Throwaway account for privacy reasons, but I've been working at a school with a very high limited-verbal population and behavior issues for multiple years. It can be very chaotic and demanding. We are understaffed and I understand you arent supposed to take away a students AAC device under any circumstances but lots of these kids are K/1st grade and even lower cognitively, so it can feel almost impossible to manage the classroom, let alone implement them with fidelity when none of the paras have any training on them and non SLP staff have very limited training/knowledge.

Im not saying students shouldn't be allowed to stim on them or anything like that, but there are times where you would remove a student from class for being disruptive and inappropriate with their voice the way some students use their AAC devices. I feel like having similar expectations for limited verbal students makes you evil or something.

I'm just looking for some guidance other than "model on the device" and "talk to your SLP staff" because I am and have tried those things but they dont really feel like they are not always practical or working. Kind of a vent but any help would be appreciated

For those of you who have been teaching for 15+ years, how did you manage it? I’m in my first year and I’m loving it more than I thought I would and would like to make this my lifelong career. I need all the tips of tricks I can get to make it longterm 😆.

So its half October and as days go by I feel more tired. I have a class of three severely impaired children and I talk to their parents intensively,and although we have good relationships so far,it is really starting to drain my energy,bc I feel their expectations and I am worried I may let them down.

My question is: how do you relax,what activities help you get your energy back, how to stay resilient in this job,what are your hobbies.

I’m a TA (I’m based in the UK, I’m not sure what terms are used in other countries) working in a classroom with children with limited to no verbal ability and severe learning difficulties. This year we have a child in my class who’s really struggling at the moment and when he’s unsettled, he will snatch things and sometimes put them on the floor and jump up and down on top of them. Recently, my glasses have become a target for this behaviour. My work glasses got broken last week due to this and my only remaining pair nearly were broken this week (I was able to bend the arms back into place, one of the lenses popped out but I’ve managed to pop it back in - and unlike my other pair, the lenses aren’t scratched beyond repair so they’re still wearable). The school have said they’ll compensate me if I bring them the receipt for the replacement glasses - which is great but I don’t know how they’ll feel about it if this becomes a weekly thing. I went in and ordered a new pair of glasses the day my last pair were broken - but if my second pair had been broken this week I’d have been without glasses for several days before my new pair have even had a chance to arrive.

I need my glasses to be able to drive to and from work, my prescription isn’t a mild one. Today, I ended up taking my glasses off and putting them away in the afternoon to avoid this problem - the child in question has also become quite physical in his behaviour and if I’m worried about making sure he can’t snatch my glasses off my face, I can’t really properly ensure that I’m protecting myself and the other children, as well as supporting him effectively. This meant my glasses survived the day obviously but it’s not really practical as a long-term solution. My vision is very poor without them, I can’t properly see facial expression or gestures that aren’t at very close range - even things like personal care, where I just can’t see very well to tell if a child needs their pad changing whilst they’re in the toilet. I’ve tried contact lenses in the past but wasn’t able to get along with them and my eyes got really irritated. I’m left at a bit of a loss to a solution here. Has anyone else had trouble with this sort of thing? And what was your solution?