Understanding Behaviour
Behaviour that seriously threatens a young person’s safety, well-being, development, participation, or the safety of others.
What is high-risk behaviour?
A condition or experience associated with an increased likelihood of harm.
What is a risk factor?
In the ABC observation framework, this letter represents what happened immediately before the behaviour.
What is A—the antecedent?
During escalation, an EA should lower their voice, slow their pace, reduce the audience, and do this before trying to regulate the student.
What is regulate themselves first?
Speaking calmly, slowing your pace, and taking steady breaths before helping an escalated student demonstrates this first step.
What is regulating yourself first?
Instead of defining a student by their behaviour, adults should use this respectful type of language.
What is person-first, descriptive language?
A strength, relationship, resource, or condition that supports safety, coping, belonging, and resilience.
What is a protective factor?
In the ABC framework, this letter describes exactly what was seen and heard without interpretation.
What is B—the behaviour?
When a student mentions suicide, an EA must take it seriously, maintain supervision, follow school procedures, and do this immediately.
What is notify the designated staff member?
Naming five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste is this grounding strategy.
What is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique?
Behaviour may help a student escape a demand, gain connection, regulate feelings, communicate pain, or regain control. These are examples of this.
What are functions of behaviour?
A dependable adult, predictable routines, positive peers, and cultural belonging are examples of these.
What are protective factors?
Predictable routines, strong relationships, clear expectations, choices, and regulation skills belong to this level of support.
What is primary prevention?
“The student yelled, pushed a chair approximately one metre, and left the classroom at 10:12 a.m.” is an example of this.
What is objective documentation?
Offering a quiet space, reducing noise and demands, and limiting unnecessary movement makes this kind of change to support regulation.
What is reducing environmental stimulation?
Severity, frequency, duration, context, vulnerability, and likely consequences are considered when determining this.
What is the level of risk?
Risk and protective factors should be understood this way because they build upon one another and may change over time.
What is cumulatively and within the student’s culture and context?
This stage occurs after a crisis and includes regulation time, reconnection, objective documentation, relationship repair, and plan review.
What is recovery and learning?
An EA may observe, support, document, and collaborate, but must not independently do this clinical activity.
What is diagnose or assess serious mental-health or safety risk?
Breathing slowly with the student, using a calm voice, and helping them use a familiar coping tool are examples of this shared regulation strategy.
What is co-regulation?
Trauma, grief, disability, cultural disconnection, discrimination, unmet sensory needs, and environmental demands demonstrate why adults should do this instead of reacting only to visible behaviour.
What is look for the student’s unmet needs, context, and the possible function of the behaviour?
This important principle explains why having one risk factor does not guarantee harm and why support planning must consider strengths, relationships, culture, context, and current circumstances.
What is risk and protective factors are cumulative and change over time?
An ABC observation shows that a student frequently escalates after noisy transitions, but one observation cannot establish this with certainty.
What is the function or cause of the behaviour?
After a serious incident, an EA should address immediate needs, allow regulation time, document facts, participate in a team review, and complete this professional self-care responsibility.
What is check their own well-being and use supervision or debriefing support?
Providing two safe options, allowing processing time, respecting personal space, and avoiding power struggles helps restore this feeling during escalation.
What is a sense of safety, choice, and control?