We recently hosted a back-to-school webinar for our parent community, led by Morgan van Diepen, BCBA and Co-Founder of ABA Visualized & BIP Visualized. It was built for caregivers, however three of the tools she covered are just as useful in a BCBA’s back-pocket when you’re collaborating with a classroom teacher this fall. Here they are.
1. The self-advocacy visual for accommodations
Problem: Even when accommodations are written into an IEP, they don’t always make it into the classroom all the time. A student with “extra time on tests” or “quiet workspace” written in their plan still has to remember to ask for them in real time.
Solution: Morgan’s fix is a simple visual: a card listing the child’s specific accommodations, framed as things they’re allowed to ask for, that travels with them to class.
Why it’s worth sharing with teachers: it turns a written accommodation into something the student can self-initiate, and it gives the teacher a fast, low-friction way to reinforce it without re-explaining the IEP every time. Easy to hand a teacher directly at the start of the year.
2. Power cards
Problem: While students may understand what is expected of them in calm, structured environments, they often struggle to access or apply that knowledge in the moment, particularly when they become dysregulated.
Solution: A power card is a short, individualized reminder, three clear expectations for one specific recurring situation, delivered right before it happens, and built around the kid’s own interests (space, dinosaurs, whatever hooks them). Morgan’s examples covered morning drop-off and playground expectations, but the format travels to almost any classroom transition point.
Why it’s worth sharing with teachers: it’s a five-minute-to-make tool a teacher can run themselves before recess, transitions, or any predictable challenging spot, no BCBA in the room required. That’s the kind of tool that actually gets used with fidelity once you leave.
3. “Easy-easy-hard,” in teacher language
Problem: Teachers know a hard demand is coming and often brace for the resistance instead of getting ahead of it, mostly because they don’t have a simple, repeatable way to set the student up for success first.
Solution: This is behavioral momentum (high-p/low-p sequencing) with the jargon stripped out: two easy, high-probability requests before the one hard demand, closing the distance to what you actually need the student to do. Teachers already build momentum intuitively sometimes; naming it as “easy-easy-hard” gives them a repeatable label and a reason to be deliberate about it, especially heading into a demand they already expect resistance on.
Why it’s worth sharing with teachers: it’s language a teacher can hold onto and apply on their own, without needing to understand the underlying research to use it well.
The common thread
All three of these work because they’re practical: easy for someone without a BCBA credential to pick up and use in the moment, and simple enough that they actually get used. That’s worth keeping in mind heading into school team meetings this fall. The strategies that stick are usually the ones a teacher can run on their own after a couple minutes of using them.
