Prevention and De-escalation of Intense Behavior Responses: What Adults Can Do

Overview

Prevention is the most efficient intervention adults can employ for addressing behaviors that interfere with learning. The more proactive adults can be in supporting students who demonstrate behaviors that interfere with learning, the more successful they will be in helping students learn and maintain new skills to support lifelong learning. When an unanticipated incident occurs, or when a student demonstrates an unexpected behavior that interferes with learning, the manner in which adults respond will influence the student’s response.

Adult responses to student behavior can serve to either escalate or de-escalate the student’s behavior. Adults are not always aware of how their own behavior may inadvertently escalate the behavior of a student they are trying to support, even as they do their best to ensure student safety and uphold classroom and school expectations. When adults use effective de-escalation techniques as a student’s behavior is becoming more intense, they have a unique opportunity to prevent intense behavioral responses or other student behavior that often leads to disciplinary removal, stigmatization, marginalization, or harm to the student or others.

Understanding effective ways to de-escalate student behavior and support prosocial replacement behavior is a critical skill for adults to understand and consistently use. Most students and adults can identify with the emotions, feelings, and behaviors associated with the Acting-Out Cycle when a trigger for stress is presented or when the safety of self or others feels threatened (Colvin 2004). The Acting-Out Cycle (diagram below) is not just a tool to understand a student’s emotional and behavioral responses to a trigger. The Acting-Out Cycle is most useful as a guide for how adults should respond to students to assist with de-escalation. When a student is triggered, adults have the ability and responsibility to assist with de-escalation to help prevent the student from accelerating or peaking. Adult support to assist with de-escalation is necessary, as it takes time for students, especially students with significant behavioral needs, to learn and develop self-monitoring and regulation skills.

Reflection and Application Activities

The following reflection and application activities were developed to build the knowledge, skills, and systems of adults so they can assist students with accessing, engaging, and making progress in age or grade level curriculum, instruction, environments, and activities.

1. Review and discuss the list of de-escalation and escalation examples above with your team.

   • Have you used any of these strategies with students? What were the outcomes or results?

   • Is there anything you would do differently if the same situation with a student were to occur again?

   • Is there a strategy missing from this list that you have found to be effective in de-escalating a student or students?

   • Is there a strategy you have used but have not found to be effective to de-escalate a student? Why do you think the strategy was not effective?

     • What training or support for school staff may be needed?

     • How do you know if you are using the strategy effectively or to fidelity?

     • What role does culturally responsive problem-solving and culturally responsive practice have on effective de-escalation strategies?

2. Are there patterns of if, how, and when adult responses to student behavior are used to either escalate or de-escalate student behavior based on students’ race or ability (e.g., disability category)?

   • What data and information is collected and analyzed to identify if there are race or ability based patterns for how adults respond to student behavior?

   • How might data help identify which adults need additional training and support to respond to student behaviors? Do you look at data on both successful and unsuccessful attempts of de-escalation to improve training and support for teachers?

   • How often is data disaggregated to ensure adults are responding to student behavior consistently across the school and district?

   • Does your data assist in identifying the most appropriate person (e.g. adult who has the best relationship with the student) to assist with prevention and de-escalation?

3. Discuss with your team how you can best support colleagues across your school or district to collaboratively and consistently use de-escalation strategies with students.

4. Review the Acting-Out Cycle. Reflect individually or discuss with a group how the Acting-Out Cycle applies to your own behaviors and preferences for support.

   • What are some triggers that cause you agitation?

   • When you are agitated, what are the behaviors from others that either escalate or de-escalate your agitation?

   • Consider how you validate a student's feelings throughout the acting out cycle compared to how you want others to validate your feelings when you are upset.

     • What does it feel like when someone tells you that “you should not be upset or hurt by something”?

     • Now consider how telling a student not to be upset, angry, sad, etc. makes them feel. Telling a person not to feel whatever they are feeling can be harmful and can strain a relationship. It is never acceptable to tell someone how they should feel. Always validate your students’ feelings. Validating a student’s feelings does not mean that you are validating the behavior. What language will you use for an individual student that you support to validate the student’s feelings and not the student’s behavior?

   • How do you feel when someone else physically enters your personal space or touches you when you are agitated or your anxiety is escalating?

   • How do you feel when someone interacts with you physically and you are not able to see or hear that person?

     • Imagine you are at the grocery store getting milk from the refrigerator and someone comes up behind you and touches your shoulder. What feelings do you have and how would you respond?

     • How might this scenario be similar to a student who is being physically redirected (e.g., from behind) and has physical, medical, social and emotional, cognitive, communication, or adaptive needs? Might that student respond at times as startled or in a way to protect their safety?

     • When is physical redirection helpful to a student and when might it escalate student anxiety and behavior?

5. How can students and adults in your school community better understand their own and each other’s unique and individual triggers and how the behavior of others can be either helpful to de-escalate or not helpful and escalate the Acting-Out Cycle?

• Consider how local, national, and/or global events might impact your students. What preventative strategies could you use during times of social unrest that may prevent escalation of behavior?

References

Colvin, Geoff. 2004. Managing the cycle of acting-out behavior in the classroom. Eugene, OR: Behavior Associates.