By Brenda Myles
Some students with special needs may become overwhelmed by the typical events of the classroom and need to place to recoup or self-calm. For these students, a home base may be a helpful modification. A home base is a place in the school where the student can go to (a) plan or review the day’s events; (b) escape the stress of the classroom; (c) prevent a meltdown; or (d) regain control if a tantrum, rage, or meltdown has occurred. The location is not important -- the counselor’s office, speech/language pathologist’s room, or resource room can all serve as a home base. Regardless of its location, it is essential that the home base be viewed as a positive environment. Home base is not timeout! Also, it is not an escape from classroom tasks. The student takes her class work with her to home base.
Some students need home base to be scheduled as a regular part of the day. A home base at the beginning of the day can serve to preview the day’s schedule, introduce changes in the typical routine, ensure that the student’s materials are organized, or prime for specific subjects.
Home base can also be scheduled after particularly stressful activities or classes. Lunch time is often difficult for Marco. The lunchroom is noisy and appears chaotic. Marco must be diligent to finish his lunch on time. He wants to talk with other kids during lunch, but most often his attempts to converse with the other students are unsuccessful. For all these reasons, Marco typically leaves lunch feeling mildly upset. To help him calm from lunch and be prepared for the rest of the day, he goes to home base immediately lunch. The resource room teacher in his home base helps him get organized for social studies and discusses with him some of the problems that may have occurred during lunch. Marco arrives in social studies about 10 minutes late each day. This means that he misses the opening activity, copying notes from the chalkboard, but his social studies teacher has a copy of the notes waiting on his desk.
Home base is a relatively simple intervention to use with students who are easily overwhelmed, have difficulty recognizing their stress and anxiety level and who have problems self-calming by themselves. Home base is a positive intervention that prevents behavior problems and allows the student to be successful across the day.
Homebase seems to be a new name for a common problem. Years ago when I was in the self contained classroom, we used interventions similiar to this but never called it homebase. I think it is a great strategy for some students but others will use this as an avoidance technique.
Posted by: Angela Griffith | October 14, 2009 at 09:21 PM
Having a "home base" is very important for special needs students. This is a great strategy that will allow students the ability to let their guard down and be themselves during stressful times.
I do have a concern about home base becoming an addiction for students and using it as a ploy to get out of class.
Posted by: Angie | June 10, 2009 at 03:41 PM
To respond to JT's question. I am currently working with a student who uses homebase several times a month. A companion strategy to homebase is a time to help the student identify what triggered her anxiety and what self-calming strategies she could use next time the situation occurs. We have the school psychologist, coucilor, speech pathologist, and special educator available at sometime during the week to assist this student learn and process these stratigies. This has been a successful year for this student both academically and behaviorially. Our challange now it to get the middle school staff to continue these strategies next year when she enters 6th grade.
Posted by: GenevieveC | February 23, 2008 at 11:27 AM
For any student with anxious issues, this is great. I have written it into IEP accommodations where it has met with mixed response from regular ed teachers and administrators. Successes were sometimes changed to failures when the order changed or the student was disciplined for using the room. Even I was disciplined for its use with students. As stated, this is a great intervention, but only when everyone involved believes and trusts in its success
Posted by: David | February 01, 2008 at 08:56 PM
For any student with anxious issues, this is great. I have written it into IEP accommodations where it has met with mixed response from regular ed teachers and administrators. Successes were sometimes changed to failures when the order changed or the student was disciplined for using the room. Even I was disciplined for its use with students. As stated, this is a great intervention, but only when everyone involved believes and trusts in its success
Posted by: David | February 01, 2008 at 08:54 PM
I used this in my classroom with an asperger student. I didn't know that it had a name. What a wonderful tactic this is. We went from having meltdowns all day long in every glass. Today he is a junior, in all reg. ed classes and eats in the Cafeteria, goes to pep rallies, very rarely comes to my room anymore, but he knows that it is available if he needs it. This strategy was probably one of the best things we did for this student. He never got to get out of work, he was always expected to do class work. He has become a remarkable young man. I would recommend it to anyone to try it. We know that there is no one fix for all kids, but it truley worked for us.
Posted by: lisaj | February 01, 2008 at 11:24 AM
I feel this is a great strategy, but I fear that it will be used as a way of getting out of the classroom or a reward for bad behavior even if work is taken. Does anyone have a take on that?
Posted by: JT | January 31, 2008 at 07:59 PM
I had to chuckle when I read this post because I had just suggested it to parents and the classroom teacher the day before. It, along with the other topics, works so well for students with special needs and also for those who don't know they have them!
Posted by: Kristen Hagen | January 16, 2008 at 05:33 PM