What Adjustments Does My Child Need at School? Start With the Barrier

Same behaviour.

Different barriers.

Different support.

“What adjustments should I ask the school for?”

It’s one of the discussions I often have with parents. And it makes complete sense. Maybe your child has recently received a diagnosis or assessment. Maybe you have a report full of recommendations. Maybe school has become increasingly difficult and you know something needs to change.

So you start searching.

What are reasonable adjustments for ADHD?
What school adjustments help autistic students?
What adjustments should a child with dyslexia have?

And before long, you have a very long list of possibilities.

Movement breaks. Visual schedules. Extra processing time. Reduced writing. Sensory supports. Quiet spaces. Check-ins. Assistive technology.

All of these can be useful adjustments. But when I’m working with a family, I rarely start by asking what adjustments they want to request. I start by asking what the barrier is that this child is experiencing, and then we go from there.

A diagnosis doesn’t tell us exactly what support a child needs

A diagnosis can give us incredibly valuable information about how a child may learn, communicate, regulate or experience the school environment. But it doesn’t give us a standard list of adjustments that will work for every child with that diagnosis.

Two autistic children can experience completely different barriers at school.

Two children with ADHD can need very different support.

Even two children who appear to be experiencing the same difficulty might need completely different adjustments.

Take a child who is struggling to complete written work, for example. It would be easy to jump straight to an adjustment such as reduced writing. But first, I’d want to know what is actually making the writing difficult.

Is handwriting physically demanding? Is the child struggling to organise their thoughts? Is working memory being overloaded? Is the classroom environment making concentration difficult? Are they already dysregulated before the task even begins?

The thing we can see is the same: The child isn’t completing the written work.

But the barrier underneath it could be completely different. And that means the support should be different too.

An adjustment shouldn’t start with the diagnosis. It should start with what is getting in the way of this particular child’s access, participation or learning.

We need to get into the nitty-gritty

This is one of the reasons I spend so much time asking questions when I work with families. I want to know what is actually happening during the school day. I don’t just want to know that they struggle in class. 

I want to know: 

• When does it happen and who is around? 

• What is the child being asked to do?

• What happens immediately beforehand?

• Are there particular subjects, environments or times of day that are more difficult?

• What does it look like when things are going well?

• What support is already being provided and how consistently is it being provided?

The more specific we can get, the more useful the conversation about adjustments becomes.

For example, imagine a child who regularly leaves the classroom. If we begin with the assumption that the problem is that they won’t stay in the classroom, our solution may focus entirely on getting the child back into the room. But what if leaving the classroom is telling us something?

What if the classroom has become overwhelming? What if there is a particular learning demand the child is struggling to access? What if they need movement? What if leaving has become the only reliable way the child knows to communicate: “I can’t manage what is happening here right now.”

I’m not suggesting we assume we know the reason for the behaviour either. That’s the point. We need to investigate.

Instead of starting with:

“How do we stop this child from leaving?”

we might need to start with:

“What is making staying difficult?”

Same behaviour. Potentially very different barriers. And therefore, potentially very different support.

Sometimes the adjustment is right, but the timing is wrong

Movement breaks are a good example of this. I often see movement included in plans as a regulation strategy. The child becomes dysregulated, so an adult offers them a movement break. 

But for some children, by the time they are significantly dysregulated, we’ve missed the window where that strategy was most useful. The movement wasn't necessarily supposed to be something we offered after everything had become too much. It may have needed to be built proactively into the child’s day to help them stay regulated in the first place.

That is an important distinction.

The adjustment itself might be appropriate, but the way it is being implemented means it isn't addressing the barrier it was intended to address. And before we conclude that movement breaks don't work for that child, we need to ask whether we actually tried them in the way this child needed them.

We can also expect too much from children when they are dysregulated

Another goal I see written into learning and support plans is some variation of:

“When dysregulated, the student will independently choose and use an appropriate regulation strategy.”

But think about what we are asking that child to do. 

We are asking them to recognise what is happening internally, remember the strategies available to them, decide which one is appropriate and then independently use it. All while they are dysregulated.

If a child has not had repeated opportunities to learn and practise those strategies while they are regulated, we cannot suddenly expect them to access those skills when their capacity is reduced. A dysregulated child cannot fully access learning in the same way they can when they are regulated.

They may also have far less capacity to process language, answer questions, make decisions or respond to multiple adults trying to help. Sometimes the last thing that child needs is more people talking to them, asking questions and trying to work out what they need in that moment. The work needs to begin earlier. 

So, before we decide a child “can’t use” a regulation strategy, we need to ask whether we have actually taught and practised it when they had the capacity to learn it.

The classroom matters too

There’s another part of the adjustments conversation that we can’t ignore.

We can design the most incredible support plan in the world, but it still has to happen in an actual classroom. With an actual teacher. With a whole class of children who also have different learning, behavioural, social and emotional needs. And with curriculum requirements, assessment, interruptions, limited time, competing priorities and often limited additional adult support.

I know this because I’ve spent most of my working life in education (and all the years before that as a student). I know how hard teachers work and how much is being asked of them. So when I’m helping a family think about adjustments, I’m not only thinking about what would theoretically be helpful for the child. 

I’m also thinking:

• Who is going to implement this?

• When does it need to happen?

• What does it actually look like during the school day?

• Does the teacher have the support and resources required to provide it?

• What could make this easier to implement consistently?

There is nothing more frustrating than an adjustment written beautifully into a plan but rarely used.

And please hear me when I say this isn't about blaming teachers. In fact, sometimes supporting the child means working out what the adults around that child need in order to provide the support consistently. We need to support teachers so they can support the children in their classrooms.

So, what adjustments does your child actually need?

If you're trying to work this out, I’d start with these questions:

1. What is the barrier?
What is currently making learning, participation, regulation or access difficult?

2. When and where is it happening?
Look for patterns rather than assuming the difficulty exists in every environment.

3. What is already being tried?
There may already be good adjustments in place.

4. Is the current support addressing the actual barrier?
An adjustment can sound appropriate without solving the problem it was intended to solve.

5. Is it happening consistently and at the right time?
Implementation matters just as much as the adjustment itself.

6. What would this adjustment realistically look like in your child’s classroom?
Be specific about who, when, where and how.

7. How will we know if it’s working?
Decide what change you are hoping to see and when the support will be reviewed.

Starting with what is getting in the way for your child and what can be changed to reduce that barrier is a much better starting point than simply asking what adjustments your child needs.

You don't need a longer list. You need a clearer plan.

If you're trying to work out what adjustments could support your child at school, The EmpowerEd Parent Guide to School Adjustments will help you understand adjustments and think more clearly about what appropriate support could look like for your child.

And if you're looking at your child's situation and scratching your head about what your next step needs to be in getting your child the right support at school, that's exactly the kind of situation we can talk through in a free 20-minute Connection Call.

We can look at what is happening, where things seem to be getting stuck and whether working together might help you get clearer on your next step.