Behavioral Interventions

I'm not sure what special needs my ten-year-old has. He was two-plus when we adopted him, so by definition, he has "special needs." Clearly he's never met a rule he wanted to follow or a boundary he wanted to respect. But he's so cute. At first the therapist thought he was just spoiled, as in, you've been distracted by the problems of his older siblings, and he's so cute, he's been allowed to get away with too much for too long. That was hard to believe. I'm a very strict mom. My own mother called me Captain von Trapp without the whistle. She meant it in the nicest possible way I'm sure. So initially we worked on the temper tantrums and disobedience… [more]

I love this story. Why didn’t someone think of this years ago? If you have a child with ADHD, is energetic or fidgety, you know that school can become a battle ground. Johnny won’t sit still. Johnny won’t stay in his seat. Johnny is always fidgeting. It can be frustrating for both the parent and the child and the child truly can’t help it. It is a chemical disorder in the child’s brain. There is good news. A teacher decided to work with these kids and designed a desk that allows kids to stand up while at their desk, which also allows them to “fidget” by shifting their weight, moving their feet or whatever else they need to do. Another… [more]

Have you adopted an older child either from foster care or internationally? If you have, does your child smother friendships? Many of these children suffer from low self-esteem. Therefore, they feel the need to buy friendships. One of my adopted daughters took gifts to a friend every week. They were not expensive gifts. She took things she had made like beaded jewelry, key chains, or bookmarks. She took personal belongings such as lip-gloss or lotion. After several weeks, her friend began to think her behavior was strange. That is when I found out about it because her mother wanted me to know. At school, she felt that she had to share her lunch or money everyday with other students. She would give money away, or buy… [more]

I almost could not believe my ears as I listened to the story. My own daughter sat there in disbelief as I continued to ask pointed questions about how she succeeded. Her story is similar to my own daughter’s story because they share birthparents. She is the older sister, and they lived in the same home until shortly after my daughter turned three. Like my daughter, she has struggled over the years with lying, stealing, cutting, and destroying property that was not hers. Her lying was worse than my daughter’s lying, because at 15 she began making terrible accusations about everyone close to her. Many people were investigated over her stories and she lost many friends and mentors. It got so bad that the school would… [more]

Does your adopted child suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused from early trauma? Trauma that happened before you ever met your child may be adversely affecting your parent-child relationship. Most adoptive families try numerous techniques to help their affected children. Living with a person who suffers from PTSD can be difficult for the entire family making some families feel desperate for help. Parents of children with PTSD tend to get a little excited when we hear about a new treatment. At least those of us with eternal optimism do. The cutting-edge treatment for PTSD sufferers may be virtual reality psychotherapy combined with medication. The study lead author, Barbara O. Rothbaum, a professor of psychiatry, and director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory… [more]

A new study found evidence that eating disorders may be contagious among high school students. Researchers found that poor eating habits like binging, fasting, and using diet pills were clustered in areas within counties, especially among female teenagers. Teenage girls are subjected to strong social pressures to be thin and they are willing to use unhealthy behaviors to get thin. Researchers believe that finding clustered groups of teenagers with eating disorders, instead of county-wide sporadic teenagers with eating disorders confirms their findings. Data was analyzed from 15,349 teenagers. This phenomenon was first suggested in the 1980s when it was identified among female college students within certain sororities. These clustering patterns were similar in rural, suburban, and urban counties. However, clustering patterns were only noted… [more]

For as long as I can remember there has been mention in LuLu’s IEP about her doing certain activities with fading prompts or without needing an adult to sit right by her side. When she came home to do school, after February 2006, I realized exactly what was going on…that LuLu required one-on-one adult interaction for everything. Without this constant adult interaction (actually needing the adult right there by her side), several of LuLu’s disabilities would/could come into play, making it impossible for her to learn. Without an adult to redirect her, LuLu would easily lose focus. Or she might just as easily get frustrated. From there, her anxiety would build and she would impulsively seek the adult’s full attention (not taking “no”… [more]

Today, I left for 45 minutes to take Lane to college. Upon my return, the four year old says, “Dani was coloring while you were gone and not doing her school.” While it doesn’t seem like a huge infraction, we’ve been discussing this type of behavior for several days. It seems that she will do anything to avoid doing her schoolwork. It isn’t just because she is homeschooled this year either, her teacher told me the same thing last year when she was a public school. She received three “Es” on her report card last year for not turning in assignments according to her teacher. She skipped four weeks of doing her bookwork recently, yet told me everyday that she was finished with it. She seems… [more]

As parents, we usually try to encourage our children to work out their differences with other children at school. We want them to learn some independence and problem solving skills. However, according to a new study, we probably should get more involved in our child’s business. Researchers in Canada followed nearly 2,000 children from Kindergarten through the seventh grade. They found that 17 percent of the children studied said that they started having sex by the end of seventh grade. The common factor cited for early sexual involvement seemed to be peer rejection. Therefore, if our children don’t seem to have any friends, we should probably get involved. Researchers in the study found that if children are ostracized by their classmates or negatively singled out by… [more]

In the series on developing IEPs I’ve been writing, I addressed the nuts and bolts of how functional behavioral assessments and positive behavioral interventions should be a part of a child’s IEP if the behaviors impede his learning (or the learning of other children). But there’s so much more to address when it comes to behavioral interventions at school, especially for traumatized children and/or those with a combo platter of disabilities. The causes of our children’s behaviors are complex…the antecedents are often not clear…and what the child is “getting” from the negative behavior often doesn’t seem to make sense. So, even experienced teachers and psychologists can miss it. And parents, believing these educators are the experts, can… [more]