Approaches, Strategies and Interventions

There are lots of useful strategies and interventions that can be helpful when supporting your neurodivergent child/ young person. This link from NAIT helps you to decide which interventions are evidenced based for learners at each of the SCERTS stages.

Environment First

NAIT’s key messages for Primary Schools are a helpful way of thinking about what strategies and supports will help neurodiverse learners in our schools.

CIRCLE is one of the key resources available to practitioners that supports our journey towards more inclusive universal practice across our schools and Early Learning & Childcare settings. Find out more here.

The physical environment includes the way school looks and feels, and how learners use materials and move around. A predictable environment that supports independence and participation is likely to include:

An individualised visual timetable, relevant to the learner’s developmental stage
Other visual supports
An individualised safe space (that they choose to go to)
Planned movement breaks.

The social environment includes the relationships the learner has with peers and adults, social rules and expectations, and the ways these are communicated. A supportive social environment is likely to include:

Reduced language
Good understanding of the learner’s developmental level across a range of skill areas
A good understanding of masking
Opportunities to participate meaningfully across the day.

Safe Spaces

Creating safe spaces takes careful planning and consideration. What works in a primary school environment will not necessarily work for secondary school students.

Safe Space Guidance for Schools (2020)

Masking

Guide to Auistic Masking (2022)

This link takes you to the document.

Comic Strip Conversations

Restorative Practice is not recommended for many neurodivergent children and young people who have difficulties with drawing meaning from context, perspective taking or making connections between others' intention, motivation and communication styles. Comic Strip Conversations can be an alternative approach.

Both are about:

● holding people accountable for their actions, accepting responsibility but supporting them in learning what they have done.

● Finding a way forwards and doing it differently next time.

Movement Breaks

This link takes you to the documents: NAIT Movement Breaks Guidance for Home & School

East Lothian EPS websites

Regulated and Ready to Learn

Find out more about how to support children and young people to be Regulated and Ready to Learn in our classrooms.

EBSA & Attendance

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is a broad term used when school non-attendance is considered to be due to emotional factors. Find out more here.

Bereavement, Loss & Grief Helping a Child or Young Person with ASN

Find out more about here.

Not So Helpful Interventions for Neurodivergent Children/ Young People

Planned Ignoring

Planned ignoring is an outdated response to supporting distressed responses because it treats a child's internal dysregulation as a deliberate attempt to seek attention. Trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming practices recognise instead, that it is a sign of sensory overload, communication barriers or emotional overwhelm.

Leaving an increasingly dysregulated young person to figure things out by themselves without offering concrete solutions, fails to build safety or regulation skills. Overload requires proactive connection, safety, and co-regulation - not isolation.

Individual Behaviour or Reward Charts

Assumes a lack of motivation is the problem.

Individual behaviour monitor charts assume that the child is both developmentally capable and has the skills to engage in the desired behaviour.

Children with ADHD, Autism, brain injury, trauma, ACEs, sleep disorders typically have less developed executive functions (impulse control, planning, motivation, decision-making and the ability to delay gratification).

The sorts of things that get written on a behaviour chart - raising your hand before speaking, sitting still, waiting in line, sharing, using an inside voice ... all rely on well-developed executive functions.

Question your expectations about sitting still. Do they really show that a child is listening or engaged? Many neurodivergent children and young people need to move in order to concentrate, regulate their attention, and process information effectively.

What else might be at play?

What is the developmental age of the child?
Is there a history of trauma/ scarcity - will the reward be there later?
Is there a history of adults not following through?
Can they link behaviours with consequences?
Can they manage delayed gratification?
Can they remember what they should be doing instead?
Can they manage their impulses?

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