I was lucky enough to attend a trauma and neurodiversity professional development event with Karina Schreurs from Trauma Responsive Education Aotearoa.
I have previously worked my way through Beyond Behaviours by Mona delahooke and am familiar with body-up behaviours and the iceberg metaphor for behaviours (you can learn about this by listening to this podcast or downloading and reading this book) (Delahooke, 2020).
For those unfamiliar with these concepts, they teach that behaviour is an act of communication. Children in distress, stress, anxiety and survival brains display behaviours that are triggered by the autonomic nervous system (Delahooke, 2020). The autonomic nervous system is controlled by the amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for keeping us alive and is sometimes termed our survival brain. It responds when the brain perceives we are under threat (Delahooke, 2020).
The responses it displays can be fight, flight, fawn and freeze. Challenging behaviours that our ākonga and tāmariki display are often triggered by a survival response. This means that the frontal cortext where reasoning and logic are in control is not active during the behaviour (Schreurs, 2024). The child is therefore communicating that they perceive that they are under a deathly threat.
One of my biggest takeaways from Karina’s workshop was the lenses with which we can look at behaviour from.
Generally speaking in schools we focus the majority of our attention on the outwards behaviour we are seeing. We try to change behaviour and put considerable amounts of time, money and effort/support into sticker charts, meetings and rewards to extrinsically motivate a change in behaviour.
The issues with adopting this mono-focus on a behaviour a child is displaying is that we are not looking at the root causes of the behaviour. We do not understand what it is communicating. We cannot support the child’s brain to de-escalate the level of threat they are feeling.
Their behaviour in these circumstances is involuntary (Schreurs, 2024).
Karina recommended using three different lenses when examining a students’ actions (Schreurs, 2024).
Behaviour – what is the behaviour and what action do we need to take to stop this behaviour?
Relational – asks what is happening to you right now? What has happened to you? How are you feeling, what are you experiencing that has triggered this response?
Developmental – these skills have been learned and developed. Some skills and learning may be missing. Particularly in the case of many neurodiversities such as ADHD or Autism the developmental age of an ākonga in social/emotional and executive function skills like organisation and self-regulation can be at a different developmental age than their chronological age.
Holding a developmental and relational lens to behaviour means that we are tailoring our approach to the individual student.
The stress system in the body can become over sensitive through a range of factors. Neurodiveristy is one such factor, traumatic experience and their effect on the brain are another. The autonomic system can also be over active due to basic needs not being met such as hunger, thirst, sleep, connection and safety (Schreurs, 2024).
Introception (the sense that tells our body when our base needs are not being met) develops more slowly in neurodiverse ākonga. In addition to this when the autonomic, sympathetic state of the nervous system and brain is triggered the rest, digest function in inhibited (delahooke, 2020). This means if you have a child at school in an activated brain state through with hypervigilance, anxiety or in the fight/flight survival brain they will not be able to eat or realise they need a drink (Schreurs, 2024).
The brain needs to be supported via connection and development of safety to return to a parasympathetic state (rest and digest).
Body-up behaviours mean that the brain is now wired to interact and react. The brain goes into protect mode where it is seeking only what is vital to the survival of the person. The first key to success at removing the brain from this state is connection. Connection then allows for co-regulation (Schreurs, 2024). We need to default to not assuming anything about the motivation for beahviour in our students. This is where a restorative, curiosity and connection centred response to behaviours are key in our mahi.
Ways we can support a trauma informed lens within our kura (adapted from the professional development slides (Schreurs, 2024)):
- Put relationship at the centre
- Hold relationally safe spaces for mokopuna with stable and well-regulated adults
- Stay attuned to the needs of the mokopuna
- Give space for the mokopuna to exercise their drive for choice, autonomy and express their ideas (give ākonga voice)
- Spend quality time increasing attachment with ākonga
- Connect before correcting
Decrease stress:
- Make the classroom as predictable as possible and changes to schedule need to be communicated as soon as practical
- Use scripts to support emotional intelligence, mistakes and change e.g. it’s ok for me to make mistakes because they help me to learn, change is normal as part of our daily life, this is just a little change that I can deal with
Increase positive and rewarding experiences:
- Make these appropriate developmentally e.g. if they are at an object age, use objects to reward them
- Use metacognitive tasks to support reflection and remembering
- Give attention to the things that you want to see more from – sometimes your attention to negative behaviour is the reward the brain is seeking because it is sensing that it is not getting enough.
- Teach – is this helpful or harmful?
- Use social stories to support positive behaviours – teach hidden rules of the school/classroom
I was also on Facebook earlier today and discovered this awesome graphic by @Principalest on the Trauma and Neuroscience informed Network Aotearoa Facebook page as it captures the change we need to see in our kura:
Thanks for reading.
Below are some awesome resources and sites you can visit to start your journey to a more trauma informed and neuroscience backed approach to parenting and education:
Mona delahooke – Books (Beyond Behaviours and Body-Brain Parenting), Polyvagal theory and connecting with students
Trauma Responsive Education Aotearoa
NATINA – Neuroscience and trauma informed network Aotearoa
The Education Hub: Traum informed practice article
References:
Delahooke, M. (2020). Beyond behaviours: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioural Challenges. Hachette UK.
@Principalest. (2024, June 13). A great infographic adapted from @Principalest to show key differences between traditional behaviourist approaches and trauma-informed education. (By Neuroscience And Trauma Informed Network Aotearoa). Facebook. Retrieved June 13, 2024, from https://scontent.fakl2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/440358560_122145538238130939_2370428819684922913_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=2m2mD6HumvoQ7kNvgEP22IU&_nc_ht=scontent.fakl2-1.fna&oh=00_AYAR9nVF5-a6ObBTtdSh0-OlNFwXwTjgLi1HW1im0pgHsQ&oe=666FF600
Schreurs, K. (n.d.). Neurodiversity and trauma: Presented 6th June 2024. In Trauma Responsive Education Aotearoa [Presenter]. Matawanui RTLB Cluster 10 Professional Development, Auckland, New Zealand. https://www.trea.org.nz
A paper handout was given out as part of this presentation, which showed the slides and allowed space for notes.THE EDUCATION HUB. (n.d.). Trauma informed practice – THE EDUCATION HUB. https://theeducationhub.org.nz/category/school-resources/trauma-informed-practice/
Georgi de Stigter 
