs of the student.  Before each day starts the students have access to their item while role is taken and my staff and I spend a few minutes making sure everyone is ready to learn for the day.  We have the time to address needs we see in students as they come in before they may escalate later in the day. I will get more into this in a later blog.  The students know the routine and the cues to put their items away when it is time to start the day. They also know when they finish their work their items will be there for them. This gives them a sense of security as well as motivation to finish their work. 

                The key is to have a good relationship with your Occupational Therapist in order to make all of this work. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with very talented and caring OTs.  I listened to whatever they had to say and learned from them.  I made sure to let them know what I saw going on in the classroom with the behavior of my students, so they could assist me in finding the best tools to give each of my students to ease their sensory needs.  They knew so much more about this area than I ever could.  AHA!!! I need to be a sponge around my itinerant staff. I cannot hold an OT, PT, and speech degree, so I have to be a sponge around them to be the best I can for my students.

     So what was the second aha moment? To have good classroom management, I would have to use the knowledge of all the people and talent around me to understand the needs of my students. I could not manage my class and would be setting my students up for failure without giving them the tools and sensory breaks they needed to be able to handle the input being given to them.   

For more information on sensory breaks you may want to start here:

http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html

http://www.lspr.edu/csr/autismawareness/?p=843

http://www.ahwatukee.com/ahwatukee_medical/article_200ad886-eddd-11e0-a569-001cc4c002e0.html

My first "Aha moment" to share with you.

    Welcome to my new blog.  While I have been a special education teacher for over 10 years and an author of a special education book, Let’s Talk About Being in Special Ed., this is my first attempt at blogging.  My goal for this blog is to create an outlet for some of the aha moments that have helped me become a better teacher.  

    I am currently teaching a self-contained class in middle school for academic- life skills students.  What does that mean?  We focus on the application of reading, writing and math skills to real world life and work situations.  The majority of my class consists of students on the autism spectrum; however,  I do have students with other disabilities ranging from Downs Syndrome to Intellectual Disability (ID). 

    Enough about me, the first and biggest aha moment I had was a few years ago when I went to a New Horizons Autism Conference.  One of the presenters said something that guides me with my interactions with students with autism: the primary reactionary emotion for students on the spectrum is fear.  Take a minute and let that soak in.  Think about what you know about autism and all the sensory input they have.  The lack of comprehension of social cues and language nuances and emotional immaturity they are dealing with.  It makes sense.  Now think about how important creating a safe environment is for them and what that would mean for each student.  It might be something completely different for each of them.  Once I took this to heart, my life and my classroom changed.

     So how did I go about making my classroom a safer place for my students?  I always thought my room was a safe place until I tried to walk through it in the shoes of a student with autism.   I looked around my room, and like most teachers I had posters telling my kids motivational things like to reach for the stars and to never give up.  I stopped and thought about how my students would read those, and then I shuddered.  What a frightening thing to think that my teacher expected me to be able to actually reach a star or always do my best and never make a mistake or have a bad day.  I saw the picture of the periodic table the 8^th graders were working on and thought that my poor 6^th graders must be petrified that they needed to learn that too.  I pulled everything down and the next day when the kids came in some asked what had happened.  I just said I wanted a change.  When I asked if they liked it, even the ADHD kids said yes, very much.  It has been difficult for the teacher in me, but the walls have stayed clear ever since. As for noise in the room, I noticed one of my kids putting his hands over his ears.  I took an old pair of head phones cut off the wires and gave them to him. When others asked for some, I found some sound reducing earphones a teacher was going to throw out and now the kids have them when they need them.  Sometimes they just like quiet. Sometimes they like to make some extra noise, and now they can without disturbing others. They are free to be themselves without fear of getting consequences as long as their work gets done.  The soothers or fidgets are the newest addition to my “toolbox”. Each student has something that makes them feel calmer: blocks, Lego’s, a book, play dough, whatever.  I allow them to keep these at their desk and give them time at the end of each period to use them.  You cannot take the autism out of the child; instead, you need to give them that stimulus relief.  They need to feel safe to release and not have to hold it in. Being safe in the classroom extended beyond my four walls.  My administrators have been a key in this as well.  They give me notice of schedule changes and unscheduled announcements so that I can let my students know what will be happening. This way they are not startled by unexpected and unexplained changes to their routine.  

Giving students a safe environment is a key to a great learning environment.  It was just figuring out what safe really meant.  AHA.  Don’t fight it.  Embrace it on mutual terms. 

For more information on fear and autism I recommend the following two articles to begin with:

http://www.jamesmw.com/fear.htm

http://universe.byu.edu/2013/01/06/new-autism-study-shows-relationship-with-fear-and-anxiety/