Teaching autistic students who demonstrate ‘challenging behaviours’ at school or pre-school Emma Goodall is autistic, an educator and an autism adviser. She writes about how that means she questions everything.
I HAVE demonstrated my fair share of ‘challenging behaviours’ over the years. Being who I am has led me to question everything, not the least of which is what we mean by challenging behaviour. As a result, I initially came to the following definition: “Challenging behaviours are those that hurt or damage self, others or things/the environment around.” However, after being involved in two years of highly successful trials in schools and pre-schools in South Australia to reduce ‘challenging behaviour’, I have come to a different conclusion. For many autistic children and students, behaviours that harm self/others/things present once the survival instinct of fight (or flight, or freeze or flop/drop) has kicked in.
This approach is not an instant fix, it is a highly effective long-term strategy. nervous system overload, where the brain signals imminent danger and the survival instinct kicks in. At this point the student is unable to think, their behaviour is automatic. Through the two years of trials in South Australia, we have confirmed what neuroscience, psychology and occupational therapists are saying: interoception is necessary in order to be able to self-regulate and that we can teach interoception in schools. Neuroplasticity is the concept of brains being able to change as they learn new skills. Through our use of regular interoception teaching (2-3 times a day for 1-5 mins each time), we have found that students, including those on the autism spectrum, develop a greater and more accurate sense of interoception. This directly correlates to lower levels of harm to self/others/things and an increase in pro-social behaviour, such as kindness.
Our survival instinct kicks in when our sympathetic nervous An interoception activity is one that changes the state of system signals to the brain that we are in imminent danger. the body and the student is guided The problem is that in autism, as with to notice. So for example, warm up a range of other neurodiversities, our "Interoception is necessary in stretches become an interoception brain gets the signal wrong. So, for example, anxiety or frustration can be order to be able to self-regulate activity if the student is guided where they could feel their muscles change. misread by our nervous system and and we can teach interoception Each person will feel the stretch slightly then our brain as danger. This tips us differently once they actually notice over into survival mode and we enter in schools." it. However, in the beginning, many our default state for us of either flight neurodiverse students, along with or freeze/hide/flop/drop or fight. If students who have experienced trauma, do not feel anything. approached or interacted with in the first two states, this sends signals to the brain that the danger has increased and Schools and pre-schools that implement our free so we have to ‘fight’ in order to ensure we survive. interoception curriculum1 all show significant decrease in One of the reasons that neurodiverse brains get the signals so wrong is that many of us have an inaccurate and/or low level of interoceptive awareness. Interoception is the sense of our internal self, the signals from our body that indicate our state of being. For example; our temperature, our heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, body placement, thirst, hunger, pain etc. This awareness of sensation is governed by our insula in our brains. The way that humans experience emotions is that we become aware of our body state through our insula and then interpret the collection of body states, for example sore tense shoulders with pain across top of the skull in my case is interpreted as frustration. Emotions and feelings are signalled by at least two body signals. If you have a fluttery tummy, but can’t read/ notice a second signal, it will be hard to identify if you are feeling sick, in love, nervous etc. When people with good interoception start to feel frustrated or angry or upset, they know this and can do something about it. However, when people, including autistic students, have low levels of interoception or inaccurate interoception, they don’t know when they are beginning to feel an emotion as they do not notice the body signals. Often these are the students that seem fine and then, all of a sudden, ‘lose it’. Both meltdowns and shutdowns are examples of sympathetic
8
behaviours that harm self/others/things within 8-10 weeks. This decrease varies from 30-85% depending on how often teachers pre-empt behaviours by utilising interoception activities. So, for example, in classrooms where teachers encourage individuals to engage in interoception activities as soon as they notice that students are off task, within a term ‘challenging behaviour’ is rarely seen. Another way of implementing the interoception approach to managing behaviour is to start the day with 20 mins of interoception. In classes, including at special school, where this has been done, students have been able to be co-regulated or able to selfregulate for the rest of the day within 6-8 weeks. When children can’t read we teach them, when they can’t write, we teach them. In the interoception approach, when children can’t self-regulate we teach them the skills to help their insula work better, which enables them to become aware of their bodies and connect to the way they are feeling and so be able to manage this. All these steps are required in order to be able to self-regulate. Without giving students the opportunity to develop their interoception they will NEVER be able to consistently manage themselves. What this means in practical terms is that in the classroom students who often harm selves/others/things or withdraw frequently, need to develop better interoception. This approach is not an instant fix, it is however a highly effective long-term strategy. To be most effective it requires
ALTOGETHER AUTISM JOURNAL • ISSUE 1 2018