ABSTRACT
Children who are struggling often manifest difficult behaviour in a variety of ways and in a variety of situations. Adults sometimes find it difficult to know which problem behaviours to address first. Should it be the area that appears to causing most difficulty for the student or perhaps what is most problematic for the teacher? Should it be an underlying behaviour that is affecting other things? Children who do not easily settle to work, for instance, may also be disruptive so it might be best to work on strategies to help the child to settle first rather than attempt to deal with the disruptions. Although it is tempting to begin with the most entrenched difficulty it is often more productive to attempt to change the behaviour which is more likely to respond to intervention first. When the student begins to feel more effective and successful in school as a result of interventions put in place to address less serious concerns, behaviour often improves overall as the spiral of negativity begins to be replaced with a spiral of success.
