A Neurodiversity Affirming SST

The Affirming SST was developed in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Wheeler

Last week I attended a Student Study Team meeting – or SST – for Reggie, an 8th grader who was falling behind in his classes.

Like every SST, the team began with his strengths.  The educators at this table tried to give a “positive start” to the meeting by sharing everything they loved about Reggie.

But instead of feeling “positive,” this frustrated Reggie’s parents. They said it felt like the team was merely trying to sugar coat the challenges.

As the meeting continued, parents and teachers shared their concerns – Reggie was often late to class, he was distracting others, and homework was a nightmare. Here, they all agreed.

But when the team moved on to solutions, everyone felt like they were spinning in circles.  Parents and teachers had already tried everything in their arsenal – what else was there? 

Instead of leaving with a plan, Reggie’s parents and teachers walked away feeling disheartened and discouraged.

Why wasn’t the team able to help Reggie?

It turns out, it wasn’t the team.  It was the SST process itself.

A Neurodiversity Affirming SST

The SST model is nearly universal…and very outdated.  Unfortunately, the way the model is designed does not propel us develop truly helpful, new, and empowering interventions for kids.

In this post, Dr. Sarah Wheeler and I introduce a new SST model to guide educators and parents through a strength-based, neurodiversity-affirming approach to supporting struggling students.
Download the Handout Here

The new SST model does more than simply identify challenges and action steps.

It digs a level deeper to find out what barriers are getting in the child’s way, and builds on their strengths to make the environment a better match for how their brain works best.

Read on to see how it works!

Box 1: Strengths to Build On

Most of us start meetings off by sharing a child’s strengths to help create a positive tone for the meeting.  Ironically, many families feel frustrated by this because it feels like sugar coating and wasted time.

This is because SSTs are designed to be deficit-oriented, and strengths are quickly pushed aside to focus on the child’s problems.

Of course, brainstorming strengths is not a waste of time when we know why we are listing them. Specifically, strengths can be critical building blocks for effective solutions.

To help turn strengths from sugar-coating into solutions, the Affirming SST asks:

“Where and when does this child thrive?”

For example, Reggie’s strengths include creativity, being a great friend, and a passion for cars.

We’ll circle back to these in Box 5

Box 2: Validate Challenges

Just like the old SST form, the next step is identifying the challenges.  This is where we have the opportunity as educators and clinicians to validate each person’s concerns and make sure everyone feels heard and understood.  

As noted above, Reggie’s challenges included tardiness, distraction and homework.  For his parents, it was important that the team heard how painfully challenging the homework piece was, even though it was happening outside of school hours.

Box 3: Identify Environmental Barriers

A key component to neurodiversity-affirming practice is identifying the mismatch between the way a child’s brain works and the way the environment expects it to work.  

For this reason, our revised SST form has a place for you to list Environmental Barriers that are making it challenging for this child to succeed.  

This section is designed to help inspire team members to think outside of the box when designing new supports for the child, asking:

“What about the environment adds to this child’s challenges?”

In Reggie’s case, he was very social and active.  Sitting all day, without being able to interact with friends, was very challenging.

Box 4: Current Supports

Before designing new supports, it can be helpful to identify what has already been tried.  This includes validating what parents are doing at home to support their child, as well as what teachers are doing in the classroom.  

Here, we can unpack what’s not working and why.

At the time of the SST, Reggie’s teachers had tried sitting him apart from the class and giving him noise-cancelling headphones to limit distractions.  

They reported that this didn’t work because Reggie would simply get out of his seat to go talk to friends and he never used the headphones.  

If we shift the lens to a strengths-based perspective, we might hypothesize that Reggie is trying to connect with his peers and meet his need to move.

Box 5: New Strengths-Based Strategies

Now we circle back to the child’s strengths and put them to use!  

Building on our knowledge of where and when does this child thrive, the team can create three types of new supports to help with the challenges:

  • Changes to the environment to help better match the way the child’s brain works

  • Ways the child can use their strengths to help them navigate tricky environments

  • Ways adults can help the child build new skills to succeed in more challenging environments

This section is key for bringing together everyone’s knowledge, including the child’s, of how we can help them truly thrive!

For example, Reggie is very creative and a great friend, but staying in his seat and focusing is challenging.  

Shifting to a strengths-based perspective, we can brainstorm opportunities for Reggie to be creative, move, and interact with his peers in ways that support his learning.

For Reggie, this might look like:

  • Allowing him to stand as needed or take movement breaks

  • Pairing him with a peer during writing to brainstorm ideas

  • Giving him opportunities to move around the room to help classmates

  • Making sure teachers give him feedback “privately” to avoid feeling badly in front of his peers

  • Providing noise-cancelling headphones for the whole class so Reggie doesn’t feel called out

  • Celebrating his passion for cars with an independent project

Box 6: Persons Responsible

As with all SSTs, the last box is for identifying who will be responsible for implementing the new strategy and reporting back to the team.

We can think of the names in this column as the child’s support team.  This team should be varied, and the child should know who they have in their court!

Reggie’s team might include his teacher as well as a school counselor who can help him identify and reach his goals.

With this revised, affirming SST format, educators can truly help students like Reggie thrive and build on his amazing strengths.

Learn More Empowering Strategies

The Neurodiversity-Affirming SST is just one of many resources that can be helpful for educators this school year. To learn more, check out:
Click Here to Learn More!

This workshop, presented by Dr. Wheeler, is available on demand and offers 2 APA-approved CEs.

You’ll learn:

  • How to talk about neurodivergence with clients
  • How to advocate for and run neurodiversity-affirming problem-solving meetings (e.g. SSTs)
  • How to build and promote affirming self-reflection in clients
  • How to explicitly teach children about neurodiversity and ableism

We hope it’s helpful to your practice