Looking beneath behaviour to consider what may be happening for the child.
AAA is the understanding framework within the Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care.
It helps caregivers and professionals think about children’s behaviour and experience through three interrelated domains:
Attachment
Arousal
Accessibility to needs provision
AAA does not provide a diagnosis or a definitive explanation for behaviour.
Instead, it encourages curiosity.
Rather than beginning only with:
“How do I stop this behaviour?”
AAA invites us to ask:
“What might be happening for this child?”
A different way of thinking about behaviour
Behaviour occurs within a developmental context.
Children bring to the present moment what they have learned through previous relationships, emotional experiences and attempts to get important needs met.
For children affected by adversity, behaviours that appear confusing, challenging or disproportionate may sometimes make more sense when considered in the context in which they developed.
AAA provides three perspectives through which we can explore that context.
A — Attachment
What might the child have learned about themselves, other people and relationships?
Attachment concerns the expectations children develop through their experiences with important caregivers.
Through repeated interactions, children learn things about themselves:
Am I worthy of care?
Do I matter?
Will someone notice when I need them?
They also develop expectations about other people:
Can adults be trusted?
Will they remain available?
Is it safe to depend upon someone else?
And they learn about their world:
Am I safe?
Can I manage?
Will I survive?
Children whose experiences have been sufficiently safe, predictable and responsive are more likely to develop confidence in relationships and in the availability of important adults.
Children who have experienced disruption, inconsistency, neglect, frightening caregiving, abuse or repeated loss may develop different expectations.
These expectations can influence how children approach caregivers in the present.
AAA encourages us to ask:
Could this behaviour make more sense if we understood what the child expects from relationships?
A — Arousal
What might be happening in the child’s emotional and physiological state?
Our ability to think, communicate, learn and respond flexibly changes according to our emotional and physiological state.
When children feel sufficiently safe and regulated, they are generally better able to use the capacities available to them.
When highly aroused, children may become:
- impulsive;
- aggressive;
- argumentative;
- restless;
- hypervigilant;
- emotionally overwhelmed; or
- difficult to reassure.
Other children may respond to overwhelming experiences by becoming:
- quiet;
- withdrawn;
- shut down;
- emotionally unavailable; or
- difficult to engage.
Behaviour that looks deliberate from the outside may therefore sometimes occur when the child’s capacity for reflection and flexible responding is reduced.
This does not mean that behaviour should simply be excused.
It means that state matters when deciding how best to respond.
AAA encourages us to ask:
What might be happening in this child’s nervous system right now?
A — Accessibility to needs provision
What might the child have learned about how their important needs get met?
Children do not only learn what they need.
They learn how to get their needs met.
When adults reliably recognise and respond to children’s needs, children have opportunities to learn that needs can be communicated relatively directly.
But what happens when this has not been the child’s experience?
If subtle expressions of need have historically gone unnoticed, a child may learn that they need to become louder or more persistent.
If adults have been unpredictable, the child may try to control situations.
If depending upon adults has repeatedly led to disappointment, the child may stop asking altogether.
A behaviour that adults experience as difficult may therefore sometimes represent a strategy the child has learned for securing something important.
AAA encourages us to ask:
What might this child have learned about getting their needs met?
and:
What new experiences might support different learning?
Bringing the three A’s together
Attachment, Arousal and Accessibility to needs provision are not three separate explanations from which we choose one.
They interact.
A child who expects adults to be unavailable may become highly aroused when a caregiver sets a limit.
A child who becomes highly aroused may use behaviours that have previously succeeded in getting an adult’s attention.
The adult’s response then becomes another relational and learning experience.
AAA helps us think about these interactions rather than reducing behaviour to a single cause.
The question is not:
“Which A explains this child?”
It is:
“What might each of these perspectives help us understand about what is happening?”
Understanding is not excusing
Looking beneath behaviour does not mean abandoning boundaries or ignoring safety.
Children need adults who can understand their experience and provide appropriate limits, protection and guidance.
AAA helps us move beyond the false choice between:
understanding the child
and
responding to the behaviour.
We can do both.
Greater understanding can help us choose responses that address immediate behaviour while also considering what the child may need developmentally and relationally.
From AAA to AURA
Understanding creates possibilities for responding differently.
Once we have considered:
What might be happening for this child?
the next question becomes:
What can I do to respond therapeutically?
That is the role of AURA.
AAA and AURA therefore work together:
AAA
Understand the child
Attachment
Arousal
Accessibility to needs provision
?
AURA
Respond therapeutically
Accessible
Understanding
Responsive
Attuned
Together they form the two complementary frameworks at the centre of the contemporary Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care.
Learn more
Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care