We're about halfway through the school year now, and for a lot of students with special needs, this is when the wheels start to come off the bus, or at least get wobbly. For my kids, this is when academic and behavioral problems often became too evident to ignore, after a strong start in the fall and survival mode over the holidays. Work is getting harder, teachers are expecting more, classmates are more familiar and thus more likely to provoke responses. It's about this time of year, when my son was in fourth grade, that a behavior therapist was called in by the school -- and since that behavior therapist wasn't available to observe his class until June, it's about this time of year that I wrote him a behavior plan that wound up being part of his IEP for years after.
If your child is having one of those years and you'd like to be proactive in approaching the school with solutions, here are some articles that may be of use:
- Five School Trouble Spots to Stay on Top Of
- Five Ways to Stop School Behavior Problems Before They Start
- What Is a Behavior Plan?
- What Is a Functional Behavioral Assessment?
- Write Your Own Behavior Plan
- Send a Behavior Chart to School
How's your child doing this school year? Worst I'm dealing with so far is reluctance to change for gym, which I'm counting as a bargain as behavior problems go.
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