Teaching Autism and Special Education by Nikki

Have you ever found yourself in a classroom power struggle where suddenly neither you nor the student wants to back down?

In this episode, we’re looking at power struggles through a nervous system lens and exploring what happens when an adult and a student both start to feel threatened, frustrated, or out of control.

We’ll chat about:

What’s really happening during a classroom power struggle

How a student’s fight response can show up as arguing, refusal, sarcasm, or defiance

Why adults can become dysregulated during conflict too

Why phrases like “because I said so” can increase the sense of threat

How to lower the intensity without abandoning your boundaries

The role of choice, autonomy, tone, and timing

Why de-escalating is not the same as backing down

Sometimes the most effective thing we can do is stop trying to win the moment and focus on helping both nervous systems return to regulation.

So next time you feel the temperature rising, ask yourself:

“Is this still about the rule, or has it become about regulation?”

Because calm, consistent authority is often far more powerful than winning a dysregulated battle.

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “Why are they only like this with me?”

They seem regulated with other teachers, visitors, or senior staff, but with you, you see the big emotions, boundary pushing, testing, and meltdowns.

In this episode, we’re exploring why students can sometimes show more challenging behavior with the adults they feel safest with.

We’ll chat about:

Why feeling safe can allow the mask to drop

How secure relationships can create space for emotional release

Why boundary pushing can be a way of checking safety and consistency

The nervous system response behind those bigger emotions

Why being a safe adult does not mean being permissive

How to hold boundaries calmly while protecting the relationship

The importance of repair after difficult moments

When a student shows you their biggest emotions, it doesn’t necessarily mean they respect you less.

Sometimes, it means they trust that the relationship can handle those difficult moments.

So next time you find yourself wondering, “Why only with me?”, consider another possibility:

“They feel safe enough to be themselves with me.”

And from there, you can offer both the safety and structure they need.

Have you ever tried to give a student feedback, only to be met with a shrug, an eye roll, and “I don’t care”?

In this episode, we’re looking beyond the words to explore what “I don’t care” might actually be communicating - because often, it’s not about a lack of caring at all.

We’ll chat about:

Why “I don’t care” can be protective language

How anxiety, embarrassment, and fear of failure can hide behind dismissiveness

The connection between shame and defensive responses

Why caring publicly can feel vulnerable, especially for older students

How emotional overload can make it harder to communicate what’s really going on

What to avoid saying in the moment

How to respond calmly without creating a power struggle

Sometimes “I don’t care” really means “This matters more than I know how to handle.”

So instead of reacting to the words themselves, try asking:

“What might this student be protecting right now?”

Because when we respond to the emotion underneath the words, we create space for regulation, connection, and a much more productive conversation later.

Have you ever worked with a student who seems to resist even the smallest everyday demands - sometimes even things they actually want to do?

In this episode, we’re talking about PDA profiles in the classroom and how anxiety, autonomy, and nervous system responses can contribute to extreme demand avoidance.

We’ll chat about:

What a PDA profile can look like in autistic students

Why everyday demands can sometimes trigger such intense reactions

The connection between demand avoidance, anxiety, and autonomy

Why traditional behavior strategies and power struggles can make things worse

Ways to reduce the pressure around everyday classroom demands

How choice, collaboration, and flexible language can support students

Why not every student who avoids demands has a PDA profile

Supporting a demand-avoidant student doesn’t mean removing every expectation or letting them do whatever they want.

Sometimes, the most helpful shift is moving away from “How do I make them comply?” and instead asking:

“How can I lower the threat and increase their sense of autonomy in this moment?”

Have you ever given what felt like a tiny piece of feedback, only for a student to have a huge emotional reaction?

In this episode, we’re talking about rejection sensitivity - an intense emotional response to perceived criticism, rejection, or failure that can sometimes lead to tears, anger, defensiveness, shutdown, or refusal.

We’ll chat about:

What rejection sensitivity can look like in neurodivergent students

Why seemingly small corrections can feel so much bigger

How repeated experiences of being corrected can shape a student’s response to feedback

Why explosive reactions aren’t necessarily about manipulation or control

What not to say when a student is already overwhelmed

Simple ways to deliver feedback more safely and effectively

How we can gradually build resilience around mistakes and correction

Understanding rejection sensitivity doesn’t mean avoiding feedback or excusing unsafe behavior.

It means recognizing that sometimes when we say, “Let’s try that again,” a student may hear something completely different.

And understanding that difference can help us respond with care, steadiness, and connection instead of conflict.

Ever noticed how even your most regulated students can seem completely different when there’s a substitute teacher in the classroom?

In this episode, we’re talking about why behavior can change when a familiar teacher is absent - and why it often has much more to do with predictability, regulation, and nervous system safety than simply “testing the sub.”

We’ll chat about:

Why predictability can be so important for autistic students

How a change in teacher can increase stress and uncertainty

The role familiar adults can play in co-regulation

Why “testing boundaries” may actually be a student gathering information about a new adult

How masking and regulation can change on substitute days

Simple ways to prepare students and make substitute days feel more predictable

What substitute teachers can do to support regulation

When a student behaves differently with a substitute teacher, instead of immediately assuming defiance, consider what changed in their environment.

Because sometimes behavior isn’t about the person standing in front of them.

It’s about the familiar pattern that suddenly changed.

Have you ever heard, “They’re perfect at school… but the second they get home, they completely fall apart”?

In this episode, we’re talking about after-school restraint collapse - when a child spends the day holding it together, masking, managing sensory input, following expectations, and regulating their emotions, only to release everything once they reach a safe space.

We’ll chat about:

What after-school restraint collapse can look like

Why a child can appear completely “fine” at school but struggle at home

The huge amount of energy that masking and constant self-regulation can require

Why parents and teachers can see two very different sides of the same child

How schools can reduce the build-up of stress throughout the day

Simple ways parents can support decompression after school

Instead of measuring how well a child is coping by how calm they appear at school, we need to consider how much effort that calm might be taking.

Because sometimes the meltdown at the end of the day isn’t about one tiny thing going wrong.

It’s the nervous system finally saying, “I can stop holding it together now.”

Sometimes a meltdown can feel like it came completely out of nowhere - but often, there’s been a whole day of tiny stressors quietly building in the background.

In this episode, we’re talking about micro-stressors: the small sensory, social, emotional, and environmental demands that can gradually fill a student’s “stress bucket” until their nervous system reaches overload.

We’ll chat about:

What micro-stressors can look like in the classroom

Why autistic students may experience them more intensely

The “final straw” effect and why the last trigger often isn’t the real cause

Early signs that a student’s stress bucket is filling

Simple ways to build regulation and decompression into the school day

Why breaks should be preventative - not something students have to earn

Instead of asking “What caused that meltdown?”, this episode encourages us to ask:

“What filled the bucket today?”

A simple shift that can help us move from reacting to meltdowns to proactively supporting regulation in a neuro-affirming way.

Have you ever heard someone say, “They know exactly what they’re doing,” “They’re playing us,” or “They’re just being manipulative”?

The word manipulative gets thrown around pretty quickly in schools and special education settings. But once we give a student that label, it can completely change the way we see - and respond to - their behavior.

In this episode of Teaching Autism and Special Education, we’re looking at behavior that can look manipulative from the outside, but may actually be a response to distress, dysregulation, communication difficulties, or a missing skill.

We’ll talk about situations like crying when work is presented, escalating after being told no, and behaving completely differently depending on which adult is around. While these behaviors can sometimes look calculated, there’s often much more happening underneath the surface.

We’ll also explore the nervous system side of behavior and how fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses can easily be mistaken for intentional control or avoidance.

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is that reinforcement does not automatically equal manipulation.

A child can learn that a particular behavior results in escape, attention, or relief without sitting there and deliberately planning how to control the adults around them.

Instead of asking, “How are they trying to manipulate me?” we can ask:

What skill might be missing here?

Do they need support with communication? Emotional regulation? Frustration tolerance? Executive functioning? Asking for help or requesting a break?

Changing that question can completely change our response.

You can still hold boundaries. You can still say no. You can still have expectations and protect the needs of everyone in your classroom.

But we can do all of those things without villainizing the child.

The next time you hear behavior described as manipulative, ask yourself:

Is this strategy… or survival?

That one question might change how an entire team responds to a student.

Why can a student seem completely fine one minute and suddenly become overwhelmed the next?

In this episode of Teaching Autism and Special Education with Nikki, we’re looking at what’s actually happening in the brain and body during escalation and why understanding the nervous system can completely change the way we respond to behavior.

Escalation is often a stress response. Sensory overload, difficult demands, unexpected changes, social pressure, fatigue, hunger, and lots of other small stressors can build throughout the day until a student reaches their tipping point.

Escalation is information. It tells us that, in that moment, a student’s capacity was exceeded.

Instead of asking, “How do I stop this behavior?”, try asking:

“What did their nervous system just detect?”

That can change the way we understand and respond to escalation.