ATU771 – AT for Classroom Behavior with Raine Sims, ATP

Hi, I’m Raine Sims, and I’m Assistive Technology Specialist for Atlas at Easterseals Crossroads, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 771 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on March 6th, 2026. On today’s show, we are very excited to welcome back Raine Sims, Assistive Technology Specialist from our ATLAS Project here, and she’s going to talk a little bit about assistive technology for behavior in the classroom. We’re also joined by our friends from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning. Personally, listeners, I am just back from the ATAP Leadership Symposium in Washington, DC. This is an amazing conference where I get to connect with the AT directors from all the other AT acts, all across the nation, all the states and territories, and really just talk about all the great things they do.

It is amazing to get to talk to these other leaders and hear about the great things they’re doing in their states, bring that information back here to Indiana and see what it is that we can do to improve the services that we have. And really get to use their ideas and their guidance to really try to make sure that we’re serving, really everyone across the country and in our unique states, and making sure that everyone has their needs met. I was also lucky while I was there to get to visit some of our senators and congresspeople on the Hill. So a big shout-out and thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to host me, so I could sit there and talk about the AT Act and all the great things we get to do for Hoosiers. But then, also really just making sure that they know that we’re a resource. I know they probably get calls and questions and everything else to their office, so just making sure that they knew that we’re here, and hopefully they can forward folks along that we might be able to assist.

Another thing that we discussed there was coming up, and I know it’s a little bit early, here we are with the very beginning of March, but AT Awareness Day will be coming up in April on April 22nd. Now, National Assistive Technology Awareness Day recognizes the essential role assistive technology plays in the daily lives of people with disabilities and older adults. These tools help people learn, work, communicate, and live independently in their communities. This day highlights the importance of continued federal support and funding so that everyone who needs assistive technology can access it. Assistive technology is not a luxury. It is a necessity that opens doors to education, employment, and full participation in community life.

“This day is also a time to recognize and thank the assistive technology specialists, program coordinators, researchers, and professional organizations who work tirelessly to connect people with the right tools for their individual needs. Their dedication helps ensure that people with disabilities and older adults can live with dignity, independence, and opportunity.” And that is just a little blurb from the ATAP website talking about AT Awareness Day. I know you might say, “But Josh, it’s only the beginning of March. We’ve still got a month and a half until we get to AT Awareness Day.” Well, I realize that, but I just wanted to go ahead and put it on your radars. Here at INDATA, we’ll be doing something special for the day. Still working on exactly what that’ll look like, but I will make sure to let listeners know as soon as we do know. We’ll probably do an open house of some sort, just so that folks can actually come here to our location, tour, and really see all the tools and devices we have available for people to borrow and use to be able to meet their goals and needs.

But we’ll also look into doing a remote option as well. Indiana’s a pretty good-sized state, so I don’t really expect everyone, from the tips especially, to travel hours and hours to get here for an open house, but I do want them to be able to participate. So we’re going to do our best to have a remote option so that folks can take a remote tour of our program to learn about these services and tools. So do stay tuned, and I will make sure to let you know, listeners, when all that information is available. So once again, thank you so much for listening. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

If you happen to have questions about assistive technology, we have Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, or ATFAQ. The show is hosted by Brian Norton and features yours truly along with Belva Smith, as we all talk about assistive technology with questions that come in from email, phone calls, and other means. We also don’t always know the answer, so it’s very important that we have listeners that can help us out with some of those questions. Because while we like to think every once in a while that we may know everything, we’re proven wrong almost daily on that one. So if you’re looking for more podcasts to listen to or if you have questions about assistive technology, make sure to check out Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions wherever you get your podcasts.

Listeners, next up on the show, we’re very excited to welcome back Ale Gonzalez from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning.

This is Ale Gonzalez with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Access Now. Access Now is one of the few accessibility rating apps that lets users search community locations and determine if they meet individual accessibility needs using feedback shared by other users, search for specific locations by name or explore nearby spots using the interactive map. Each reviewed location clearly displays one of three ratings, accessible, partially accessible, or not accessible. This app has the potential to reduce anxiety around community outings by helping users assess how well a location meets their accessibility needs before they arrive. Because Access Now is available globally, users can rely on the same platform no matter where their travels take them, making it a valuable tool for accessibility-conscious adventurers. Charity Miles is currently available for both Android and iOS devices and is free to download. For more information on this app and others like it, visit www.bridgingapps.org.

Listeners, today we get to welcome back Raine Sims from our ATLAS Project here at Easterseals Crossroads, and she’s going to talk to us about AT for emotional disturbance. Raine, welcome back to the show.

Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.

I am glad to have you back. But before we get into talking about everything, for folks who haven’t heard you on here before, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yeah. So I am an assistive technology specialist here at Easterseals Crossroads. I work with the ATLAS Project, so we work with educators in schools in Indiana. My background is in teaching. I worked in full-time behavior support before this. Specifically, I worked at a school called Centennial School in Eastern Pennsylvania, which is a approved private school for emotional disturbance and autism. And they are unique because they do not use seclusion timeout or physical restraint. And then, many of the students on my caseload had been expelled from every school that they had ever attended and were attending Centennial as the last resort. At this school, we are trained in a school-wide positive behavior support model, and they are a really great resource for how successful this model can be for many students when implemented with fidelity.

Excellent, excellent. Well, thanks for coming on to talk about this subject. It’s something we haven’t talked about on the show a whole heck of a lot. So just, I guess to level set, what would be classified as emotional disturbance and maybe other kinds of behavior needs?

Yeah, so emotional disturbance is a category for IEP eligibility. It’s also called emotional disability or emotional behavioral disorder depending on what state you’re in or what setting you’re in. But the federal category is emotional disturbance as outlined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. Some of the things that emotional disturbance includes is basically an inability to learn that’s not explained by other factors, like intellectual, sensory or health factors. We’ll also see these students really struggle to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships. We’ll see inappropriate types of behavior or feelings for the circumstances. And with these students, we’ll also generally see a pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression and a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

Se Raine, you talked about how it’s not usually explained maybe by another kind of need, but do these usually co-occur alongside other disabilities, or can they?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of students with emotional disturbance also do fall under criteria for another disability. It could be autism, it could be a specific learning disability, ADHD, which would fall under other health impairment. So there’s really a lot here. Specifically, I think the statistic is that over 35% of students with learning disabilities also have these emotional and behavioral challenges. So there is a fair bit of overlap.

Oh yeah, no kidding. And I’m sure there’s probably a lot of different ways that this happens, but how can this impact learning?

Yeah. Students with emotional disturbance face much higher rates of removal from the classroom, suspension, and expulsion from school, and according to the 2024 statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, about 30% of these students will drop out of school. And that’s a particularly devastating statistic. Just to compare, the dropout rate for students with a primary disability of autism is about 7%. So a student with emotional disturbance is about 4.28 times more likely to drop out of school than a student with autism. And then even when these students are in school, many will struggle with emotional regulation, peer interactions and classroom participation, and so there’s just a lot of struggles. Even if they are in school, they may not necessarily be in the classroom all of the time because of these challenging behaviors, which can just compound the issue and lead to further academic frustration and other challenges.

Oh, for sure. I mean, that’s how it impacts the individual. How can it affect the classroom as a whole?

Yeah. Behaviors can affect either the student exhibiting the challenging behaviors or other students in the classroom, or both. So we might see this like, let’s say that a student gets frustrated and they end up putting their head down on the desk for the entire class period. And so maybe they are not causing a big issue in the classroom, but that behavior is directly impacting their learning. And then there might be another example where a student throws something across the classroom, and then that is affecting not only themself, but also everyone else in the classroom.

So Raine, what can educators do for students with emotional disturbance?

Yeah. There are a few pretty widely validated interventions in education that have been shown to be really helpful for students with emotional disturbance when implemented with fidelity. One of these is positive behavior support, which is an evidence-based practice with the main goal of reducing these challenging behaviors and also improving student outcomes. Some of the core features that we will see with positive behavior support are things like afunctional behavioral assessment, where we kind of figure out, what is this behavior communicating? We do think with positive behavior support that behavior is a form of communication, so we want to try to figure out what the student is communicating through these behaviors.

And then another core tenant of it is this proactive antecedent modification, where to prevent problem behaviors before they have the chance to escalate. And what I mean by that is, in the behavior space we’ll talk about the antecedent, the behavior and the consequence, and the antecedent is pretty much what comes right before a behavior. And so if we can take a look at changing that, altering that, modifying it in some way, hopefully we can prevent these problem behaviors.

And then positive behavior support also really focuses on teaching replacement skills and coping strategies. This could be things like better communication or self-management, as well as positive reinforcement and contingencies based on the student’s behavior, as well as systems-level change. So this is really a team effort, a collaborative effort to ensure consistency and fidelity.

And I guess, where does assistive technology fit into everything?

Yeah, the assistive technology, I think really has the opportunity to shine with this proactive antecedent modification piece. A lot of behaviors, when a student is exhibiting a challenging behavior, it will kind of start out as they will be fairly calm. And then there is some sort of trigger or antecedent that will then accelerate the intensity of their behavior. And so what we like to do with assistive technology is try to implement that earlier on to hopefully prevent these problem behaviors, rather than throwing something at it in the moment. Because if the student is already highly escalated, then things will have a lower chance of being super effective then.

And I guess something I’ve heard about or read about a little bit is making sure that we use AT as an access tool versus a reward. Can you explain how that works?

Yeah. One thing with assistive technology as a support is that this isn’t just something that we’re doing for fun. It’s not something that we’re doing because the student was, quote-unquote, “good” or because they’re exhibiting these behaviors that are then positive, but these are to help the student. They have a disability classified in their IEP, and it is emotional behavioral disability. And so we are trying to implement supports for this student, and those supports are as essential as could be glasses for someone who is nearsighted or hearing supports for someone who is hard of hearing.

And there are a lot of different areas of assistive technology that can be really helpful for students with emotional disturbance. This could be things like a communication breakdown. Maybe the student is struggling with their communication already. It could be things like unclear expectations in the classroom or in other environments. Things like academic frustration, transitioning between activities, sensory needs, social situations. There’s really a lot of opportunities where we can implement AT.

What are some roadblocks that get in the way of successfully bringing assistive technology in as a solution?

Yeah, I think a lot of educators or administrators are hesitant to implement assistive technology with students with emotional disturbance, because I think there is a lot of concern about if there’s maybe an expensive device that they’re giving to a student that historically had challenges with throwing those expensive devices. But one thing that I think about with assistive technology is that, for these students with emotional disturbance, school and really their whole academic experience has been a really long history of just having things taken away from them, whether that’s privileges or recess or autonomy or specific materials, and assistive technology is something that something that adds something back to it.

That being said, there are specific concerns. Maybe, what if the student throws or breaks their device? Then we’ll want to think about what is that behavior communicating? That might signal overload, frustration or loss of control. And so some of the suggestions that we have with preventing these sorts of behaviors, things like very rugged cases, straps, having a stand or a mount where the device, maybe it gets mounted to this desk and it really … That’s where it belongs, it’s not just … Yeah, and so having it still accessible to the student, but then maybe less accessible for throwing. And then also having things like low-tech or low-cost substitutes available as well. But I really do want to emphasize though, that if a student needs assistive technology to access learning, the risk of misuse does not outweigh the cost of denying access.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Can you give us some examples of what the integration of AT could look like for these students?

Yeah, absolutely. Some of the examples that I gave earlier were things like a communication breakdown. And so maybe a student is really struggling to express themselves appropriately. We would want to look at, okay, could the student benefit from a communication device of some sort? And so, sometimes we think about if the student is maybe minimally verbal or nonverbal, then maybe like a really robust assistive tech, AAC, or augmentative alternative communication system, like maybe an app on an iPad or some sort of dedicated speech generating device. But then also, maybe the student generally does really well with their communication and just needs an assist sometimes. And so where assistive technology can come in there is things like maybe something like a BIGmack communicator, which is basically a big button communicator that you can record a message on. And so sometimes when a student may be escalated or is feeling really overwhelmed, then something like that can help bridge the communication gap when it is more challenging to communicate.

And then some other AT that I’d like to discuss, things to help with unclear expectations in the classroom. I know when the teacher is giving multiple instructions, sometimes that can be really overwhelming, but things like a recording device, it could be as simple as a recording app on their phone or a tablet or just a battery powered recording device. And then there’s also more tech-forward options too, like note-taking apps such as Evernote, and then there’s also AI summary tools too. One nice free one out there right now is NotebookLM, which is offered by Google. And so those are some great options for unclear expectations.

If the behavior is targeted toward academic frustration or a skill mismatch, then we might look at things like word processing software or spell check software. Speech-to-text software can be super, super helpful, and then on the alternative, text-to-speech software, having things read aloud for the student. Digital assignment apps like SnapType on the iPad, or even just a simple break card to help the student get through their frustration there.

Awesome. What about social situations? Because we talked about that a little bit. Is there AT out there that can help with that kind of need?

Yeah. For social situations, we might see things like adaptive recreation equipment to bridge some of these gaps. So like we mentioned earlier with the co-occurring disabilities, a lot of students with emotional disturbance will also have other disabilities, whether that’s a learning disability, autism, ADHD, or even a motor coordination kind of thing. And that can really exacerbate the problems that these students may have with making friends and having these satisfactory relationships at school. And so, some things that we may want to look at is, okay, how can we facilitate that and remove some of those other barriers?

Some of the things that I think about are, what if a student has motor coordination challenges and maybe really struggles with rolling dice? And then that kind of triggers a behavior as well. So we might see things like the alternate spinner, where it really just replaces a two dice roll with a spinner. You can just press the button and it will spin and it will pop up with whatever the dice roll is. It could be things like adaptive gaming controllers to make gaming more accessible for all. It could be things like switch adapted toys or even audible sports equipment for the visually impaired.

Raine, are there any resources out there that you could share, maybe to help educators or others with the things that we’ve talked about here today?

Yes, absolutely. A couple of resources that I really like are, one of them is the Iris Center, which is, I believe hosted through Vanderbilt University, and they have hundreds of free evidence-based modules and resources on not only behavior and emotional disturbance, but also classroom management. And they also have options for professional development certificates. And then another nice option that I like is the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems, or CITES, which is a really great resource for incorporating inclusive technology into your educational environments.

Awesome. We’ll put links to those down in the show notes so that folks can do independent research, learn a little bit more and find out more from those resources. Well, Raine, thank you so much for coming on today, for telling us … Well, for explaining just some of the kind of issues that really come up in the classroom that affect these students, and some of the solutions that might be able to be part of a plan or be able to assist them. So, thank you so much. I think it’s something that probably didn’t get talked about a whole lot, kind of like you said, but something that definitely impacts a whole lot of our students. So, thank you again.

Great. Well, thank you so much for having me today. It was really great to be here.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124, send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter @indataproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation, or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.