Challenging behaviour - SEN Teachers asking for advice

NAS80219 said:

• S.I.B (Self Injurious Behaviour)
• Aggression towards staff (verbal and physical) 
• Absconding and running off 
• Disruptive behaviour (creating a difficult working environment for others) 
• Refusal to do work and listen to instructions 

What you have here is a list of effects with out causes so it's really hard to infer what might be helpful and obviously you are constrained by confidentiality so I'm going to have to speculate quite a bit.

What you are describing sounds eariliy similar to people I've known personally. It sounds like it could be complex PTSD in combination with autism. Complex PTSD being trauma that took place over a protracted period of time such as being abused by a trusted person over a long period of time. A lot of the points on this list would make sense even with out autism in that context. But of course the autism makes it particularly hard to express that trauma to others or to figure out who can be trusted.

My feeling is you probably need to make progress on dealing with the trauma before you can make significant progress on behaviour in an educational setting. She needs a network of peers (people with whom she doesn't have to worry about an authority dynamic) around her she trusts and can open up to about what she's been through.

When the 'noise' of her anger and pain has died down, or at least become more ordered in her own mind because she's been able to make 'sense' of it by working through it with others, then the residual aggression and disruptive behaviour that's left is something you can address with a package of adjustments.

Due to the trauma, she doesn't trust anyone outside of school. She does trust a few staff members which is really nice. She trusts them a lot to the point where it affects her behaviour and learning. For example, she will do well, maybe struggle a bit, in every lesson when she doesn't have one of those she fully trusts. When she does get someone she trusts, she will show pure emotion. She would be bottling things up all day and will only let it out with them because she knows she's safe and we won't push her away but comfort her instead. She hurts the ones she trusts because she knows we won't go anywhere, if that makes sense. 

It makes perfect sense and if there are already a few authority figures she trusts then I guess getting a non authority figure she can open upto might not be so critical. Of course there are levels of opening up.

I've know victims of traumatic, specifically abuse, who told their teachers and other authority figures about the abuse and were accused of lying. They never really trusted authority figures again. Might make it quite hard to open up to a school councillor too. My feeling is anyone who tries to talk to her about 'correcting her behaviour' or anything with that sort of vibe is going to close them selves off as some one she can open upto. Even if the trauma in her case wasn't abuse if it was over a protracted period of time the residual impression is likely to be that the adults in her life failed to protect her.

Add autism of top of that and she probably feels like the world blames her for what happened to her. The thing about autism, especially growing up, is people are always trying to change you. So if you're being hurt and the adults around you seem more intent on making you normal than protecting you the message that sends is that the adults around you think it's your fault the bad things happen to you.

For an adult to get through to her over the trauma they'll need to be willing to turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour. It's the difference between coming into an office and asking her 'why did you throw a chair at the teacher,' and instead asking, 'so I hear you're having a hard day,' and instead of having a long discussion about what happened in class you have a long discussion about what's going on in her head which may only tangentially relate to class and whatever triggered her outburst.

And yes that process of unraveling what's in someones head is often probative. In so far as you make a reasonable guess and ask her if this has something to do with it, like a game of 20 questions. But even if you ask her about something she's not ready to trust you with she will deny or deflect. Again my, admittedly adult friend, would give me very different answers about the things that were bothering her after a year or two of knowing me. And I didn't try to change her or impose any kinds of conditions or demands on her, if anything most of the time I was laughing at her disruptive antics that in fairness got her banned from several venues in our city.

For a teacher or councillor who also has to the the one to say 'no don't do that,' to break through to her. Well I just feel it's going to be really hard.

We do use their special interest to calm them down at times. Most of the time they need different things to calm down, because its all different problems. One day, she might need a hug, a chat, a sleep, go on the swing, go for a walk, alone time but other times she might need distracting, so watching a film, talk to mum, different work or wordsearches, games. It all depends on what they need in the moment. 

Rileys special interests change overtime, one day she might be obsessed with a Teddy, the next she'll be obsessed with football, which she is at the moment. When Riley first started last year, she was frequently melting down and we found out that getting her to play catch with a ball helped. We would not talk, but we would chuck a ball at her and we would wait until she chucks it back, she liked the game and it would calm her down quickly. 

We do everything we can and we learn new things every day. For Riley, she doesn't like being distracted anymore, she likes to figure out what's bothering her and solve the issue so we do detective work with her, since she likes detective programmes. But for other students, they might need a hug and go back to work, a sleep, a chat, or distraction which works best for quite a few. Feel free to post whatever on here, it's a safe place. Thank you for responding to my questions. 

Hi, I have been following this post but haven't commented so far as I didn't feel qualified (I am 25 and in the processes of being assessed for autism). I just wanted to say that it is great that you are involving their special interests in their work- that is such a positive thing to do and I wish that was something that schools did more often- learning can be so much fun if you can follow your interests. Before you brought this up, I was wondering whether Riley has any special interests that she could use as a way of grounding herself/ calming herself down? I don't know if this would work for her but I have found that for me getting lost in a special interest can be extremely soothing and calming at times. I used to use physical activity (eg. running, cycling etc) as a way of letting off stress (and I still feel like this is one of the most effective ways for me) but I wish that I had also learnt other ways of calming down as I have been injured for a while now and really struggled not being able to use exercise as a coping mechanism. I'm sure you are already helping your students to develop lots of different coping mechanisms- I can tell from what you have written that you really care, which is great. 

Thank you for this. We learn more and more everyday with these students. They are honestly the teachers. We have training every Friday and during half terms so we learn and go over the basics. We are very good at staying calm. We have 3 main things we care about with our students  

1. Safety. Safety ALWAYS comes first.

2. Happiness and needs are being met. We do everything we can to make them happy and always making sure their needs are met. 

3. Education. If students aren't happy, or in the right frame of mind, they won't want to learn. We have an autistic curriculum and we make sure their interests are involved in the work  so it's fun and they are more likely to engage. 

Thank you for this. We learn more and more everyday with these students. They are honestly the teachers. We have training every Friday and during half terms so we learn and go over the basics. We are very good at staying calm. We have 3 main things we care about with our students  

1. Safety. Safety ALWAYS comes first.

2. Happiness and needs are being met. We do everything we can to make them happy and always making sure their needs are met. 

3. Education. If students aren't happy, or in the right frame of mind, they won't want to learn. We have an autistic curriculum and we make sure their interests are involved in the work  so it's fun and they are more likely to engage. 

We do use their special interest to calm them down at times. Most of the time they need different things to calm down, because its all different problems. One day, she might need a hug, a chat, a sleep, go on the swing, go for a walk, alone time but other times she might need distracting, so watching a film, talk to mum, different work or wordsearches, games. It all depends on what they need in the moment. 

Rileys special interests change overtime, one day she might be obsessed with a Teddy, the next she'll be obsessed with football, which she is at the moment. When Riley first started last year, she was frequently melting down and we found out that getting her to play catch with a ball helped. We would not talk, but we would chuck a ball at her and we would wait until she chucks it back, she liked the game and it would calm her down quickly. 

We do everything we can and we learn new things every day. For Riley, she doesn't like being distracted anymore, she likes to figure out what's bothering her and solve the issue so we do detective work with her, since she likes detective programmes. But for other students, they might need a hug and go back to work, a sleep, a chat, or distraction which works best for quite a few. Feel free to post whatever on here, it's a safe place. Thank you for responding to my questions. 

Hi, I have been following this post but haven't commented so far as I didn't feel qualified (I am 25 and in the processes of being assessed for autism). I just wanted to say that it is great that you are involving their special interests in their work- that is such a positive thing to do and I wish that was something that schools did more often- learning can be so much fun if you can follow your interests. Before you brought this up, I was wondering whether Riley has any special interests that she could use as a way of grounding herself/ calming herself down? I don't know if this would work for her but I have found that for me getting lost in a special interest can be extremely soothing and calming at times. I used to use physical activity (eg. running, cycling etc) as a way of letting off stress (and I still feel like this is one of the most effective ways for me) but I wish that I had also learnt other ways of calming down as I have been injured for a while now and really struggled not being able to use exercise as a coping mechanism. I'm sure you are already helping your students to develop lots of different coping mechanisms- I can tell from what you have written that you really care, which is great.