I First
Notice what the adult nervous system, assumptions, and urgency bring into the moment.
Dr. David A. PalmerRewire the Response™Book a School ConversationFor schools and districts supporting neurodivergent students
When a student shuts down, refuses, or escalates, your team needs a shared way to respond.
Big emotional behavior can pull adults in different directions: more pressure, more consequences, more words, or a quick retreat. Rewire the Response helps school teams use INSPECT to examine the conditions around behavior and build a more consistent, practical adult response.
Dr. David A. Palmer, Ed.D. · 30+ years in education · Teacher, specialist, administrator, and parent
Shared response logicLess scrambling.
More consistency.
More consistency.
The school challenge
In hard moments, inconsistency costs students and staff.
When adults respond differently to shutdown, refusal, disruption, or escalation, students receive mixed signals and teams lose confidence.
This is not a failure of care or skill. Even experienced educators need a shared, usable starting point when the room gets hard.
The goal is not identical adult behavior. It is a shared response logic.
The school systems lens
INSPECT the conditions around the behavior.
INSPECT helps teams look beyond the visible behavior and examine the adult, instructional, environmental, and systems conditions shaping the moment. It gives staff a shared language, practical next moves, and a stronger foundation for consistent response.
See INSPECT in school supportNurturing Environment
Create conditions that communicate safety, dignity, and belonging.
Structure
Make expectations, routines, and next steps easier to understand.
Planning
Anticipate barriers and design access before stress takes over.
Engagement
Strengthen relevance, connection, voice, and participation.
Consistency
Build a shared response logic across adults and settings.
Time
Account for pacing, processing, transitions, and recovery.
Ways to work together
Support that fits your school’s next step.
Begin with the challenge in front of your team. The format should serve the work, not the other way around.
Practical supportHelp adults respond with greater clarity before the moment becomes a crisis.
INSPECT School-Team Session
A focused 90-minute introductory training for leadership teams, educators, support staff, or MTSS and behavior teams.
Keynote
Regulation Before Education for staff events, professional learning days, and conferences.
Workshop
Deeper, hands-on learning that helps teams identify predictable stress points and strengthen their adult response.
Implementation Partnership
Leadership coaching, walkthroughs, and support embedding shared practices over time.
Practical by design
What teams leave with.
No behavior chart can make the hard moment simple. A shared way of interpreting and responding can make the next move clearer.
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A clearer way to interpret what may be happening beneath visible behavior
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A shared language for discussing hard moments without blame
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Practical moves adults can use when the room gets hard
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A starting point for strengthening consistency across classrooms and teams
About Dr. David
Experience from both sides of the hard moment.
Dr. David A. Palmer, Ed.D., brings more than 30 years in education as a teacher, special education specialist, school leader, coach, and administrator. He is also a neurodivergent adult, a parent of neurodivergent children, and a TEDx speaker.
His work connects school-system insight with the lived reality of helping children through difficult moments—without blame, shortcuts, or one-size-fits-all answers.
Meet Dr. DavidWhat adults notice
A clearer lens changes the response.
“He changed my classroom practice by helping me see the needs behind behavior, not just the behavior itself.”
“His insights changed how we understood our child and what we did in the moments that used to derail our whole family.”
Rewire the Response
One mission. Two places adults need support.
Children move between home and school, but the need is the same: adults who can understand the moment, lower unnecessary pressure, and choose a response that fits. Rewire the Response supports school teams through INSPECT and families through CALMER and Response Confidence.
For parents of neurodivergent kids
Support for parents navigating big emotional behavior at home.
CALMER gives parents a practical response process for meltdowns, shutdowns, refusal, and explosive behavior. Response Confidence helps them stop second-guessing and use that process in their real family situations.
Explore Parent SupportA focused first conversation
Start with the challenge your team is facing now.
Bring the recurring moment—shutdown, refusal, escalation, inconsistent staff responses, or a pattern that keeps returning. We will identify the most useful next step for your school or district.
Book a 20-Minute School Conversation