Want Strong Neurodiversity Affirming Practices for Special Education Teachers

I’m excited to introduce this week’s guest blogger Laine from Transition Abilities to chat about neurodiversity and affirming practices!

NEURODIVERSITY BACKGROUND & DEFINITIONS:

If you work in Special Education, you may have heard of the term neurodiversity. But do you know how to build a neurodiversity-affirming classroom? 

In a nutshell, neurodiversity is the idea that it’s acceptable & celebrated for people to have diverse brains. The concept is to embrace all differences. Do not assume that some brains are “normal” and therefore superior, while other brains are “abnormal.” As a neurodivergent educator, I am passionate about this topic.

Neurodivergent is an umbrella term describing an individual who differs in mental or neurological function from the majority. This includes ANY disability affecting the mind/brain. This includes ADHD, Autism, Intellectual Disabilities, PTSD, Learning Disabilities, Epilepsy, Generalized Anxiety Disorder…you name it, the list goes on. If you are not neurodivergent, you are considered “neurotypical.”

Many of us neurodivergent folks have learned to blend in to be “neurotypical passing,” by masking our neurodivergent traits. For example, we may hold in our stims (repetitive body movements or sounds) in public, to not draw attention to ourselves. While the privilege of being able to mask sometimes keeps us safe from harm. It also causes neurodivergent people to remain undiagnosed and in a constant state of hypervigilance. This is why spreading awareness on neurodiversity is so important – when we are taught that it is not shameful to be neurodivergent, and that the unmasked behaviors of neurodivergent folks are acceptable forms of behavior, more people will be able to accept who they are, seek the accommodations they need, and feel safe to unmask.  

As a teacher, it is important to have a neurodiversity-affirming practice to ensure that your classroom is a safe space for all of your students.

NEURODIVERSITY-AFFIRMING PRACTICES

The special education field is FULL of passionate educators who only want the best for their students. However, terminology, teaching methods and types of therapy have been evolving, so it’s important to stay current by listening to disabled people and shifting how we teach.

USE RESPECTFUL TERMINOLOGY

Words are powerful. Always check with your students to find out if they have a preference for person-first or identity-first language. While many of us were taught in college to always use person-first (i.e. “person with autism”), many people actually prefer calling themselves autistic, deaf, and so forth, as they feel their disability is a part of their identity. Additionally, many disabled adults find terms like “special needs,” “differently abled” or other euphemisms to erase their identity as a disabled person. By avoiding the word disability, it perpetuates the belief that being disabled is negative.

BE AWARE OF SENSORY DIFFERENCES

Neurodivergent folks process the world around them differently. We often feel our senses too much (or not enough), leading us to avoid or seek out different sensory experiences. Unfortunately, sensory dysregulation can be very distracting, which creates a barrier to learning essential skills. If we are experiencing sensory overload, we need to re-regulate before we can learn. As a teacher, I know that I have to take into account the student’s mood, environment and level of regulation before assuming I know why a student is behaving a certain way.

OBSERVE BODY LANGUAGE

Did you know that stimming (repetitive movements or sounds used to self-regulate) can be a useful tool to communicate different states of regulation? For example, humming could be used to lessen anxiety, while hand flapping might indicate extreme happiness. Observing stims can be a helpful tool for staff to understand how a neurodivergent person is feeling internally. Unless a stim is causing harm, it should never be stopped. Stopping a stim just teaches the individual to mask their dysregulation, not how to re-regulate. It’s important to accept and validate the fact that neurodivergent people communicate differently than neurotypical peers. There’s a difference between giving students tools to succeed in a world not built for them, versus telling students that their way of communicating is wrong and needs to be “fixed.” 

ADAPT TEACHING METHODS

As teachers, we know that every student has a different learning style, and some methods won’t work with everyone. Affirm your students’ differences by differentiating how you teach. For example, speaking slowly will help some students, but it will offend (or even hinder) others. Scaffolding, positive reinforcement, modeling, planned breaks, visual schedules, using specific language, task analysis, frequent repetition and fading of prompts, are all neurodiversity-affirming techniques to try. If you are in the ABA field, make sure you are learning how to be neurodiversity-affirming from actual autistic people. Not just from your non-autistic teachers and peers. We must adapt how we teach to ensure all our students are safe and successful. 

SHIFT LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Some IEP goals intend to change behavior in order to appear more neurotypical; this is the opposite of neurodiversity-affirming. We need to shift our focus from “the student will blend in with others” to “the student will learn the tools necessary to thrive in a world with environments and behavioral expectations that were not created for them”.

So, rather than focusing on changing a student’s behavior to mask their disability, like decreased stimming or neurotypical social skills training, try instead to help the student reach goals surrounding self-advocacy, boundaries, consent, communication, self-determination, safety, perspective taking, and social problem-solving.

Teach your students that their thoughts and feelings are valid, but so are the thoughts and feelings of other people. Everyone needs to know how to advocate for their own needs, not just mask their feelings. Our goal is to find intrinsically motivating activities that have a real, functional impact on our students’ lives. 

Do you have any questions or thoughts about neurodiversity-affirming practices? Let me know on Instagram or Youtube!

Looking for more information about disabilities, check out this post!

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