How might implementing coping skills and strategies once a week, and using daily visual and/or reminders in the general and special education classroom impact the frequency of verbal and physical aggression, task avoidance, elopement, and shutting down of students who have experienced trauma?

Seminar Title

How might implementing coping skills and strategies once a week, and using daily visual and/or reminders in the general and special education classroom impact the frequency of verbal and physical aggression, task avoidance, elopement, and shutting down of students who have experienced trauma?

Teaching coping skills to students.

4th Grade

Elementary

Special Education

All Disciplines

Do you spend more time managing behaviors than teaching? Have you ever had a student be verbally or physically aggressive, elope, refuse to do work, or just shut down? Do you feel that you have ever had a student who has experienced trauma? If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, than this course is right for you! Come learn about my experience as a special education teacher who has worked with children that have had adverse childhood experience and the effects it has on their development. By the time this session is done, you will have resources and ideas to get you started so that you can begin your journey of being able to have students learn coping strategies within your room so that they can focus on the academics.

The question guiding my research is as follows: How might implementing coping skills and strategies once a week, and using daily visual and/or reminders in the general and special education classrooms impact the frequency of verbal and physical aggression, task avoidance, elopement, and shutting down of students who have experienced trauma? A review of the literature suggested strategies in several areas of my practice that could help me bring about the changes I am seeking. As a result of my literature review, areas I targeted for change in my practice included skill development for my students in 1) teaching students to identify their emotions 2) have students use appropriate coping methods in different settings 3) environments that encouraged using coping methods. Skill development for myself focused on implementing lessons using differentiated instruction strategies. Assessment of the ways these changes make a difference in the learning climate, student learning, and my ability to use differentiated instruction strategies included 1) a staff survey 2) daily charts to track student behaviors 3) questionnaire for social workers to fill out. Through my research I have learned how to sequence instruction and skill development activities in ways that allow my students to identify when they need to utilize taught coping skills. The number of recorded behavior incidents that include; verbal and physical aggression, task avoidance, elopement, and shutting down of students has declined. On top of this, staff members have become interested in knowing more about the effects of trauma and how they can assist students in their classrooms. Even administration has taken steps to be able to implement school wide strategies that will assist all of our students who have experienced trauma. As a result of my interest in seeing how teaching coping skills will affect behaviors caused by trauma, I saw a decline in the above behaviors and an increase in their ability to verbalize what coping method they felt they needed to get back to learning. Teaching coping skills is not just the social worker, school psych or special education teachers job. It is a school wide effort that takes time to implement. I am not done with my research as I am passionate at finding ways to help all students learn coping skills no matter what classroom they are in, or whether or not they are identified as a student who has experienced trauma. Childhood trauma is too prevalent to ignore.