When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Understanding the Challenging Behaviors of Young Children and Students with Disabilities

Build your understanding of behavior as communication and learn to interpret the messages behind the actions. This book provides information and tools to support all children whose primary way to communicate is through challenging behaviors. The authors address what behaviors children use to communicate, what kinds of messages they may be sending, and how adults can ask six critical questions to better understand and meet children?s needs.

Drawing from extensive experience in autism and speech pathology, the authors use accessible language to explain how central nervous system disabilities and hidden issues can affect a child?s behavior and ability to communicate. They show how to create an improved learning environment and offer proactive strategies to support more acceptable behavioral alternatives.

Throughout the book, stories provide enlightening, sometimes humorous, examples of how children use behavior to communicate. Engaging exercises and end-of-chapter questions can be used by individuals or teams to examine and improve their current practice.

Benefits

The authors provide:

• A proactive, strengths-based model for supporting children in learning to self-regulate their behavior
• Clear descriptions of the ways in which all children use different behaviors to communicate
• Questions and protocols to help you interpret the message behind challenging behaviors
• Tools to help you develop strategies that meet children?s needs and encourage more acceptable means of expression
• Reader-friendly explanations of central nervous system disabilities and how they affect learning and communication
• Information on hidden issues that may affect behavior
• More than two dozen activities and reflective questions that can be used by individuals or teams