Positive reinforcement, when done in a way that is neuro-affirming, can be beneficial for students with disabilities. The focus should be on connection and valuing each student’s individuality vs. forcing compliance or control.

Read on to learn some ways to incorporate this into your special education classroom!

Focus on students’ individuality and be specific

Before students can trust you, listen to you, and learn from you, it is crucial to establish a connection. Relationship building should be the focus of the first few weeks of school. Get to know your students as people beyond just a number in your classroom. What are their interests and hobbies? Who is in their family? What is their preferred learning style? When you learn these things, you can then begin to incorporate them into your classroom.

Positive reinforcement is beneficial when it includes student interests. For example, if a student really enjoys drawing, you can have the student take a 10-minute drawing break when they achieve the goal you set for them. If a student enjoys Minecraft, they can be rewarded with a Minecraft brain break.

Acknowledge specific efforts they put into something. This may look and sound like “I love the way you used 3 details in your writing prompt like we learned in our ELA lesson. Would you like to take a drawing break?” vs. “Good job doing your work. You can take a break now”. This focuses on the student’s specific efforts (using details in their writing) instead of just compliance (you did your work like I asked).

The image above shows one of my students who enjoys water play having fun with water toys as a positive reinforcement tool.

Simply Special Ed has a blog all about how to learn about student preferences and blend that with positive reinforcement.

Honor all communication styles

Students can communicate in all different ways. Some students may be non-verbal or non-speaking, but that does not mean they cannot communicate their feelings, wants, needs, etc.

One way to be neuro-affirming when giving positive reinforcement is to honor all of the ways students can communicate. Students can show their learning in a variety of ways. For example, if you are reviewing material with your class to prepare for an assessment, you may have a student raise their hand and answer verbally. You might say “Yes, you’re correct, awesome job!” That is one way to provide positive reinforcement when a student is verbal.

However, another student may circle the answer on a paper with different choices. They may draw a picture to show their answer, or give a thumbs up/thumbs down to answer yes or no. They may also use an AAC device, such as the student in the image above. This particular student was working on spelling his sight words using his AAC device.

There are many ways students can communicate, and those should be honored while providing positive reinforcement.