Neurodivergent Students: What Teachers Are Never Taught

Everyone in a school building needs neurodivergence training, not just teachers

Hello, this is Danielle with ND OutLoud, and we are talking about support for professionals who work with people with neurodivergence, and who may have it as well. I want to target teachers specifically, and therapists, because one of us is a school teacher and one of us is a therapist, and we see so many in our world who just don’t know how to deal with the accommodation needs of neurodivergence.

And neurodivergence is all of the things. Just a quick reminder: neurodivergence can be ADHD, it can be autism, it could be learning disabilities, it could be epilepsy, it could be migraines, it could be autoimmune disorders, it could be bipolar disorder or other mental health things. There’s a wide rainbow, many, many flavors of neurodivergence. And there’s not enough really great training out there. There just isn’t.

And for public schools, this isn’t just teachers. This is administrators, because administrators deal with lots of discipline issues, and they’re constantly dealing with all the students. But when you’re dealing with neurodivergent students, your take on these things has to be very different. Or school counselors, or department heads. Anybody that works in a school could use professional development on dealing with neurodivergent children. The school secretary, the school receptionist, the school resource officers. Especially the school resource officers. Everybody needs better support and some professional development on these specific issues.

De-escalation is taught to therapists, not to teachers

So what are some of the things that you’ve seen? Because you’ve been in school districts, you’ve done behavior modification training. What are the things that stick out to you that aren’t covered?

Everything. De-escalation techniques, 100 percent. When I taught positive behavior interventions, really, when I would go into schools, everyone is overworked, understaffed, overstressed. We know that emotional regulation, when you are in a high-stress environment, is hard to do. And then kids, because they’re children, have trouble with emotional regulation, and they’re also stressed, or they have heightened emotions. So if you put two emotionally unregulated people in a scenario and say, “I need one of you to be the adult and diffuse this,” if you don’t practice that, it is a powder keg. Some days you’re able to diffuse it fine. Some days they push your buttons and it’s all over.

So I really think diffusing situations matters. You learn it when you’re going to school to be a therapist. You learn it in counseling. You learn it in behavior intervention. There are standard practices for diffusing a high-stress situation, but I don’t think they are taught to teachers at all. You just have to figure it out.

And it’s more than just figuring it out. It’s figuring it out for the particular flavor that your student is, too, because you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Are you dealing with a student who just didn’t sleep last night? Are you dealing with a student who is deep in PDA or RSD? Or are you dealing with a child who had some major trauma, mental, physical, emotional, this morning? You never know what you’re going to get, and being able to pick the right response is really, really difficult.

Socks, sensory days, and keeping a neurodivergent child engaged

And then, understanding how to keep that child engaged. If you’ve got a neurodivergent child, there’s always something. Their socks don’t fit right today, so it’s driving them insane and they can’t handle life, because they have socks on, or shoes on, or that sweatshirt they hate. How do you, as a teacher, therapist, counselor, whatever, deal with this child on a day-to-day basis?

And I think, from the aspect of a parent, having to try to explain to teachers how to deal with their neurodivergent child, and I insert major eye rolls there, because I gave up. The poor teachers could not deal. They didn’t have the resources, the skills, the spoons, to deal with 20 neurodivergent kids in a classroom. So how do we provide the kind of support that needs to be provided? Because the school districts just don’t have it, and teachers aren’t taught it in college.

“I can’t accommodate just one child”: a conversation at Disney World

Funny you should ask. We have so many ways that we teach this stuff. I actually was recently at Disney World, and I spent my evening talking to a school teacher. She’s like, “I can’t do that in a classroom.” Well, why can’t you do that in the classroom? “Well, because I can’t have accommodations for just one child in my classroom.” I’m like, whoa. Let’s rephrase this. All kids need accommodations, and you absolutely can have accommodations for one child in your classroom. It’s called an IEP. Or a 504 plan.

There was a group of us at Disney World on solo trips, and three out of the four of us in this group wanted to slap her, because the other three of us were neurodivergent. We’re like, no, no, no. And we’re talking about some really simple things here. Like, do you have fidgets in your classroom? “Well, no, because that would be distracting.” We have a mission to make sure teachers have the skills, the know-how, and the support that they need. Yes, we offer ADHD coaching, but if you’re not neurodivergent and you need to be able to support neurodivergence, we can coach you on that too. Come get the support you need.

Role play, Zentangle, and skills you can actually practice

So what are some of the things we do in professional development for teachers and therapists, helping them deal with all the flavors of ND? We work on de-escalation techniques, and we put you in role-playing scenarios, because role-playing scenarios are safe. As an AuDHDer, this is where a lot of autistic people learn how to do stuff. It could be by watching a movie or reading a book, but seeing these situations play out, that’s how they internalize a script of actions. So we role play de-escalation, from parenting scenarios, to coworker scenarios, to all the scenarios we can think of. It’s fun, it’s a little wild, and it’s super cathartic.

My husband, who is also a school teacher, teaches everyone the Zentangle method. He uses it in his art classes. One, it teaches everyone that they’re an artist. Two, it helps you become resilient with mistakes. It’s also a way of self-regulating in meetings, in appointments, whenever you need it. It’s a very easy coping skill that, once you learn it, you can take with you anywhere. And you end up making some really cool art on top of that.

Stopping a toddler meltdown in 30 seconds

Something else I did: I was talking to a family whose children were melting down in the park while I was there, and I turned around and started talking to the kids. We started having a conversation, and we redirected them and got them back on track. I taught two toddlers how to self-regulate, and this is how: I have these stickers with texture on them, they’re comic strips, and doing something as simple as talking about what it says and what it means, and “can we take deep breaths with every letter,” these kids went from 9,000 to zero in a matter of 30 seconds.

I will walk up to anybody in the park melting down and help the parent out, and the parents were about in tears because they saw that. The teacher that was hanging out with me said, “That was so easy.” Yes. It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to do some of those things. You just have to know what to look for. And a lot of times it’s an opposite sensory response from whatever’s going on.

I saw a parent helping their child regulate the other day, and it was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a dad, and he was holding his hand up, and the little girl was crying, and he was having her trace his fingers up and down, just back and forth, until she calmed down. It was a tactile thing. She had to concentrate to do it. It was a switch from her fight-or-flight brain to a task-oriented activity.

So there’s a lot we can teach from years of expertise and lived experience. And maybe some of these things you already know, you’ve just been in survival mode so long at your job that you’ve forgotten them. It’s often easier for somebody who’s not in your situation, because you’re exhausted and frustrated, to take a look and go, “Oh, do you remember when you learned this?” And a lot of these things will also make you the cool teacher in school. You know those goofy bubble wands at Disney World that most adults look at and go, “Oh, I hate those things”? You want to know the greatest thing to have in your classroom? A bubble wand. A bubble machine. It’s really good at helping kids regulate, and it helps adults regulate too. We both have them in our homes, because they help regulation.

We also teach multi-sensory meditation with a kid, to help bring them down. Because classrooms aren’t quiet. Schools aren’t quiet in any way, shape, or form. So how do you use multi-sensory things to get some of the same results, getting a kid to focus, getting them to do things?

Accommodations for the neurodivergent teacher, including ones you give yourself

Also, learning how to recognize what accommodations someone needs. And if you are the neurodivergent teacher, there are accommodations you can be asking for at work. And it’s scary. A lot of people right now are struggling with self-disclosure. But there are a lot of accommodations you can ask for without having to disclose anything, and there are a lot of accommodations you can give yourself without having to ask for anything from somebody else. One of the best things, and I’ve started talking to teachers about these, you could wear them all day long, they are an accommodation you can provide yourself, and they will help if you have auditory overload. Which I think all adults have at this point.

Full moons, windy days, and the research on dysregulated classrooms

I do want to point out one thing. If you are an educator, I’m going to tell you right now, there is a collection of conditions where your students will be more overstimulated, and these have been researched, there is data to back this up. Full moons. Windy, high-wind days. Changes in barometric pressure. Stormy weather. After recess. After a change, like in between specials, or class, or lunch. It’s wild.

And then, as your student walks through the day, everybody has a lot of cognitive load available in the morning, a lot of brain power, but as you march through the day, it decreases. So at the end of the day, you ask your student to do a really complex task, let’s say they’re a high school student and they have math at the end of the day, they’re not going to get as much out of that math class as they would if they had it in the morning. Knowing these things, especially if you’re an administrator, there are some very easy things you can do that will change the culture in your building.

Simple, cheap accommodations and a community to come back to

Neurodivergent adults, neurodivergent children, spouses, parents, whatever, need more support than they are getting. There is so much out there right now on the realities of disclosing, or not being able to get the support someone needs in a relationship, in an education situation, in a work situation. We want to help change that narrative, because it shouldn’t be scary to share with people, and we shouldn’t have to mask it out and still suffer, and have shame and frustration and overwhelm and burnout, and literally have mental health breakdowns, because the accommodations that are necessary aren’t provided. Because they can be. They aren’t difficult, and they also aren’t expensive.

I think a lot of educators, especially admin staff, worry that “if I provide that accommodation, it’s going to get really expensive, because other people are going to want it.” Some of the things are super simple. Super, super simple, and they don’t require any special materials or anything expensive at all. They’re really simple things that can be done with what you already have on hand. You already have pencil and paper in school. There are so many ways to use that pencil and paper to help the neurodivergence in your classrooms.

The thing is to be around people that make you feel safe, seen, and heard. That make you feel free to ask questions. That make you feel like, okay, I’m around people and I can brainstorm this. And start building your community. One of the best and biggest things we all need, whether you are neurodivergent yourself or supporting neurodivergence, is having a community to come back to once you’re back in real-life situations, and say, “Hey, I’m dealing with this. Can somebody help me? Give me ideas, help me adapt it, whatever it needs.” If you have questions, please reach out. You can find us on our YouTube channel and our podcast, and we are ND OutLoud everywhere. I hope to hear from you soon.