The management of challenging behaviour in high schools: A scoping review of neuro-informed classroom strategies

Background

Adolescents who have experienced early childhood trauma or prolonged stress, present schools with major challenging behaviour. There is a need for transformative behaviour management systems that identifies a need to better understand behaviour in schools through the context of brain and physical development, alongside relationships and the environments in which adolescents’ function. The aim of this review was to identify what school-based behaviour management interventions currently exist that consider neuropsychological and neurobiological features of challenging behaviour in adolescent high school students.

Methods

Searches of four electronic databases (ProQuest Education, ProQuest Psychology. EBSCO, Scopus) were conducted. A total of eighteen (18) peer-reviewed publications between 2018 and 2023 were eligible and presented descriptively.

Results

Eighteen articles were reviewed to identify behaviour management interventions for adolescent students that included neurological features as part of the intervention. Seven articles identified the neurobiology of stress with only four of these providing substantial information about brain architecture and function in adolescents exposed to trauma or prolonged stress. All articles addressed the pedagogy of cognitive development in the context of learning, executive function, and emotional regulation.

Conclusions

Complex structural and functional brain changes occur in adolescence making it imperative to consider the neurobiological and neuropsychological components contributing to disruptive behaviour in the classroom. There are emerging cross-disciplinary high school-based interventions with varied neuroinformed features; however, with a need for further development. Training in understanding brain science for teachers alongside development of neuroinformed strategies to manage behaviour in the classroom, would enhance current behaviour management strategies.