Strategies involved in "Positive Caregiving" to promote social, language, and cognitive development:

1.     Share a positive attitude. Promotion of ‘Teacher Self Care’

2.     Positive touches (high fives and hugs)

3.     Respond to the children’s vocalizations.

4.     Encourage development (based on knowledge of developmental milestones).

5.     Promotion of more talk- (encouraging, praising, singing, story-telling.)

Strategies for disobedience:

1.     Rule out any sensory, home or personal issues.

2.     Create routines and make expectations clear through using schedules, timers, warnings.

3.     Let a child make choices and set goals to give them a feeling of control.

4.     Teaching sentence stems and vocabulary words to express feelings. I don’t like when you…. That makes me…

5.     Provide If/Then visuals and simple clear directions.

6.     Create a place for the child to place hands if he’s always touching. Is the student hyperactive (motor driven/sensory seeking)?

Strategies for aggression:

1.     Rule out any sensory, home or personal issues.

2.     Figure out the demands placed on the child. What causes under or over stimulation?

3.     Use/Model words that demonstrate self-regulation such as self-talk to control impulses. “You can go first since, I went first last time.”  “I’m okay, I can do this”

4.     Teach words to express thoughts and emotions. Visuals of facial expressions to associate with feeling words. They are incorporated into sentence stems. Example of a sentence stem and feeling words. I am…. (Frustrated, mad, sad, happy).

5.     Short stern phrases, “hands are not for hitting.”

6.     Teach empathy, sharing, prosocial skills, etc.

7.     Create a “cool down” spot to de-escalate when emotion are driven high or “breaks.”