Over on FAQAutism, Cathy Knoll has a pair of posts advising a student teacher about handling outburst by a student with Autism. The student teacher described the situation in this way:
The student teacher wrote that she is in an elementary classroom this semester, and is concerned about a youngster in the class. The student teacher reported the details of an episode that involved changing the regular classroom routine. She said, “One day I let the class vote on our reading activity. Their choices were (1) I would start a new book for our regularly scheduled ‘Read Aloud’ time, or (2) the students would read their new Scholastic News magazine independently at their desks. The class voted to read at their desk and finish a writing project for our bulletin board from earlier in the day. The girl with autism had voted for me to read aloud like I normally do at that time of day. However, the majority won. She couldn’t handle it and started yelling. I asked her quietly and calmly if she would like me to show her the new book that I would start reading to the following day. She screamed at me, ‘No. Never in a million years will I look at that book. I never want to hear you read anything ever again!’ Then she ran across the room and hid in a corner and started rocking back and forth.”
Ms. Knoll characterized the situation in terms of inflexibility and anger management. After remarking that she would not have students vote on activities, she makes a couple of sensible suggestions: (a) “The most effective way to prevent emotional meltdowns for an inflexible student is to develop a regular, predictable classroom routine” and (b) “Jot down quick notes every time he has a tantrum: the time it starts and the time it stops.”
I was pleased to see this tip-toe toward an antecedent-behavior-consequence analysis. Too bad that the recommendations do not go all the way to a functional behavior analysis. There are plenty of good resources on how to affect such analyses. It would be helpful to guide teachers to these methods of ascertaining what environmental features are sustaining a students “tantrums.”
Link to the two posts (#1 and #2) on FAQAustim advising a student-teacher about addressing tantrums.
Sphere: Related Content
0 Responses to “Tantrum management”