Challenging Behavior: Grounding Practice in how Students make Sense of Disruptions to Learning and Social Environments

In response to converging planes of influences that positioned practitioners to manage challenging behaviors of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities, we queried how LLDD made sense of their behaviors. We also queried if they could manage themselves. From 265 LLDD, 15 males, median age 19, participated in 12 weekly 1 hour focus groups' discussions specific to challenging behaviors of 3 case study learners drawn from 15; case study learners also participated in 12 weekly 1 hour, 1-to-1 interviews that sought to determine if they could organize, interpret and re-organize sensemaking around challenging behaviors. Thematic analysis of focus groups' discussions yielded 5 themes related to different versions of LLDD acting responsibly or irresponsibly; I've got a problem, I told staff, I can't, I'm disabled and I'm not normal. Discursive analysis of case study interviews highlighted 5 variable communicative and behavior patterns: Conditioned-Response, Role Specific, Inner-Conflicted, Retreating and Higher Order. LLDD speak identities into existence via Defensive Disability Language (DDL); engage in Public Performances via Defensive Positional Stances (DPS) and use label via Power Plays (PPs) to achieve desired outcomes; yet, when invited to transition from one identity to another one, LLDD proved able to reconstruct their sense-making independent of LD narratives that prescribe and proscribe how they are to be in the world.