Amy Laurent

Supporting children, parents & educators

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Decision Making Tree for Dealing with Problems

Free Visual Support: Decision Making Tree for Dealing with Problems (PDF)

When arousal levels increase, often times, creative problem solving abilities go out the window. The Decision Making Tree for Dealing with Problems is designed to lighten the burden of needing to generate solutions in the moment for Conversational Partners. This support requires pre-teaching in order for it to be useful and effective when a student is actually confronted with a problem. As with any complex support, in addition to pre-teaching, the use of modeling as well as initial mutual regulatory support is suggested. Remember new self-regulatory skills are often most effectively learned through successful mutual regulatory assistance. The structure of this support can be adapted for a wide range of possibilities. So, feel free to be creative and individualize the strategies.

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The Daily Brain

Free Visual Support: The Daily Brain (PDF)

It’s difficult to rank any given day on a simple descriptive scale of good to bad or on a numerical scale of 1 to 5. However, many times that is just what our students are asked to do. These scales fail to capture the complexity of a day and the variability that is inevitable across multiple hours. The Daily Brain is a tool that is designed to help conversational students be thoughtful and reflect on how they experience and navigate their day according to several dimensions, using sliding scales. It can be used at the end of a single day or at multiple points during that day. The video briefly discusses possible ways to introduce and use The Daily Brain.

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Fidgets in the Classroom

Free Visual Support: Fidgets in the Classroom (PDF)

Fidgets are a tool for self-regulation. Just like many other regulatory tools, students need to be taught how to use them. Fidgets in the Classroom provides practical information for school staff seeking to help students use fidgets effectively in the classroom to support active engagement and learning. This support can be used for direct teaching about fidgets and can also be used as a visual reminder in the classroom. The video briefly discusses the use of fidgets as learning tools.