What strategies can teachers use to overcome “learned helplessness?”

It is possible that a student who uses augmentative communication to display learned helplessness. This technology may have provided the student with a voice, but he may not know what to do with it after suffering from a lack of empowerment over many years. Here are some suggestions to for teachers to help this student.

• Have daily expectations of communication in a range of activities.
• Have the student create a daily communication to parents.
• Allow consequences to occur while systematically lessening the amount of support.
• Give choices that require the student to communicate.
• Provide powerful statements on the device so the student can reject and protest things.