The emotional support classroom

What is an Emotional Support Classroom?It is a specially designed type of class, in any average school, that works with children or students who deal with more challenges than the average student does. You may also wonder what these challenges may include. Some of the issues that these children face are behavioral. Such as ADD/ADHD (attention deficit disorder, attention deficit Hyper activity disorder), ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), conduct disorder and controversially Autism, to name a few. These diagnosis can pose varied challenges from having a hard time focusing for a long period of time to just being able to sit quietly in their seat and write their name on their paper.

In order to work on certain aspects of a child's disorder there must be some strategies set into place when things go awry. One type of professional that can help in the classroom one on one, aside from the teacher or teacher's aid is the TSS (therapeutic support staff). This is a professional that can use various behavioral tools to assist the needs of the specific child they are assigned to.

These tools and techniques include

• Using a timer to motivate the student to begin and finish school work
• Behavioral Chart where the child earns good or bad "colors" "stickers" etc. to help facilitate good behavior.
• Timeouts which can range from a few minutes of quiet time at their seat to being moved to a separate "time out room". To ensure time to calm down without disrupting the rest of the class.
• Positive and Negative reinforcement, For example, If Joe is calm and follows directions during reading he can participate in recess.
• There are many other resources to use, these being the most common.

Here is a quick picture of what my experience was as a TSS in an Emotional Support Classroom.

There were about 12 1st through 3rd graders in the elementary school classroom I worked in. There was a teacher and a teacher's aid. Some of the the more challenged children had a TSS to work with them on everyday things like classwork and socializing. A couple of the students were able to go to a regular class room for certain subjects such as reading or math, depending on their specific needs and accomplishments. Others had a hard enough time to adjust to the everyday schedule of the ES classroom alone. Some needed a timeout alone in a designated "timeout room". This was a small empty classroom where the child could sit to calm down. Some children needed to have quiet time this way in order to not disrupt and trigger bad behavior in the rest of the students in class. During timeout some students may just sit quietly until they can remain patient and follow directions while others continued to be upset for a longer period of time and would throw objects, yell and even hit if anyone were close to them. If this behavior persisted they would be required to find alternative therapy, specifically inpatient treatment at a behavioral health facility.

Due to the atmosphere listed above it has remained controversial that an autistic child might flourish in this type of classroom.  This is because of the comparison of the difficulties of autism versus other behavioral issues.  Autism is a spectrum disorder so there are many different levels of need on a case by case basis.  There may be two children side by side with autism and one may not have half of the challenges that the other my endure. 

All in all this is still a learning curve for the Professionals as well as the students.  We are learning more everyday about different behavioral diagnosis and how to treat them.  Therefore the education and therapy continues to evolve and change.  In my eyes this can only be positive.  But for some who have a short window of opportunity really retain the new therapies it is not quick enough.  The professionals that strive everyday to work with these unique children have a very challenging job.  It can be very stressful but even the smallest progress feels like the biggest reward.