Module 6: Supporting Your Child at Home with UDL Best Practices

Objectives

• Learn how to best support executive functions and self-regulation at home.
• Discover ways you can scaffold learning at home.

Video & Transcript

• Video Introduction   
• Transcript

Introduction

In this module we're going to talk about how you can implement some Universal Design for Learning practices at home, specifically in supporting student executive function, helping your student self-regulate, and how you can scaffold learning at home. First, let’s clarify these terms.

• Executive functions are a set of processes that govern your thinking and actions. Executive functions help us set and attain goals, create strategies, organize, keep track of time, and monitor progress. Students who have ADHD often struggle with executive functioning, but even students without ADHD can often use lots of support in this area.
• Self-regulation, as the name implies, is all about being able to monitor and modify yourself (physically, emotionally, socially, etc.)  so that you don’t talk out of turn, don’t jump from your seat when you are not supposed to or do something that you shouldn’t be doing. Students can’t learn when they are out of control or not self-regulated.
• Scaffolds are temporary supports provided to students to help them achieve a learning goal. A scaffold may be a set of sentence starters, a graphic organizer for putting thoughts into ideas, a word bank, or a set of processes to follow when completing a task.

There are many helpful ways to support student self-regulation and executive functions at home. We can use scaffolds such as calendars, checklists, charts, and timers to help students stay on track. We can teach our children breathing exercises, methods for distracting themselves so they don’t act on impulses, and how to be more aware of their emotions, so they have better tools at their disposal when they are feeling frustrated. We can have conversations with our students about time they were feeling out of control, helping them build their ability to describe and deal with the reasons why they lost control and help them build their self-regulation muscles so that they can stay regulated when they are in school.

Discussion Prompts

• Have you shared your personal schooling story with your child? How does it help you build a better relationship with your child and support them in their progress as a student?
• What is one scaffold or tool you’d like to implement in your house to better support your child with self-regulation and/or executive functioning?

Resources

Please read, watch or listen to at least two of the resources below to better understand how you can support UDL at home.

Self-Assessment