Prevention Strategies

Prevention Strategies

Dawn: Jordan Taitingfong is here with us today. She's on the professional development team at the Haring Center for Research and Training in Inclusive Education. She's going to tell us all about prevention strategies.

Kristin: Hi, Jordan.

Jordan Taitingfong: Hi, guys. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Kristin: I'm so happy you're here today.

Jordan: Yes, I'm excited to be here. I am excited because I get to talk about prevention strategies, and just the times when we can get the most bang for our buck when we're trying to teach kids. And because a lot of the things we're trying to do is work around a challenging behavior, something that might come up, a meltdown, right? A lot of the time what ends up happening is that we try to teach at the peak, right? When a kid is having a full-on meltdown is when we're intervening, right? Not the best time, right?

Dawn: Yeah.

Jordan: It's not really a time where we can learn. Dawn: I can't teach at the peak.

Jordan: And I can't learn at the peak, right? So, really, it's all of those things leading up to the peak that are going to be when we want to do those preventative strategies in there.

Dawn: Excellent. So, since we are in the prevention zone today, we have this very fun classroom model to demonstrate some environmental strategies that could help us be proactive about behaviors.

Jordan: We want the environment to tell kids what to do, and we want it to help us tell kids what to do. Also, just defining your areas as well, right? That's telling kids what to do and where to go. So, having area rugs that can help define your space, like, this is the spot where I'm going to go read my books.

Kristin: Nice. OK, great. So, that's the book area. That's the boundary.

Jordan: Right, right. It's really about creating those boundaries that help kids know where to go and what to do, right? The environment's going to tell us what to do. And I think another thing to think about with that is having those separate spaces of the quiet and maybe the louder spaces as well, too, you know, so, like, our block area may be on this side, away from where our reading and our writing area might be, right? Places that we're naturally going to have a little bit louder play and some quieter play, right?

Kristin: OK.

Jordan: Yeah, and continuing to help define those areas, another thing you might do is just put down some tape on the ground to help define that area. Block area was always a high-drama spot in my classroom. And maybe things get knocked over because this is — we're going and taking blocks off the shelf, dramatic play is right there, we're going to stumble into it. Just having some clear boundaries that help define that space is really important, right?

Kristin: So just tape on the floor.

Jordan: Just tape on the floor. Just, yeah, using your bookshelves to help you define spaces, using area rugs. Having a spot for your circle area is another great thing to do. So, that helps kids know, when it's time for circle, this is where I'm going to go to, right?

Kristin: OK, I love that. That's great. Now, this looks a lot different than it did, right? This definitely has defined areas. I am a child, I'm coming in, there's not a lot of places for me to run because, you know, there's lots of fun areas to play in instead of run.