Focus on Function, LLC

May the Fourth be with you! Coloring pages for the day https://www.doodle-art-alley.com/may-the-fourth.html

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month! Can't wait to see how we can start serving our kids in this area.

SENSORY ROOM IDEAS A sensory room or area can consist of very few or a lot of things. Start with small and build as you go.

Please help me welcome our new Speech-Language Pathologist, Shaylyn Rose Walker! Shaylyn is accepting telehealth clients for the 21-22 school year. We love her already and are so glad that she is a part of our team!

Applicable every day!

Behaviorists direct parents to *ignore* the child who did the hitting, biting, or toy snatching in favor of soothing and addressing the recipient. They rational...ize this by claiming that removing the relational reinforcement from the aggressor teaches them that their actions are unacceptable and helps them learn better ways to communicate. I see this advice *even* from professionals who promote their education in neuroscience!! Here's what I want you to remember--the very concept of ignoring a child who is lashing out highlights just how little they truly understand about development and why behavior is communication! Any verbal or physical lashing out is a clear signal of dysregulation. The child genuinely feels overwhelmed and is struggling with self-control at that moment. The *last* thing they need is to be ignored! What they need is to have their experience understood and to have help resetting so they CAN communicate differently. Ignoring them because the behavior wasn't pro-social only serves to make their system more reactive and doesn't actually teach them anything as it compromises felt safety. Here's the thing, when I challenge my colleagues on this, they double down and insist that everything in life is reinforcing, including relationships. In this way, they claim that parents best tool is the act of freely giving or withholding their warm attention since attachment is a natural driving force for human behavior. In other words, behaviorists advocate for using a child's inherent connection needs against them! You will find this in PCIT, Nurtured Heart, Love & Logic, and 1-2-3 Magic (among other methods). The goal of relationships is to provide attunement and safety, NOT to reinforce behavior. Full stop. You don't need to think of your relationship as a tool of coercion. Instead, I encourage you to rest in the belief that your relationship is *only* a tool of connection and compassion. It's a path to closeness and understanding, and never a way to yield power by threatening to remove it.