Teaching and encouraging self-management

This chapter looks at ways in which people with learning difficulties can take a much more active role in managing their own actions. Teaching and encouraging self-management is important for a number of reasons. The need for teaching some aspects of self-direction arises with every programme of behavioural change. During precision teaching the teacher exerts a high level of control over the teaching situation, using whatever prompts are necessary to ensure that the target behaviour is performed without mistake. Incidental teaching of self-direction skills uses the natural environment as the setting to teach the skills. Incidental teaching requires that prompts and reinforcement are carefully planned in advance of teaching and used whenever the situation permits. The chapter outlines the principles of self-management and describes methods for teaching relevant skills. Progressive relaxation involves teaching the person to relax all the major muscles of his body progressively more and more quickly, until he is able to relax his whole body 'on cue'.