Home Base as Needed Throughout the Day

Home base can also be used on an as–needed basis. When teachers notice the signs that a student is starting to experience stress, they can redirect her to the home base area, or students may ask to go to home base themselves. For some students asking to leave may not be possible, either because they do not have the necessary language or because they have difficulty expressing themselves when under stress. For these students, a break card, a picture or some other visual support (Hodgdon, 1996; Savner & Myles, 2000) that can be handed to teachers or placed on the student’s desk may be helpful.

Monitoring the home base area in school is a must. The person working with the student (i.e., the paraprofessional, the speech language pathologist, etc.) may also accompany her to home base. Who walks with the student is not as important as the kind of person who does this. Persons must be considered “safe” and someone the student feels comfortable around. This rapport is critical for the student to relax and eventually process what happened.

Myles and Adreon (2001) described a strategy to help students go to home base when they do not want to leave the classroom. Some students do not want to leave their classes or fear looking different by being removed, particularly in secondary school. For these students it may help to have a high-status, friendly peer accompany them to the home base area. This gives the students a chance to talk on the way and most peers would jump at the chance to leave their class early. Students with ASD who don’t want to appear different from their neurotypical peers will usually go to home base if the peer is prompted to home base first. Other students benefit from being provided a small reinforcement to go to home base.

As stated earlier, home base is not an escape from work or activities. If the student does miss work or an activity while in home base there are several ways to handle this. First, work can be brought to the home base area for the student to work on in that quiet environment. Second, if the student is having a difficult time and missed significant work, the amount of work can be modified. In other words, do not assign busy work once the student has proven he/she understands the material. This may help prevent further difficulties. If a teacher is concerned that the student is using home base too much, a token economy can be put into place whereby the student receives one token for going to home base and two tokens for returning to class. This system helps the student recognize that both going to home base and returning to class are important (Myles & Adreon, 2001).

To address the sensory needs of an individual with ASD, various sensory motor activities or other techniques can be used to help in home base. Students may be provided any number of items to destress including hard candy, weighted vest, miniature trampoline, and stress balls (Myles et al., 2000). The key is to implement activities that will be calming to the child and help him to get back on track. Consultation with an occupational therapist when selecting sensory motor activities is essential.

In summary, home base is a technique that is relatively easy to implement and can be very effective in helping some children to successfully deal with stress and have more positive days in school or at home.

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