Beyond Compliance: Building the Capacity for Participation Before the Crisis Occurs - A Neurodiversity-Affirming Working Session for Safety, Transitions, Regulation, and Emergency Preparedness

Speaker:

• Mary Schmitz, OTD, OT/L, ECHM

Learner Outcomes:

1. Analyze the person, task, and environmental factors that may create barriers to safe participation for neurodivergent students during everyday transitions and unexpected events.
2. Co-develop individualized, neuro-affirming communication, regulatory, environmental, and task supports that build students' capacity for functional participation and safety across everyday routines.
3. Evaluate and adapt a repeatable, collaborative process to transfer and extend capacity for participation from everyday routines to situation-specific emergency preparedness, engaging students, caregivers, educators, and related service providers in building readiness before a crisis occurs.

Abstract:

Traditional approaches to safety and emergency preparedness may emphasize compliance with predetermined procedures without adequately considering the student's developmental capacity, the environment, or the individualized communication, environmental, regulatory, and relational supports essential to maximizing functional participation and safety. A neuro-affirming approach requires ensuring that each student has an accessible means to understand what is happening, express needs, and participate safely—whether through spoken language, AAC, ASL, visual supports, gestures, or other individualized means.

Using an occupational therapy and emergency management lens, participants will engage in reflection, collaborative case analysis, and structured application activities using shared digital tools accessible to both in-person and virtual attendees. Participants will be encouraged to bring a real-world challenge from their caseload, apply a working framework for identifying participation barriers and missing adult or environmental supports, and collaboratively explore developmentally appropriate, concrete, and situationspecific approaches to safety, transitions, and regulation. The session will conclude with each participant identifying one actionable step to implement or explore in practice.

Together, participants will co-develop a framework that shifts emergency preparedness from simply teaching children what to do toward building the capacity for participation before the crisis occurs—while equipping the adults and environments that support children when the unexpected happens.

 

 

Biography of speaker(s):

As a school-based practitioner and AOTA Emergency & Disaster Management Community of Practice Facilitator, Mary advances collaborative, inclusive, occupation-centered capacity-building approaches that strengthen participation and safety.

 

References to Support Evidence-Based Practice:

1. Adams, D., Dargue, N., Malone, S., Carroll, A., & Simpson, K. (2025). Are sensory aspects of the built school environment associated with learning or well-being outcomes for autistic students? A systematic review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2025.2589290
2. Bennett, J., Parsons, S. & Kovshoff, H. (2024) Developing the emotion regulation skills of autistic pupils in educational settings: A systematic literature review. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 24, 475–491. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-3802.12646
3. Mahler, K., Hample, K., Ensor, C., Ludwig, M., Palanzo-Sholly, L., Stang, A., … Hilton, C. (2024). An Interoception- Based Intervention for Improving Emotional Regulation in Children in a Special Education Classroom: Feasibility Study. Occupational Therapy In Health Care, 38(3), 636–650. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380577.2024.2313527
4. Juckett, L., & Glennon, T. J. (2009). Rhyming storybooks to address safety for children with an autism spectrum disorder. OT Practice, 14(21), 10–14.