Understanding Neurodiversity and Mental Health Through the Modified Coventry Grid

Words First IDP Spotlight

At Words First, our IDP Spotlight sessions form part of our commitment to interdisciplinary practice across education, health, and mental health. These sessions bring together professionals from Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Educational Psychology to explore shared frameworks that support clearer formulation and more consistent support for children and young people.

This Spotlight was led by June Chan, SEMH Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, alongside Linda Bresgi, Senior Educational Psychologist. Together, they explored how the modified Coventry Grid can support deeper understanding of behaviour where neurodevelopmental differences, attachment experiences, trauma, and mental health needs overlap.

Rather than focusing on labels or diagnoses, the session centred on how behaviour can be understood as communication and how professionals can respond in ways that increase emotional safety, regulation, and access to learning.

Why behaviour is so often misunderstood

Behaviour is usually the first thing adults notice, particularly in school settings. It is also where misunderstanding most often begins.

“Behaviour makes sense when we look beneath the surface.”

When behaviour is interpreted as refusal, defiance, or lack of motivation, adult responses often become reactive. Pressure increases, sanctions escalate, or expectations are removed altogether. None of these approaches address what is driving the behaviour.

The modified Coventry Grid supports a different starting point: understanding behaviour as communication rather than choice.

A shared interdisciplinary lens

Drawing on her SEMH and speech and language perspective, June emphasised how communication, emotional regulation, and demand sensitivity often sit beneath behaviours that appear oppositional on the surface.

From an educational psychology perspective, Linda Bresgi highlighted the importance of relational safety, early experiences, and how attachment patterns shape behaviour in school environments:

“Behaviour is best understood as a response to felt safety or threat, rather than as a deliberate choice.”

Together, their perspectives model the kind of interdisciplinary thinking the modified Coventry Grid is designed to support.

Why this matters in practice

In schools and services, children are often supported by multiple professionals working under different frameworks.

“Everyone is working hard, but in parallel rather than together. And the child sits in the middle, experiencing increasing distress.”

The modified Coventry Grid offers a shared framework that helps us move away from siloed thinking and towards coordinated, needs-led support.

From labels to formulation

A key message from both June and Linda was that the grid is not a diagnostic tool.

“It’s a thinking framework, not a checklist.”

Instead of asking which label fits, the grid supports professionals to ask:

• What is this behaviour communicating?
• How does it change across relationships and contexts?
• What happens as demands increase or decrease?
• What helps this child feel safer and more regulated?

This shift supports formulation over assumption and guides more effective support and intervention.

Why Words First uses this approach

At Words First, interdisciplinary practice is central to how we work in schools. The modified Coventry Grid supports shared understanding across Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Educational Psychology, ensuring behaviour is understood in context rather than in isolation.

As June and Linda demonstrated throughout this Spotlight, when professionals slow down their thinking and hold multiple perspectives together, support becomes more consistent, relational, and responsive to the child’s actual needs.

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About June Chan

June Chan is a SEMH Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist at Words First. She qualified in 2018 after completing her MSc in Speech and Language Therapy at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, having previously studied English Language at Newcastle University. She is multilingual and speaks Cantonese and Mandarin.

June joined Words First in December 2018 and has a specialist interest in supporting children and young people with social, emotional, and mental health needs, particularly those with complex trauma and attachment histories. Alongside her clinical work in schools, she supervises and supports other therapists and co-leads the SEMH clinical pathway within Words First. She integrates attachment-informed approaches, including principles from Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, into her SaLT practice and is committed to collaborative, interdisciplinary working.

About Linda Bresgi

Linda Bresgi is a Senior Educational Psychologist at Words First with over three decades of experience in education and psychology. Originally from South Africa, she began her career as a preschool teacher before qualifying as an Educational Psychologist, giving her a strong foundation in both early development and therapeutic practice.

Her experience spans private practice, school-based work, community outreach in under-resourced settings, and specialist work at the Neurodiversity Centre in South Africa, where she focused on understanding and supporting diverse neurodevelopmental profiles.

Since relocating to the UK in 2024, Linda has worked across a wide range of school settings with children and young people aged 4 to 18. Her work includes assessment, consultation, and therapeutic input, with a strong emphasis on attachment-informed practice, collaboration with families and schools, and developing practical strategies that support emotional wellbeing, learning, and inclusion.