Before We Support the Behaviour, We Need to Understand the Child

When a child is struggling, we tend to notice what we can see.

They interrupt. They cannot wait. They forget instructions. They become frustrated when plans change. They rush through work. They get stuck on one idea. They walk away from an activity.

We see the behaviour.

But what does that behaviour tell us about the skills and abilities the child is using underneath it?

This is where I believe we need to become much better at building an individual profile of the child.

Looking beneath what we see

If a child repeatedly struggles to wait for their turn, simply describing them as impatient doesn't tell us very much.

What if we looked at their inhibitory control?

Can they pause before responding? Can they stop an action once it has started? Can they give themselves thinking time before acting?

Likewise, a child who repeatedly forgets instructions isn't necessarily failing to listen.

We need to consider working memory.

Can they hold information in mind long enough to use it? What happens when an instruction contains two or three parts? Can they remember where they are in an activity while also thinking about what they need to do next?

Then there is flexible thinking.

What happens when something changes?

A child might manage an activity perfectly well until the rules change. Another might become extremely frustrated when their first solution doesn't work. Some children find it very difficult to move away from their original idea even when another possibility is presented.

These observations give us information.

Observation should be part of the profile

This is the part I think we sometimes underestimate.

A structured assessment can give us valuable information about a child's cognitive abilities, but there is also enormous value in watching how a child actually uses their skills in real time.

Not once.

Not because they had a difficult five minutes on Tuesday.

But repeatedly, across different activities and situations.

If I see a child struggle to wait once, that tells me very little.

If I repeatedly see that same child struggling to wait, acting before an instruction has finished, finding it difficult to stop themselves and responding before they have had thinking time, a pattern is beginning to emerge.

That pattern matters.

The same applies to working memory and flexible thinking.

We are not looking for reasons to label another difficulty.

We are trying to understand what the child needs help to strengthen.

Where cognitive assessment fits

This is one of the reasons I have become so interested in the Structure of Intellect (SOI) model.

SOI looks at the individual cognitive abilities involved in learning rather than treating learning ability as one single thing.

A child can have strengths in some abilities and significant difficulty in others.

That information can help us understand why two children sitting in the same classroom, receiving the same teaching, can experience that learning completely differently.

But I don't think any assessment should exist in isolation.

A score tells us something.

The child's everyday functioning tells us something too.

When we start bringing those pieces together, we can begin to build a much richer picture of the individual child.

From behaviour profile to developmental profile

There is an important difference between recording what a child does and understanding the abilities they are using when they do it.

“Interrupts constantly.”

“Doesn't follow instructions.”

“Doesn't cope with change.”

“Rushes.”

“Gives up.”

Those descriptions may be accurate, but on their own they don't tell us what to do next.

Instead, we could be asking ourselves what pattern sits underneath them.

Does this child need more opportunities to develop inhibitory control?

Is working memory making everyday tasks much harder?

Is flexible thinking particularly difficult?

Are there cognitive abilities involved in learning that also need strengthening?

And importantly, where are their strengths?

Because a profile shouldn't just tell us what a child finds difficult. It should help us understand the individual combination of strengths and areas for development that makes that child who they are.

Children need more than their difficulties recognised

Identification matters.

Understanding matters.

But ultimately, recognising that a child has difficulty with a particular skill is only useful if that knowledge changes what happens next.

We shouldn't be expecting children to repeatedly use skills that they find difficult without considering how those skills develop.

Before we tell a child to wait, we should consider whether waiting is genuinely difficult for them.

Before repeatedly telling them to remember, we should consider the demands being placed on their working memory.

Before telling them to just try another way, we should consider how easily they can shift their thinking.

And before deciding that a child simply “won't” do something, perhaps we need to become much more curious about whether they can.

The more accurately we understand the profile of the child in front of us, the better chance we have of giving them the right opportunities to develop.

We need to stop seeing a list of behaviours and start seeing a developing set of abilities and skills.

SOI Learning Profile Assessments | Children, Teenagers & Adults | The Autism & ADHD Advocates CIC