001Um but also but also be specific where you can have some takeaways with some case examples, case studies that we're going to discuss. Um some evidence-based kind of approaches as well. All right. So um a little bit about us. There's three presenters as Yoka mentioned. My name is Drag Meat. Um I am a BCBA um board certified behavior analyst. I've been in the field 15 plus years. I work in schools. I also work with adults and employment transition programs. Um I also just completed a several week um training course with um some police departments. And so just any which way that I can um support this community, neurodiversity, but specifically autism um is really what I am passionate in doing and excited to be here talking about this subject. Um Billy, I'll hand it over
002to you for introductions. >> Hello, my name is Billy Kent. Um, I'm a board certified behavior analyst as well. I've been in the field for about 30 years. Um, originally from New York and, uh, was a special ed teacher and gened teacher back in New York and got my masters from Teachers College, Columbia University. Um, using the Kabis methodology to help uh, individualize curriculum and uh, help students overcome their behavior behavior challenges. Um, yeah, and I've lived in California for about uh, 12 years now. And um yeah, so we're just partnering with school districts to assist them with um any uh staffing or behavioral challenges that they might have. Um so yeah, it's been a wonderful experience um working out in the East Bay. So happy to be here and uh nice to meet you
003all. >> Awesome. And then we have Janet. >> All right. Um I'm very excited to be here as well. I'm Janet Sin Bandit. Um also a board certified behavior analyst. Um, I've been a behavior specialist for Castro Valley Unified School District for seven years. Um, have been in the field of behavior analysis for over a little over 20 years. Um I have experience working with individuals um with autism in the home setting, clinic setting, school setting um and have done uh ABA um for those um students. Um very excited to share information about evidence-based strategies and um I'm looking forward to giving this presentation. So, I'll go ahead and hand it back to Jackie. >> Awesome. Thank you, everyone. Um, so we have some values um that we have for today definitely to engage, inspire,
004and empower. Um, with that, we would invite you right now to use the chat box um to tell us your name. Uh, if there's any other information, it sounds like you do need to complete the sign-in sheet if you haven't already. Um, but please tell us your name, um, any information that you're looking for specifically, and maybe if there's some tips that you really want to walk away with. Um, by having that information, we can really customize today's kind of small group uh, virtual session. Um, to be sure we hit those points. Um, so feel free to use the chat box. Um, and we will wait for some responses as we kind of get started here. All right. So today's agenda um we want to define the impacts of neurodiversity within the classroom. Just really
005understanding what the word neurodiversity really is. Um uh we also are going to talk about evidence-based strategies. And so a lot of what we're going to discuss today um is science-based um specifically from the science of ABA as well as UDL. So applied behavior analysis and universal design of learning and we will break that um in parts for you. And then lastly we want to touch with some understanding of how do we bring the humanness back to teaching and learning. So how do we really really understand the individual needs of um individuals um especially when you're in a really large classroom and there are a lot of students a lot of different needs. Um what are some tips to kind of do that? Awesome. Um, let's see. Yoko, I think there's a message about resharing
006the is the sign-in sheet. Awesome. And if >> I'm doing that, >> thanks, Michelle. And if there's anybody that does want to introduce themselves and let us know specifically what you want to be learning and some takeaways from today's presentation, feel free to put that in the chat at any time and we will um take a look at that. Right. So, let's dive in. Neurodiversity in the classroom. I always like to start with a little bit of definitions. Um, so neurodeiversity for many of us, we didn't really even hear of this word or this concept until very recently, maybe within the last 3 to 5 years. Um, but this is not a new concept. Um, it was it really kind of coined back in the 1990s by an Australian sociologist who really describes the idea
007of neurodiversity the similar as biodiversity in the way that we have to have differences just the way that we all look different. Um, some people like to say just like our thumb prints or fingerprints are all different, our brains are all wired differently. And so the way that we communicate, the way that we respond, um the way that we understand and process the world around us, that is neurodiversity. So when we are looking very specifically at a population, um specifically maybe what we're here to discuss today, neurodiversity can also include individuals whose cognitive functions vary from what's considered as neurotypical. Um, so these individuals may be defined as neuro um, you know, neurode divergent. So if you've heard of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette's, all of these kind of syndromes kind of fall within that neurode
008divergent. Um, so something that's not just different, but maybe that somebody that needs a little bit of bit more support in learning and thriving in the environment around them. But ultimately there's no right way of thinking. Neurodedevelopmental conditions refer to the brain's development and how they affect the brain's function. Typically these show up very early in a child's life and they can range from mild impairments to very severe. Um and that's why you may have heard of early intervention as being very important. So the sooner you detect, you know, if there is a learning delay, attention kind of communication delay, the sooner that we get that intervention out for that child, um the sooner that we're able to kind of rewire, recind of teach um some of those things that there may be gaps in.
009But when we're looking in a classroom, um some of the data here show that one in five children in the US have a learning and attention issue. So specifically in a classroom, one in 16 students have what's called an individualized education program, an IEP. And one in 50 children have what's called a 504 plan where they are they may have some certain accommodations or certain ways of kind of um having their education approached um that's going to be helpful for them. And this is still keeping millions of children who have a learning and attention issue that are not formally identified. And so when we're looking in this classroom of 20 30 students, you know, if we only have a small portion of the students where we can really accommodate their specific needs and there are
010many other children's in children in that room or in that school that don't have maybe a diagnosis that have not been identified by their parents, caregivers, the educators around them. maybe there is no um identification yet of some of their needs and so or recognizing some of those needs can really fall. Sorry. >> I don't know. >> All right. Thank you. I'm going to just ask for our um mics to be muted. Um awesome. So we and thank you for a couple people. We have some people in the chat um want to learn specifically how to um deal with yelling or stop the yelling. Um that's a good one. That is no fun. Um and then we have Kathleen who has two students with autism both mainstream struggling to um with socialization with peers tending
011to segregate themselves um and choose to be alone. So great. So these are definitely and learning learning ways to create inclusiv inclusivity in schools. Um awesome. So we will certainly touch on those subjects. So feel free to keep coming the bringing those in and uh we will have our eye on the chat box. So, as we as we kind of discussed, if we have a wide range of kids that are not receiving the accommodations that they need to become successful, those can lead to many other com, you know, co-occurring conditions. So, oftent times with autism, we're seeing social anxiety, we're seeing depression, uh we might already have executive functioning delays. Um, so a lot of different kind of mental health conditions that may pop up. Um, and again, these are going to vary in terms
012of their symptoms, their ranges, their experiences. These are often, you know, very invisible in the sense of how they're showing up. And so, it may not be easy or quick for an educator or for a parent to recognize, hey, this is something that my par my child is struggling with or this is the reason why they may be falling behind in their academics. Um so becoming really mindful on some of the behavioral patterns um if possible if the you know child is able to communicate what their needs where they're feeling the gaps um those are really great ways um to kind of begin to identify and begin to consider some accommodations that can make them successful. And speaking of medical um condition, I I think it's important to note the primary disability categories that we
013look at when looking at a student's um IEP. So not um not only being mindful of of mental health challenges, but um looking at the eligibility category um such as autism spectrum disorder like Jagmeat mentioned. Um and then there's other um disability categories including deaf and blindness, deafness, emotional disability, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, um other health impairment, specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment, including blindness. And this is all important because um in a student's IEP there are two um um areas where it indicates a primary eligibility and a second uh secondary eligibility. And it's important to look at those um kinds of needs so that way uh the school team I mean including um parents can can really you know see what it is that
014um may be impacting the students learning. And so when uh looking at these different categories, especially looking at the students um needs and areas of challenges, um we definitely want to capitalize on things like accommodations and what the student might need so that way um they can be successful in the educational um setting. And in addition to this on the next slide please. Yes. We are looking um at a strengthbased approach um specific to neurodeiversity. Uh we want to capitalize on strength. So if we're seeing a student with dex uh dyslexia uh we want to have a big picture of an understanding of what that means for the student. So, uh, this student, um, may be better, uh, on holistic big picture visual reasoning. Um, while a student with ADHD, um, may score higher with
015creativity. Student with autism, uh, their strength in finding patterns, attention to detail, tolerance to repetitive task as well as sensory sensitivity. um and Tourette's syndrome, higher levels of creativity and humor. And so if we can identify their strengths, um we can look into that a little bit deeper when we are helping the student in those core academic subjects such as math, writing, reading, uh which is pretty much the hardest uh time for for our students. Um, so if we for example know that a student with ADHD is really creative, then we can look at perhaps helping the student be creative uh with their story. Um, if for example they're writing a story and maybe they can use um some pictures or a comic strip to represent main ideas and then get into the writing. Um
016so looking at the strengths and and trying to uh be creative in helping the students really um be successful and building those skills uh by looking at their um strengths. I think I will go ahead and hand it back to Jackie. >> Um thanks Janet. Um I'm reading through some of the comments. Thank you all for kind of putting some of those in. One of the questions was how to understand what type of accommodations are available. And although Janet may have a little bit more of a perspective from the school side of it, a lot of the work that I have been involved in is really identifying kind of that self-determination and self-awareness within your student, within your child. And so this slide is great for that where somebody um you know if your child
017is really creative, if they're really um good at finding specific patterns, if there's a pattern that you can identify that this is what your learner is specifically good at, getting them to begin to self- advocate and beginning to communicate u with their educators and kind of um finding ways that they can really demonstrate knowledge based on their specific strengths. Um, and I think that using that modality early on where there is an opportunity for a young learner to say, "Hey, this is way that I learn best or this is something that I can do." Is that a possibility? Um, because these are all learned behaviors. And so eventually when they're at the age of 14 and involved in their IEP process, it can be really helpful if you start at an earlier age to be
018able to get them to find their voice, find their strengths, and be able to begin to have those conversations u with their educators. All right, Billy, I'll hand this one over to you. >> Um, thank you. So, you know, when we're talking about sensory experiences, this can speak to um, you know, as a behavior analyst, we're looking at different um, functions or different reasons why a student might be experiencing different difficulties. And when we do a behavior assessment, we kind of look at four different ways of um, what is happening to a student if it's an attention seeking or if they're trying to escape or trying to access tangible. One of the major ones that uh, sometimes is overlooked are the sensory experiences, right? And I think individuals who are neurode divergent certainly become overstimulated
019um or um such as you know ADHD when they're hyper to lots of things in their environment whether it's light, sound or touch or hypo sensitive where they're under um underst stimulated as well. So, you know, we thinking about the five senses of how that affects somebody um individuals that are neurode divergent. They are um experiencing things such as sight, sound, touch, smell maybe, and texture a little bit differently from us. So, um that is something I think in the educational world we have to become a little bit more aware of and how this might affect our students and um what kind of impact they have and what kind of accommodations can we provide for them in the environment. Um, you know, one way a lot of students manage or self-regulate their own behavior is
020through self- stimulation, self- stimming, or what some might people say is u stmming. So, this could be a calming way that might be effective for them um when they're experiencing different types of stress. Um, and I think when you know in the educational environment, you know, I think that's okay as long as it does not impact their access to education. So if they're doing it in an excessive way, we have to might think about ways that we can help them um pause this those stmming and and attend to the instruction and then maybe work towards breaks and then get access into those calming tools when it's appropriate. So it's it's certainly a balance that um teachers have to think about and provide to the students um when appropriate. So um the sensory uh piece is
021a very complex thing. Um, and then, you know, sometimes we don't want to try to eliminate stmming or these self-regulations, but we have to help them manage it in a way that's effective that they can regulate their emotions as well as be able to focus on what's going on in the classroom. So, it's it's certainly a balance that that they need. Um, you know, some ABA strategies, you know, we can we can conduct sensory preferences um where we can go and assess an individuals and which part of their senses are being impacted. Um we can embody we can try to implement sensory breaks and we can regulate those tasks and demands if academic demands are really impacting them. We could figure out a way of individualizing them using motivational systems um you know uh embedding
022these breaks for them and just you know using whatever supports we can to help them you know make it through these situations and uh access the curriculum as well as learn to self-manage. Um, you know, I work with certain individuals with more um severe autism where they engage in um more severe behaviors at times and I do work with one individual um who has lost her sight. And so we definitely try to help her and provide programs that will help maximize other senses, right? So we might help her with tactile senses, um sound, trying to learn to access more audio books and learn in different ways. um figuring out what things are uh even object identification through touch and tactiles as well as textures and smells. So we try to adjust things based on the
023loss of sight and help help this individual access those other four senses as well as much as possible. So I think that's um you know and then social differences I've seen some questions already about social differences right and a lot of times um individuals who are neurode divergent have problems um with uh maybe empathizing or perspective taking in certain situations how they're be you know difficulty in recognizing how behaviors are being interpreted. Um, a lot of times in early intervention, we will do a lot of programs for um, young children that are trying to explicitly teach perspective taking. How do they get them to understand what's going on outside of themselves? And that can take quite a long time and it's kind of a complex social skill that might need to take go on for
024for many years. A lot of times also um, you know, fitting into the educational environment can be quite um, scary for some individuals um, where it's harder to make friends. Um sometimes schools can offer social skills groups where you can work on having smaller groups of groups of uh students get together as well as a facilitator um helping to um connect the students and get more conversational and shared interests togethers as well. Um certainly you know um some neurode divergent individuals have difficulty with tone you know in terms of how they communicate how that comes across can you know be offputting to um other students. So certainly um helping other students or general education students um come into contact and work with those students. Um I've seen a lot of school districts make a lot
025of effort to have um a lot of peers come into SDC settings and work and try to understand them. So I think coming from both sides is also really important. Um so then um people can have uh understand perspectives from both sides. Um certainly processing delays and challenges challen I said challenge tone and volume are an issue as well but processing delays how do we address it? how we become flexible in the environment and how do we um utilize certain accommodations to helps uh help students access their social environment in a more effective way. There's also other uh social skills groups. Um there's curriculums out there as well such as the peers group and other social skills things where we can try to explicit and explicitly work on different um different skills and try to
026teach that, right? using behavioral skills training to help teach these skills as much as we can and kind of break down the social construct into more meaningful goals for that individual as much as we can. Um so so as an educator right um or as a parent right if we want to refocus and reconnect some questions that we can ask ourselves where can I offer flexible space to meet sensory needs and emotional needs right do we need to look at flexible seating do we need to look at the lighting in our classroom do we need to consider the how the bell rings in the school and how that might affect our students when should I scaffold or pause to support uh different processing speeds How do we slow things down? When do we scaffold? Is
027this the right time in our lessons to be doing these things? Do we need to maybe pull the student aside and work on um work on individualizing this curriculum or this lesson a little bit more so that it'll it'll uh make more sense? Why is this moment more meaningful for connection or self-expression? What truly motivates each each learner to engage in their own way? Right? So, as a behavior analyst, certainly motivation is such a big piece of that, right? And it's not just about earning stars and tokens and things like that, but what is truly speaks to this individual? Is it sports? Is it um different types of uh curriculum that really speaks to them? Are they, you know, do they love math and that really makes sense? Um really looking at this uh at
028these situations and see what truly motivates each learner on an individual basis and always doing those preference assessments and understanding what's what's going on and what's really motivating. um who might be masking or feeling unseen and how can I reach them as well, right? So, just thinking about our students that we're still trying to figure them out and and reach them. Um you know, and it's I think as an educator, it's hard when there's 15 or 30 kids in a classroom, but you know, I teachers are really good about understanding their students needs and how do we reach each one of them? And if they have an IEP, there might be goals. If there's a 504, there might be accommodations that we can utilize to assist them as much as we can. So, evidence-based strategies
029for learning, ABA and UDL, right? Um, so how do we marry those things together is something we want to think about. So, when a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which which it grows, not the flower. So, um, you know, as in as a behavior analyst, we really are looking at the environment, not the behavior problem, right? behavior is kind of what we see, but we have to really work on fixing the environment, looking at proactive strategies and how do we address these needs or what we call anticedent strategies to try to address the environment as much as possible and then that will hopefully see a change in some of these behaviors that are impacting somebody. Um, so we're thinking about behavior science, applied behavior analysis, right? We're really trying to seek to
030understand the relationship between human behavior and the environment. uh we want to look at observable measurable science rooted in databased decision making right so that's a really important thing where we want to you know look at observable measurable things in the environment and what can we do to increase or decrease certain things in the environment um and really the proof is in the pudding and if we were taking consistent data we hopefully we're seeing improvement in uh in a certain skill that we're trying to teach or if we're not seeing improvement we really want to try and change our strategies and make some decisions on what's going on and hopefully make a change and see some improvement. Right? So if we just keep if we don't take the data, we don't get that feedback and
031understanding of what is working or not working. So that's really important that we do that as scientists. Um and we want to use individual values and motivation to guide that behavior, right? So we really want to use um that motivation and that individual understanding of the unique needs of every single learner and um you know continue to always evaluate are we really reaching the student? Are we meeting their needs as much as possible? Um some behavior systems for success. I don't know some of you might be more aware of behavior supports uh um but some common things that we would see in the environment we might use timers and visuals right to help say a visual learner somebody wants to understand what's going on or you know how how do they self-manage going through um
032a certain part of the schedule that might be more stressful they can see how much time's left they might see the visual on the board that okay next lesson is recess or um we're going to be able to take a break xyz um self-management systems right so those are really ways to help teach an individual to self-manage their own behavior, self-monitor behavior. How do we use certain things? You know, our phones are a big tool for us where we're setting calendars, we're setting timers for ourselves. We're really utilizing a lot of these uh methodologies that are rooted in behaviors, behavior analysis, right? So, how do we teach somebody to work on themselves and manage their own self rather than other adults managing it for them? Um, other things are behavior contracts, right? Um, we can
033use list calendars as I said earlier, predictable routines and mindfulness and meditation. Usually, there could be a proactive um, strategy of helping an individual when they're starting to feel stressed or anxiety. Um, and if they can access a tool such as being mindful or meditating or deep breathing. Um, that could be one tool that can help individuals calm down and prepare themselves for a situation that might be a little bit more stressful. Um there's other lots of other um anticedent strategies as well that you can look at to help someone prepare to overcome um a particular difficult subject or situation. Um but it really would uh depend on uh the unique needs of what's going on in the environment for that individual. >> Okay. >> Awesome. The other evidence-based science that we want to discuss
034today is universal designs of learning. And the this general framework is based on cognitive and neuroscience that understands again the different brains and learning types. Um so when we allow students or all of us engage in learning material differently and more individualized when we're more flexible and we kind of um use variety in terms of our teaching methods uh we're able to remove some of those barriers. So these types of accommodations can range. Um, typically they have to be very specific to those learners. Sometimes they can be a little bit um, a little bit wide ranging of one approach that you're using can really benefit many many students. Um, so we'll talk about some examples in our everyday life. Um, and so we also want to consider accessibility and considering the designs um, and the
035features of that. So, in our lives, you know, when we're watching a movie, when we're watching a show, and we use closed captioning, that was designed for a certain population. When we're talking about somebody that is unable to hear the movie, they can actually read it. Um, but I need closed captioning all the time. And this, you know, closed captions helps me understand the movie a lot more. And this is not something that I knew that I needed until it was available. and it just allowed me to engage in the visual that I was already watching. Um, very similar to automatic doors. Um, this was designed for a population maybe that, you know, didn't have the ability to open those doors. Um, and now having those automatic doors um, for the wide range of population
036is very helpful. Um, text to speech is another popular one. Um so when you're not able to actually use those um text or be able to kind of engage in that text um using your speech to relay your communication um similar to elevators and escalators. And so just kind of looking throughout our lives in terms of the way that some of the um kind of features that we talked about here, general behavioral systems, we all rely on these types of tools within our everyday lives to become successful. And so we can use that framework in the classroom or within our learners that are learning differently and really try to tap into what is something that um they really utilize in our in the daily life and how can we then generalize that into the classroom
037and how do we make it um less stressful for us as educators to say we have to think of something very creative and out of the box versus there may be something that already exists that we just haven't tapped into. and how do we um get access to that for our learners? So within UDL, what we're really trying to do is we want to have multiple means of engagement. So we want to tap into the learner's interests. We want to offer appropriate challenges, increase motivation, very similar to ABA. The main foundation in ABA is motivation. until we know what's going to motivate you um until we know how we can design this environment where you're going to feel excited to work towards something or accomplish something um we're not going to have that level of
038engagement. So that's the primary kind of piece that we want to figure out. We want multiple means means of representation. So we want to give learners various ways of acquiring that information and knowledge. Um, so again, you know, we know that there's people that learn better visually or tact tactily or, you know, reading something. And so, how do we tap into that? And so, if we're only using one method of teaching within the classroom, that's going to make it very difficult to tap into all of the students that are in that room. And so having different um maybe you have different modalities running at the same time where you're giving a lecture but there is a visual um and maybe there's auditory through movies um maybe there's something that they're designing at their desk. And
039then lastly multiple means of action and expression to provide learner learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know. And so again, kind of successfully designing maybe tasks or completion kind of tasks or that permanent product where you can really see that this person has learned the lesson versus just taking that test or just re um completing this report. Um what are maybe other more, you know, um creative ways and yet appropriate ways within the school district um that they can kind of express what they have learned. So again, here's a visual of what we just talked about. So we have engagement, you know, different options here um to stimulate motivation. We have representation that presents information in different ways. And then lastly, we have action and expression, offering options to support everyone so they can learn
040um and share their learnings. I'll hand it over to Janet here. um as we're looking into the strengths of the students um you know this slide I I think is really um helpful in in understanding and looking at it from a different lens. So um turning deficits um instead of looking at it as a deficit model looking at the student um using a strengthbased model. So for example needs um we can look at if we can go to the next slide please check me we can look at needs uh is learning. So looking at how is the student learning um what modality is effective for the student um and just um identifying uh the needs of the student and uh working with them and really helping them uh be successful as far as um the
041things that you know they really need. Um and instead of of of lack of um looking at that and refraraming it to is seeking right. So uh excuse me seeking ways to improve a skill or building on um certain skills so that way the student can master um a bigger goal, right? Um so looking at different ways to help um the student instead of we you know saying lack of um we want to look at how can we find ways to meet the needs of the student. And instead of saying something like this student is unable to, we can reframe it to well this student is practicing or is currently practicing this strategy, this tool, this skill um in this setting, whether it's social, academic, um this student is currently practicing this. Um so that
042way you know the student can then really learn and for example be independent with the skill and uh needing less of adult support and prompting and instead of saying failures um well this student is planning to um work on these you know benchmarks or smaller objectives to meet a bigger goal um and that goal you know in their IEP states um you know 80% participation um in the classroom setting including activities like reading, writing, um math, um choice time, um you know those kinds of things, right? So really looking at well instead of failures the student is currently working on this plan um towards those goals and then instead of saying deficits right we can reframe it to the student is becoming the student has learned these skills to uh become um a student who
043is you know participating more in these non-preferred activities you know um student is now attending um you know for example assembly um for the entire time with an accommodation of noiseancelling headphone right. So turning all of these um deficits that we we commonly hear and and you know see and shifting our mindset and reframing that I think you know is is going to be really helpful. um to effectively support the student, especially when we're looking at those evidence-based strategies um and and UDL. Okay. Um I do want to acknowledge that I see a lot of questions and I believe some comments in the chat box, but um we are almost at the end of our presentation. Um and we will get to your questions as soon as we are done. We just need a couple
044um I believe there's a few more slides and then we're at the end. Okay. Um so looking at you know bringing back humanness to teaching and learning um you know t really considering all of these things that we talked about. So with this case study, um I was involved uh with this case study and it was a first grade student um with other, you know, students that that were uh neuro uh divergent and had their own needs. Um so those five students in a general education classroom um you know big uh classroom with 20 other students, right? in those five students um that had autism, ADHD, and you know, their own learning needs. Um, we really collaborated with team members such as the resource teacher, occupational therapist, myself, the behaviorist, general education teacher, um, and
045the speech uh, language pathologist uh, on how can we really create this environment like Billy and Jack Meat noted, how can we create an environment where it's optimal for all students learnings considering the accommodations that they need. Um particularly with this first grader um who is now uh going to middle school or going to be transitioning to middle school. um this you know progress and journey that I've seen um it's been really positive and seeing the growth that the student has made um because of all the evidence uh based strategies that we put in place um universal design for learning the general education teachers um you know really tried their best to do things like having different um visual ual supports for these students that needed more visual supports. Things like graphic organizers, planners with
046different colors, uh um just to help them plan better for uh their day and looking at the schedules. um having things like a self-monitoring system that I I I help uh build and help the student, you know, recognize those key behaviors like when I'm on task, I do these things like tap my pencil or look the other direction. It's kind of what Billy was uh mentioning um with the self-monitoring of being aware of those behaviors, right? And so um that system was in place and other systems like flexible seating um seating arrangement where the students uh were able to for example sit on a wobble stool or um sit in the back of the classroom where there's less distraction and um they can you know focus better. uh those types of accommodations were in place
047um as well as other um accommodations that the other four students noticed. But I I particularly um was really supporting that one student um but noticed that the five students um they they've all made progress because of those specific behavior strategies um and accommodations in place. And so if we can go to the next slide or I believe it's two slides, um implementation strategies, um flexible seating like I noted, sensory supports, um standing desk to accommodate the different sensory needs. There was also a quiet corner. Uh most classes that I visit nowadays, both general education, special day classes, we're really um trying to have a quiet corner, calming corner, a break corner. Um just for students to access um and it's not even, you know, students with with an IEP, but all students to access
048fidget tools um calm down kit for their emotional regulation. And there were other strategies in place such as different differentiating instruction and tiered support um peer reading with partners. That was a strategy that was helpful for some of the uh five students um as well as scaffolding manipulatives and small group for the subject like math during math lessons. Um, and then for social emotional learning and peer inclusion, there was things like weekly morning meetings, um, really emphasizing empathy, self-awareness, and perspective taking through roleplay, um, and storytelling. And there was also buddy time and positive behavior supports within the classroom, but also individualized, um, behavior supports for those for those students. Um so with that if we go to the next slide uh we we did notice improvement in academic and and social um skills for
049those students. And so five neurode divergent students demonstrated growth on their individualized goals um and participated in in the grade level curriculum with appropriate supports. And those students with social communication challenges increase their peer interactions and um inclusive play during recess and group activities and it's really working you know with the team a multi-disciplinary uh team to really get these strategies in place. So it did take um you know a lot of of different um professionals to work together and create that environment uh for the students. Okay. And then our last um case study I believe Billy um wanted to discuss a high school student for this case. >> Um you know I we could do that. Um there I did have one um one case uh this year for an individual that was yeah
050at a um a non-public school um where he was hoping to move back to the a less restrictive setting and had a number of different behaviors. So um you know I I'll keep it brief because I want to get to the the qu leave time for the questions but you know I think you know having a team environment where um you know individuals from the um from the public school from the non-public agency as well as um contracted teachers and other providers really helped move transition this individual back into the gender environment using all sorts of accommodations and interventions self-management all all of the things and all of the different participants from the IE B team really working together was able to kind of gradually move this individual in a successful way as well as
051utilizing a lot of um you know interviews and assessments from a student himself and how he's learning to advocate for himself and you know touching base in terms of how he's feeling what he can do. Um, so it was just really wonderful experience to see all of the providers working together and fading an individual back into the into the school environment um in a successful way and fading out some of those supports or contractors as as needed. And just seeing a student really uh be successful was really probably one of the uh most important successes we had uh this year. So um really just you know when you look at all of the accommodations, interventions and team members, right? all the individuals on the IEP working together um can really make um something amazing happen.
052So I think if we always just try to build these teams around these individual individuals with complex needs um some amazing things really can happen and and put a student and really change their life and put them on a different road where they were before. So um with that said we can yeah move on to the next one and also um get to some questions. It seems like some good discussion points as well. Um, that's that's it for the case study. >> Thanks, Billy. >> Thanks. Sorry. >> No worries. I think we definitely wanted to wrap up with um this quote where, you know, educators who understand and connect with their students are better able to design strength-based and individual learning experiences. And I think that today whether we present um specific tools, whether we
053discuss, you know, specific outcomes of, you know, um success, it really ultimately is going to fall on that team. And so just kind of how Billy is saying as a caregiver, as a parent, as an educator, you know, a team member of a multi-disiplinary approach kind of working with that student, the the sooner you're able to really understand the functions of behaviors, what motivates that child, uh what are their strengths, what are their abilities, um the sooner you're able to create those environments that are really going to help them flourish and create a more positive impact in the long run. Um, so with that, we do have about 10 minutes. Um, and I wanted to kind of get some of these questions answered. Um, some of them are a little bit more IEP specific. So
054Janet, I'll have you kind of take the lead on some of that. Um, but one of the questions was how to deal with yelling. Um, and I think that the go-to kind of behaviorist response there would be understand the function. like um yelling can serve many different functions there. It can be I need attention um I need I'm avoiding this task um or I'm trying to get access to something. So as soon as you begin to recognize the patterns of why and when somebody is yelling and what they're yelling about um then you can design interventions that respond u better to what they're yelling is really trying to communicate. Um, and then you can begin to provide that. >> Um, let's see. Billy or Janet, are you do you have the chat box open if
055you want to >> go? >> Um, there is Okay, so Kathleen is asking um saying that there's two students with autism and both are mainstream struggling with socializing with peers. They tend to segregate themselves and choose to be alone looking for help with helping them be more more uh part of the classroom and other times with peers. uh grades six and three and going back to you know multi-disciplinary team and really working with the team on coming up with you know interventions to help those students right and um opportunities uh you know recess lunch um and you know choice time you know I'm really more focused on the elementary because I support uh uh students in in elementary as well as preschool and so looking for opportunities and finding ways where maybe adults can model
056and facilitate um those uh social skills, right? And I know that some speech um language pathologists have small group um and working on targeted skills and utilizing those interventions to help um students um build on on those social skills. And so, um, definitely working with the team and and and coming up with probably goals, I would say. Um, excuse me. I'm I'm getting over um my sickness, so my voice is still kind of horse. Uh, let's see here. >> Sorry, not to cut you off. >> Yeah, go ahead, Bill. you know, I think that's, you know, yes, the we need to work on that in the classroom and we can do um different types of supports as well as on the home side, you know, how can we um find ways of accessing you know
057different peer groups um uh there are some um standard like some other curriculums that can assist with that like the peers the peers group um so I think this is something I think you know it's not just in the classroom I think through their whole lives how do we help our children um socialize with other people was in classroom, the home setting and um trying to push those things forward, you know, across the students entire, you know, day and and everything that they experience. So, I think tying those things between home and school as much as possible and consistency can help that. Um sorry, next one. >> Absolutely. Next one is, um my whole family is neurode divergent. I want to learn new ways to create inclusivity at school. How to work and adapt. How
058to work with PDA profile. I'm Let's see here. Um, Billy or Jack me, do you wanna? >> Well, I mean, I think there's a lot of teachers that are really brilliant about making their classrooms as inclusive as possible and making a space for everybody. And you know I think I've seen a lot of changes over the years in terms of um you know flexibility and accommodations in terms of seating and um also how they you know teachers go and you know at the end of the day they they have a like a circle where they go through and they talk about they something that positive or difficult that happened to them or maybe praise a peer or receive praise from a from a peer about a certain thing. So I think when educators can really
059contrive these opportunities, you know, put down the academics for 15 minutes and get into a circle and discuss some of these things um and I because I think it's really important for kids to to hear that feedback or to receive um some positivity um and praise from groups of students as well. And so those types of little social skills um groups can really can really go a long way. And some teachers are really phenomenal with creating an environment that is inclusive as possible. Um, you know, and really, you know, adjusting their educational environment to reach as many students as possible. Obviously, you can't have, you know, 25 or 30 different individual ways of teaching everybody. Um, but I think teachers have gotten pretty pretty brilliant about how they're they're modifying their environments and modifying um
060how they can reach as many students as possible. >> Awesome. I'm gonna do a quick time check. We have three minutes. Um, and a couple more questions. So, I'm gonna I'll do a quick read through and maybe we can tag team the responses. Um, but this next one is how to support the transition to mainstream um, as he gets distracted and overwhelmed in larger settings. I think a lot of what Billy just mentioned right now is kind of working with the teacher, the multiddisiplinary team to understand what are the functions, what's distracting him, what's overwhelming him um and how do we tap into his motivation I think would be a really key point to start um to build some of that um attention. >> Yeah. And how do we get students to use something called
061functional communication, right? where we are teaching them, teaching students to advocate for themselves when these stressors are happening. How do I ask for a break? How do I if I feel a situation is overwhelming? Um, how do I, you know, communicate that to my teacher in such a way that I can take a break, go to the bathroom, go for a walk. What kind of accommodations? I think as long as we're using our words and teaching students to use their words as much as possible, we can be very flexible about meeting those needs, right? So, and that's also a really important way of overcoming behaviors that might come out is how do we teach them the functional replacement behavior that how do we communicate and advocate for themselves and share that and then help and
062that can help teachers address those those needs. And I think that kind of makes sense with another comment that Bill was also talking about in terms of self-regulation, right? And I think that's kind of what I'm talking about is um how do we help them self-regulate? How do we help them use functional communication to advocate for themselves in those situations where they're getting overwhelmed? Maybe they would scream or engage in certain behaviors to escape that. How do we get them to advocate for a break or um to step outside the classroom at certain times when they want that? And and how do we set them up? Right? There's also academic needs, right? We're going mainstreamed. How do we also um make sure the academics are individualized for them or in a way that they can
063access them? Right? So, are we mainstreaming them and making sure we're mainstreaming so they're learning and benefiting from these different environments that we're introducing them to? >> Awesome. Um, let's see. This one I think is a little bit harder to um answer in terms of curious what happens when a child has more than two um qualifications for IEP. Um, I don't know, Janet, if you >> Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say like if you're in the IEP system, you could even chime in. I'm sure she's an expert on this too as well. Like whatever goals that a student needs, that should drive the services. It's not about getting another um diagnosis necessarily. It's about what's impacting their their access to the education. Um, and those things should drive the goals that a
064student would get. So you could try get another diagnosis but it's also important about what are those deficits and that should speak to the different needs. Yoki you want to also >> yeah I see another question similar question around if you change the disability does it mean you get different services or more services and that's not the case. We have many students who have multiple disabilities and meet the eligibility criteria for multiple disabilities. And so we definitely assess in all of those areas and would name them all. But then the team, the IEP team would need to determine the primary and secondary disability, which is what is required to be um listed on the IEP. But it doesn't mean the other disabilities not listed. If they are also eligible for other disabilities, doesn't mean those
065don't exist. It just means that the team is determining out of however many disabilities the student is eligible for, what do we think is really the primary disability that's hindering their access to their education and what would be secondary to that. And that often is a very big discussion for teams and can be challenging. However, I don't know if there's necessarily a wrong order or what to list because it it doesn't change like Billy said around goals and services. that you the regardless of what the disabilities say first and second, third, fourth, the team discusses what the goals are for the student to work on and then determine services based on that. So it's um it doesn't drive the goals and services necessarily. It really is the individual students need. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. And
066then just time check it is 601. So maybe the last question is you know you know what is um is a goal for neurody divergent students to be not neurody divergent and that is not the goal really what we want to highlight here is that neurodiversity is a very very very important part of society um we wouldn't have phones or vehicles or homes or what we have in this world if it wasn't for the brains that have the visions and the capacity to build and innovate and create um the way that they do. Um, that being said, we still work, we still live in a society where there are expectations and rules and responsibilities. Um, so what you know, sometimes I like to say is that I can't go to the beach wearing a swimsuit
067because that's not the appropriate environment for that. Um, so being able to teach kind of what are some appropriate um maybe appropriate behaviors or appropriate expectations in certain times, but then also where where can you wear a swimsuit? Yes, the beach. you're not going to the snow to wear that. But how do you kind of create environments where people can thrive? Um where people can really un um unmask and allow themselves to be really authentic but while also understanding what those responsibilities and rules can be. Um so with that we will wrap up today's discussion. But if you have any questions, if you leave us, I think maybe in the surveys, um we'd be happy to share our slides, our contact information, and I'm happy to be in touch with anyone that's interested. >> And
068we'll put the link in the chat one more time for anyone who did not uh sign in yet. That be very helpful for us. Thank you. >> Awesome. >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you Janet Doug Meat and Billy. Thank you so much everyone for attending this evening. >> Thank you so much. >> Bye everyone.