• Identify barriers to learning and social demands and put these strategies in place to reduce the likelihood of problems occurring in the first place.
• Use observations to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of the problem(s) that the learner is experiencing.
• When necessary, seek external specialist assessment and opinion. You can then:
  
  • understand possible triggers
  • be alert to any potentially challenging situations throughout the day.
• Identify the specific strategy to teach learners how to find a solution. There are several strategies available in the Resources section below.
• Plan to explicitly and systematically teach the social problem-solving process to learners:
  
  • as a whole class
  • in small groups
  • individually
  • a mix of above.

• Identify and develop the visual supports required to explicitly and systematically teach a social problem-solving process and keep these handy. These can be social stories, routine charts, or emotion cards for self-regulation.
• Identify appropriate storybooks and visual supports that you can incorporate in your explicit teaching to enhance learner understanding.
• Incorporate engaging and motivating activities, such as:
  
  • role-play/rehearsal
  • puppet play (check the children aren’t frightened of puppets)
  • social stories
  • visual prompts.

Consider how you will:

• embed problem solving scenarios
• model the problem-solving process
• positively encourage, support, and reinforce learners to use the process to solve real-life social problems
• share the social problem-solving process with families.

Communicating with families will encourage generalisation of the associated strategy at home. You can also communicate the types of language used so families can use similar language at home if they like.

The turtle technique

When you have a clear understanding of the problem the learner is experiencing, you can then identify and use a specific intervention process to teach the learner how to find a solution. One such process is the turtle technique. This involves teaching learners the steps of how to control feelings and calm down by pretending to tuck away in a turtle shell for some deep breaths. Explicitly teaching these strategies in an age-appropriate way helps embed positive self-regulation habits early.

You will find further templates in the resource section of this practice.

It works better if:

• the social problem-solving strategy has a small number of set steps
• teachers model these steps
• children are reminded about the strategy in the moment they need support
• children are encouraged to use to the strategy to solve their social problems whenever they occur
• language is used consistently and modelled throughout the day and at home
• visual supports are used to enhance learner understanding of the strategy.

It doesn’t work if:

• the child is expected to solve a social problem when distressed or overloaded
• the child hasn’t understood the problem-solving strategy (so it will need re-teaching)
• the problem-solving strategy has too many steps.
• too many strategies are used at once – choose one to trial before moving on to another if the first one doesn’t work