Low arousal approach is based on developmental neuropsychology and affect theory, but not only that. There is also an ethical and a philosophical base, that can be described as two principles, the principles of responsibility and control, and a basic assumption about humanity. The philosophical base is:
- You need to feel responsible if you want to change things.
This means that if you want to be able to make an positive change in the lives of service-users or your own children with developmental disabilities you need to decide that nothing ever goes wrong because of the service user or child. It is always your fault. It can never be the service user´s fault, just like it can never be anybody else´s fault if you have a problem. The reason that this is important is that it is only if it is my fault that it is possible for me to make changes. This means that we do not have unmotivated people with developmental disabilities, we only have staff and parents who are not very good at motivating. And there are no naughty or oppositional people with developmental disabilities, only staff and parent who are not very good at getting a yes. By adapting this principle in everyday life we are able to improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities.
- You need to be in control of yourself in order to entrust yourself to somebody else.
As staff or parent we often believe that we need to control people with developmental disabilities. We are afraid to loose control. Often we try to gain control over the child or service-user, sometimes even using force. The problem is that both we and the child or service-user looses some control in situations characterized by dominance, discipline or force. Only if the child or service-user has full self-control she is able to do what´s expected of her. This mens that every school or care service, and even family, must work towards maximizing the self-control of people with developmental disabilities.
- People who can behave, do.
The principle is not mine, but Ross W. Greene´s. What it means is that if we believe that people do not want to behave, we have a hard time taking on the responsibility we need to to gain influence. If we on the other hand believe that if somebody doesn't behave she probably doesn't have the necessary abilities in order to do what we expected we are suddenly able to gain influence on the behavior. By adjusting our demands, expectations and surroundings we are able to make a positive change. In the fields of care and special education we already know that our service-users don´t have the same abilities as other people. This view on behavior and will should be easy to grasp in these fields.
All of my methods are based on this philosophical assumptions. The means that I don´t work in a treatment frame. My work is based on the ethical assumption that people with developmental disabilities have a right to exist as they are, and that it is the responsibility of staff and parents to secure that right by changing their methods and approach towards them. And this has proven to be very effective. We can significantly decrease and often eliminate violence and self harm by changing the way we work. In scientific studies this has been shown to decrease even sick leave in staff and secure positive development of people with developmental disabilities.
The ethical base of my methods I describe as
Everyone has the right to say no. The task of the staff is to make the service-user say yes voluntarily. Every time members of staff or parents tell or ask the child or service-user to do do something they need to see it as their responsibility that the child or service-user says yes, without the use of force or simple demanding. Only by accepting everybody's right to say no we can get a real and honest yes. The methods we use to get a yes spans from simple uses of language as saying "Let's go" instead of "Get going" to complex methods as structuring by pictograms and the use of activities with a clear finish right before difficult tasks.
Both the ethical base and the philosophical principles aim towards maintaining the basic rights of people with developmental disabilities. Everybody have the right to a good life, all life long.
