Strategies Teachers Can Use to Overcome "Learned Helplessness"

We will now take a break before we go over augmentative communication systems in the classroom, to talk about something that is very important to teach the students in your classes. I have personally seen this in classrooms but never knew the name for it. Let's talk about "Learned Helplessness," (a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed.) Some students have developed a pattern of "learned helplessness" through years of disempowerment. As a teacher, you have to provide the students with a voice.

Below are some helpful tips to teach the student to overcome learned helplessness. 

• Build a daily expectation through specific activities by having the student
• choose the activity during recess
• pick a book to read
• identify where to eat lunch
• Construct a brief daily report to parents that is communicated by the student
• Allow natural consequences to occur and provide avenues for repair
• includes setups that alter the environment to provide less support or sabotage
• Provide for choice making whenever possible that requires the student to use his or her augmentative communication system
• Provide powerful phrases on the devise for the student to reject or protest something

References

Dell, A., Newton, D. and Petroff, J. (2012). Assistive technology in the classroom. Boston: Pearson.