Brains = Behaviours
Online self-paced course, created by Allison Davies
Honestly, our kids get a bit of a rough go!
What we often expect of them at a young age can far outweigh what their brain can actually manage — and we don’t even realise we’re doing it!
Throughout Brains = Behaviours, you’ll reshape your expectations, understand how to support and accomodate their neural development, and shift the focus away from behavioural management and towards regulation.
Get started today!
Click here to purchase ticket to the Learning About Autistic Culture webinar & receive a 20% off code for B=B!
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Click here to purchase ticket to the Learning About Autistic Culture webinar & receive a 20% off code for B=B! 〰️
carers and parents
teachers, educators and support staff
grandparents
allied health practitioners
child advocates and social workers
Brains = Behaviours alumni are a diverse bunch of…
concerned about your child’s anxiety
managing a classroom with complex behavioural dynamics
working with children
trying to support your children through meltdowns, shutdowns and outbursts
parenting a neurodivergent child
interested in better understanding how the child’s brain develops, and how to support it to function at its best
This course is ideal for you if you’re:
"This course is the most helpful thing I’ve ever done for my neurodivergent family. It absolutely changed my life but without any scary overhauling. It showed me really simple things I can implement that have a huge benefit. It helped me reshape my thinking and changed my frustrations into empathy. It was reassuring and easy to understand and I absolutely loved learning the new content each week. It felt like learning from a trusted friend."
Brains = Behaviours Participant, 2021
What will you learn?
You’ll learn the level of functioning to expect from a child’s brain and what goes on in there to create overwhelm, overload, anxiety, hyperactivity and so much more. By the end of the week you’ll understand EXACTLY why the brain, not your child, is responsible for all their behaviours.
Unit 1: Basic brain functioning
In week 2 you’ll learn about the brain’s very favourite thing - predictability! Find out why predictability is so important, what happens in the brain when it can predict and how to create more predictability in even the most chaotic environments.
Unit 2: Predictability
How many times have you thought this about your children? Well, the truth is - they may not have been thinking at all, and in week 3 of the course you’ll find out why.
Unit 3: What on earth are they thinking?!
Anger in children is never an anger management issue, but more of an expression of anxiety. We demystify anger and anxiety in kids during this week, and you’ll come away knowing how to support your child through these emotions without being afraid of them.
Unit 4: Anger and anxiety
In week 5 you’ll learn all about hyperactivity. What it is, why it happens and how to support your child’s hyperactivity without ever having to focus on its’ related behaviours. You'll finish this week recognising that hyperactivity is not a negative thing, for many it is their organic way of being, and is necessary for learning and connection to take place.
Unit 5: Hyperactivity
By the end of this week you’ll understand the sensory systems and know sensory overload inside out. This is perhaps the most important information we’ll cover in the entire course - and you’ll be gobsmacked by how much you learn about yourself this week!
Unit 6: Sensory overload
Unit 7: Sensory input
Sensory input refers to needing extra sensory stimulation, knowing which types of sensory input to implement and recognising how to support sensory seeking. From increasing sensory stimulus, to fidget tools, to creating a sensory kit, you’ll know exactly what steps to take to cater to sensory input in your lives.
A complex and involved topic (worthy of its own course!). You’ll complete the week understanding the meltdown cycle with deep acceptance and a firm plan to move forward in meltdown support. The number one rule? It’s not about the meltdown.
Unit 8: My meltdown framework
Talking uses up a lot of energy, requires a lot of processing, and this can make it very difficult for children to communicate. This week we’ll look at alternative ways your child can express themselves - which is key in avoiding pent up emotions and anxiety and an important step towards inclusive communication.
Unit 9: Self-expression
We’ll recap, refresh and integrate the learning into simple and sustainable lifestyle changes. We’ll look at discussing your new strategies with your child’s teacher, how to go about receiving further therapeutic help for your child if needed, and keeping your mind frame in check, so your new knowledge becomes part of your life!
Unit 10: Wrapping it up
"Allison understands neurodiversity and completely understands my needs as an autistic woman and mother. This course has allowed me to understand how behaviours are a product of the brain. I’ve applied some of the strategies and knowledge to my parenting and already noticed positive outcomes."
Brains = Behaviours Participant, 2020
Behaviours are never the problem.
It’s not our fault that we focus on them so deeply. Our parents and their parents and their parents brought their children up using behavioural science because that’s what they knew.
But now we have neuroscience, and neuroscience tells us undeniably that our fixation on behaviours is misplaced, and that supporting brain development and regulation via connection, safety and deep acceptance is key to helping children flourish.
I created this course in 2016 out of necessity - because I needed it myself! And because I knew others needed it.
Neuro affirming and acceptance based information. Actualisation over assimilation. A course based in modern neuroscience, my own autistic lived experience, the lived experience of a neurodivergent community and my experience as a therapist all delivered in a trauma informed way.
Thousands of parents/carers/educators/service providers have done this course which means even more children have benefited.
The ripple effect of this will never stop rippling!
Alli xx
Frequently Asked Questions
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On some plans, the course will fit into your funded categories - it’s best to check this with your planner. We are able to provide invoices for full payments (invoices are not available for payment plan payments).
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You’re welcome to work through the content at your own pace, with ongoing access beyond the ten weeks of the course. There is no pressure to work beyond your own pace!
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Absolutely not! We begin by looking at the development of the brain during early childhood, however the topics are all relevant and impactful for all ages - adults included!
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Not at this time. The best way to access Alli’s strategies and content is within her online community ‘A Gathering of Voices’.
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Brains = Behaviours offers 10 hours of professional learning. A certificate is available on completion of the course.
Meet Allison Davies
Allison Davies creates online resources for parents, educators and support staff and works with schools to deliver professional development around the topics of childhood brain development and the use of music as a regulatory tool. She is an independent liberatory scholar currently exploring the gatekeeping and classism of the social construct ‘musical vs non musical’.
Allison holds a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Teaching (University of New England, 2003), a Master of Music Therapy (University of Queensland, 2005) and Neurologic Music Therapy training (Academy of Neurologic Music Therapy, 2016). A former Registered Music Therapist of 16 years, Alli left the Allied Health industry in 2021 in order to align her work more deeply with culturally responsive practices and to switch her focus from individual change to socio cultural change.
Alli is an autistic person with attention, sensory processing and executive functioning difficulties. She works within a neurodiversity framework that favours deep acceptance and regulation over assimilation and intervention, and shares her lived experience of autism openly within her seminars, workshops and conferences as part of her ‘emotive storytelling mixed with science’ approach to education.
In 2016 Alli was named a ‘National AMP Tomorrow Maker’ for her contribution to supporting Australian families through her 2 day workshop, Brains = Behaviours, which is now offered as a 10 week eCourse. In 2018 she founded The Brain Care Café, an online membership for adults aiming to self-regulate through therapeutic based music experiences.
Allison is a regular contributor to online network ParentTV, and radio station ‘Vision Australia’.
She lives in the rainforest of Lutruwita (Tasmania), with her husband and 2 children, where she enjoys the beach, the bush and baths.