Positive Behaviour Support Strategies for Children and Adolescents with Oppositional and Defiant Behaviours is a self-paced online course designed to help you create environments where children and young people feel understood, supported and safe.

You’ll learn practical, strengths-focused strategies that reduce stressors, build trust, and promote communication, connection and emotional wellbeing. The course also guides you in responding to challenging moments in calm, collaborative ways and developing proactive plans that prevent escalation.

By the end, you’ll feel confident using Positive Behaviour Support to help children grow their skills, express themselves safely, and participate more meaningfully at home, school and in the community.

  • Describe Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) in a clear, neuroaffirming way, including the key behaviour patterns and how severity is understood in clinical practice.
  • Use the FIDI framework (Frequency, Intensity, Duration, Impairment) to recognise when behaviours are causing significant stress for the child or the people around them, and to guide data-informed decision making.
  • Identify the underlying influences on oppositional and defiant behaviours, including emotional needs, neurodevelopmental differences, relationship dynamics, stress, trauma, and environmental factors.
  • Apply the core principles of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) to understand behaviour as communication, reduce triggers, support regulation, and strengthen the child’s existing skills.
  • Conduct or contribute to a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) that explores patterns, contexts, and behaviour functions in a compassionate, non-judgmental way.
  • Develop proactive Behaviour Prevention Plans that focus on reducing stressors, building skills, and creating environments where the child can succeed.
  • Create effective Behaviour Management Plans that support safety, maintain connection, and guide the child back to regulation during challenging moments.
  • Collaborate with families, educators, and support teams to ensure consistent, strengths-based strategies across settings.
This course will equip you with practical, evidence-informed strategies to support children and adolescents with oppositional and defiant behaviours to communicate more effectively, build social and emotional skills, and participate more successfully across home, school and community settings. You’ll learn how to reduce stressors, create supportive environments, and guide behaviour in ways that strengthen connection, confidence and engagement.

Skills:

  • Conduct or contribute to a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA): identify antecedents, behaviours, and consequences, and generate testable function hypotheses.
  • Translate FBA findings into a Behaviour Prevention Plan that promotes supportive environments, positive interactions, skill-building, and activity modifications.
  • Design a Behaviour Management/Response Plan that is safe, dignified, and connection-preserving during escalation.
  • Teach and coach replacement skills, such as communication, emotional literacy, tolerance of delay or denial, and problem-solving, using appropriate reinforcement.
  • Collaborate effectively with caregivers, teachers, and the young person to set measurable goals, implement PBS plans, and track progress over time.

Course Modules

Content Course Time (hrs)
Module 1

Understanding Oppositional Defiant Disorder

  • What is ODD?
  • Diagnosing ODD
  • Causes of ODD
 0:00 - 1:15
Module 2

Introduction to Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

  • Assess-manage-prevent cycle
 1:15 - 1:30
Module 3

Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA)

  • Individual profile
  • Behaviour data collection
  • Incident ABC
  • Hypothesis
 1:30 - 2:00
Module 4

Behaviour Prevention Plan

  • Supportive environment
  • Supportive interaction
  • Supportive activity
  • Teach skill
 2:00 - 3:00
Module 5

Behaviour Management Plan

  • Number of escalation stages
  • Escalation stages description
  • Stage specific de-escalation
 3:00 - 3:45
Module 6

Conclusion

 3:45 - 4:00
Course Resource

Read course book and complete course tasks

 4:00 - 5:00


Hi, I’m Dolly

I completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Speech Pathology from the University of Sydney and a Master of Special Education from the University of Newcastle.

Midway through my career I realised that my true passion lies in supporting children, adolescents and adults with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). I love working alongside parents, childcare staff, teachers, youth workers and disability support teams to develop positive, practical and compassionate solutions for challenging behaviours.

I work as an NDIS-registered Specialist Behaviour Support Practitioner and Speech Pathologist, supporting individuals and teams across a wide range of settings, including family homes, childcare centres, schools, respite care, post-school options, employment services and corrective services.

The content in these courses is grounded in the practical wisdom I have gained over many years of supporting individuals with EBD, their families, and the incredible staff who care for them.

My hope is that these courses EDUCATE – EMPOWER – ENABLE you to continue making a meaningful and positive difference in the lives of the people you support.

Thank you for the important work you do — and thank you for your help.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR:

Parents and carers

Early childhood educators

Primary and secondary teachers

Teachers assistants

Disability support staff

Youth workers

Behaviour Support Practitioners

Allied health professionals




I signed up to this course in hope of getting some practical tips for managing oppositional and defiant behaviours in students that I as a primary school teacher assistant encounter during a working day. I really gained alot from this case study based course. I was able to trial the strategies as I participated. It was rewarding to see the student achieve/do something that they initally resisted e.g. staying in the classroom (without much disruption) for the entire lesson; through to doing work that they believed they couldn’t do or was too babyish for them. Thank you for a great course.

-Keira (Primary School Educator)

I am an occupational therapist and am working with a number of teenagers with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. From this course I gained practical techniques that I can use in my clinic as well as share approaches with their families, support workers and education staff.

Occupational Therapist

Thank you for such a helpful and eye-opening course. I now understand so much more about how my child with ODD thinks and why certain behaviours escalate. The strategies were easy to follow and have already made a positive difference at home. I’ll be recommending it to other parents.

Melinda, Parent

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 Students with Oppositional Defiant Disorder’ by Dolly Bhargava to accompany your study and provide lasting reference material after the course has been completed.

The book provides a step-by-step guide to assessing, preventing and managing emotional and behavioural difficulties and is the perfect companion for anyone taking this course. The book can be purchased separately for self-guided study but is included for free as part of this course.

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