Resources to Support Challenging Child Behavior

Many of my students stress when taking unit tests to the point that their grades do not demonstrate their abilities seen during class. What strategies can I give them to relax and not fail?

I need some new, motivating ideas for reinforcing my students for appropriate behavior.

I teach a Life Skills class and was just told that I am getting a new student who reportedly is very difficult to teach. He has bitten and hit his teacher and destroyed his work area at his last school. I am nervous and want to know what activities would be best to have him complete his first day in my classroom.

What can I do when I notice one of my students starts to get upset? I don’t want him to have a major meltdown.

My 7 year old son, diagnosed with autism, is constantly writing or scratching on my walls with anything he can find, whether it’s a pen to write or one of his toys to scratch. He draws mostly bridges on my walls, but he does draw other things as well (things that interest him). I was thinking about painting a wall with dry erase paint and making it clear that it’s his wall to draw on to try to contain the drawling to one area. My questions are:  Could my idea work and if not how do I get him to stop drawing on my walls?

I am a Learning Support Teacher, and when I observe my kids in the general education class, they don’t seem to participate at all. While other kids raise their hands often, my students tend to just sit there doodling or daydreaming. How can I get the regular education teachers to engage them more?

I have a student in my special education classroom who continually wants to take off his shoes. I allow this in my room but I can’t have him walking through the school without his shoes. When it is time for an outside class, I try to explain this to him and start putting on his shoes. He will then throw them and cry or scream. What can I do?

My children have difficulty behaving in restaurants and during family events.  What can I do to help them?

My son has issues with receptive language. When I tell him something, like this morning I was trying to tell him we would have cheerios for breakfast and eggs for lunch, all he could hear was he wasn’t getting cheerios right now. I kept repeating “we will have cheerios and then eggs after” but he still was not hearing me and continued to cry and scream. I then put him on the table at eye-level and validated him by saying “I will get you cheerios” but I couldn’t explain to him that we would have eggs after. My son will be 4 in May and this is probably the most frustrating thing we deal with on a daily basis…

I am a family member of a teenage girl with autism. She regularly walks around repeating the same phrases over and over again, much to the dismay of her peers and family members. Repeating it back to her or saying we heard her does not stop it. How do we reduce this? Is this a form of echolalia? Ex: Her cousin is coming to pick her up for an appointment. “I have an appointment at 10:00, my cousin is coming at 10:00 to pick me up, at 10:00 we are leaving for the appointment…” Help!