Why Every Classroom Needs a Trauma-Assumed Approach

When it comes to trauma-informed practices, I’ve been lucky. I’ve worked in schools that invested deeply in this work—but that “curse of knowledge” often makes me forget that many educators and behavior analysts haven’t had the same training. My own path has taken me from the classroom to higher education and now into research and advocacy, where I’ve been piecing together how trauma-informed approaches fit within behavior analysis.

While I received a great education with the University of Washington, none of my formal training in behavior analysis included trauma. Instead, I’ve felt like a pioneer, moving back and forth between the worlds of Special Education and Behavior Analysis. In 2022, I left the classroom and began digging into the research on trauma-informed practices in behavior analysis. Let me tell you, it was HARD. I struggled to find much written by experts in my field besides the seminal article by Rajarman et al. (2021), Toward Trauma-Informed Applications of Behavior Analysis. This article is amazing—and if you are a BCBA like me, you’ve probably read it several times. But at the time, it was ALL I could find on the topic published by my own field, which left me both inspired and frustrated.

So, I set out to learn what other fields were doing well when it came to trauma-informed practices in education and thought about how we could bring those lessons back to ABA. If you’re a fellow BCBA reading this, I’d love to hear from you—what do you want to learn alongside me? And what have you learned already that you’d like to share?

Since 2022, the conversation in ABA has grown, and one concept I find especially useful is the idea of being trauma-assumed. At its core, it means we operate from the belief that most people have experienced some form of trauma. Treating them as if they haven’t can cause harm, but treating them as if they have almost always leads to safer, more supportive practices. This mindset feels especially relevant now, as students entering kindergarten were born during the pandemic—an inherently disruptive and stressful time. The ACEs study (1998) also reminds us that potentially traumatic events can compound and significantly impact long-term health and learning.

So as my own child begins kindergarten, I wonder: how will his classmates and teachers cope when stressors arise? What happens when one child’s dysregulation ripples across the room? And most importantly, what can we as educators do to build resilience, emotional intelligence, and safe learning environments for every student?

As educators and behavior analysts, the real challenge is not just recognizing the impact of trauma but building systems that support regulation for every student in the room. When one child becomes dysregulated, the ripple effect can impact an entire class—and that means teachers need tools that go beyond individual strategies. One powerful solution is the use of classwide regulation spaces: intentional, shared environments that help both students and staff reset and return to learning. In my next post, I’ll dive into how these spaces work and why they’re a cornerstone of trauma-assumed classrooms. Be sure to subscribe to my mailing list so that you can receive updates to my blog and exclusive tips, straight to your inbox.