Positive Behaviour Support Strategies for Children and Adolescents with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI)

Training Course Introduction

Positive Behaviour Support Strategies for Children and Adolescents with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is a self-paced online course that equips you with practical, evidence-informed strategies to better understand and support young people living with the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, sensory, and communication impacts of ABI.

Through this tailored ABI training, you will learn how to recognise the neurocognitive changes following brain injury, reduce environmental triggers,support regulation, scaffold skill development, and respond to behaviours of concern through a compassionate, rehabilitation-focused PBS lens. You will also learn how to develop a comprehensive prevention plan based on the unique behavioural and functional profile of ABI. You will have 12 months to complete the course from the date of purchase.

Course Training Objectives

Overall Aim

To equip parents, educators, support workers, and allied health professionals with a deeper understanding of Acquired BrainInjury (ABI) through a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) framework, and the skills to apply practical, brain-based strategies that enhance safety, independence, participation, and emotional wellbeing.The course aims to foster predictable, low-arousal, supportive environments that reduce cognitive load, prevent escalation, and promote positive behaviour, learning, and engagement across home, school, and community settings.

Learning Objectives

(By the end of the course, you will be able to...)

Knowledge

• Define Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and describe common causes (trauma, stroke, hypoxia, infection, tumour, surgery).
• Understand how ABI impacts cognition, executive functioning, communication, emotional regulation, sensory processing, and behaviour.
• Identify how fatigue, memory deficits, impulsivity, rigidity, poor insight, and slowed processing contribute to behaviours of concern.
• Explain how ABI-related changes affect learning, social relationships, daily functioning, and participation across environments.
• Describe the core principles of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) and how they guide proactive, rehabilitative, and person-centred behaviour support.

Skills

• Apply the Assess–Manage–Prevent cycle to understand the triggers and functions of ABI-related behaviours of concern.
• Conduct or contribute to a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) that identifies cognitive, sensory, emotional, environmental, and interpersonal factors influencing behaviour.
• Develop and implement Behaviour Prevention and Behaviour ResponsePlans that reduce cognitive overload, support regulation, scaffold routines, and maintain safety.
• Teach and reinforce replacement skills, including emotional regulation, problem-solving, communication strategies, coping skills, and gradual increases in independence.
• Collaborate effectively with families, support workers, teachers, and allied health professionals to ensure consistent ABI-informed strategies and monitor progress over time.

Course Curriculum

This course is structured into six progressive modules, each designed to deepen your understanding of Acquired Brain Injury and guide you step-by-step through the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) framework. Across the modules, you will progress from understanding what ABI is and how it alters a young person’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioural functioning, to learning how to assess, prevent, and respond to behaviours in ways that promote regulation, safety, and engagement.

Practical, brain-based strategies are woven throughout to help you apply the learning directly within your setting - whether in the home, school, or community. By the end of the course, you will understand how to use PBS tools to complete a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA), develop a Behaviour Prevention Plan, and design a Behaviour Response/Management Plan. These tools will equip you to confidently support positive, sustainable behavioural change in children and adolescents with ABI, with a focus on dignity, autonomy, neurorehabilitation, and quality of life.

Course Resource

Accompanying Book

Included in this course is a Amazon voucher that will be sent to your email address. You can use the voucher to get a free kindle copy of ‘Positive Behaviour Support Strategies for Acquired Brain Injury (ABI)’ by Dolly Bhargava to accompany your study and provide lasting reference material after the course has been completed.

The book provides practical, step-by-step guide that helps caregivers, educators, and professionals understand behaviour through an ABI-informed, attachment-aware, and compassion-focused lens. Rather than viewing behaviour as deliberate misbehaviour, this book reframes it as communication - a reflection of the child’s cognitive load, internal state, unmet needs, sensory vulnerabilities, and executive-function challenges.

If you enrol via Teachable, you will automatically receive a receipt of payment.

If you would like an invoice issued to an organisation for payment, please email dolly@behaviourhelp.com and include the following details:

• Organisation name
• Course(s) you wish to enrol in
• Participant names
• Participant email addresses

If you would like to use NDIS funding to pay for a course, please email dolly@behaviourhelp.com with the following information:

• Course name(s)
• Child’s full name
• Child’s NDIS number
• The NDIS line item you would like the invoice raised against

Once enrolled, you will receive a Welcome email with course access details. Courses are self-paced and can be completed in your own time. A certificate of completion will be issued at the end of the course.