Hi this is Peef's wife, Lucy. Hope that I can shed some light.
Firstly it would be irresponsible for me to make any diagnosis or treatment assumptions based on your posting. This range of behaviors can occur within so many different contexts and can be the result of a range of antecendents. It would take a professional to observe these behaviors in their actual environment for anybody to establish a firm diagnosis. However, in MOST cases, a child aged 6 that is in regular education will have already been assessed as identification of special educational needs fall within the schools responsibility. Schools typically have their own psychologist who will be consulted if special ed concerns are identified in a child.
It makes me angry to read about the eagerness of people to hit their own or others' children. I am frequently working with children with challenging behavior which is a result of nothing more than their parent's handling, example and lack of understanding about basic behavioral concepts. We should be trying our upmost to encourage and reward desirable behavior, and punishment should only ever be the last resort for negative behavior. *** Physical punishment is a parental right but is incredibly unsuccessful for determining a positive parental role/relationship, there are other much more successful methods you can use***
It sounds like the school are not providing the support that I would hope for, especially with regards to her domestic circumstances and the turbulence in her life. Aggressive behaviors are UNACCEPTABLE in any children, and that goes for children with profound disorders like autism, across the spectrum, to children who have just been raised poorly and learned hitting/kicking/yelling as an effective method of communication. However, before getting heated and mad, you have to consider that she has been taught (inadvertently) that this is an effective communication method, to either escape a task demand that has been placed on her, or to receive attention, or be (inadvertently) rewarded for her unreasonable, inappropriate demands. Parents and teachers often unitentionally reinforce all of these terrible behaviors by giving in to constant inappropriate demands (yelling, crying, wining...) to make life easier (eg the dad that gives in and buys the toy for the child in the store to stop him crying and yelling that he wants it) or removing the task demand that has been made on the child (eg the teacher that doesn't follow through with instructions to "do your work" and allows the child to seek alternative stimulation) because it is just too hard to get them to finish their work. This just tells the child that the teacher's directions CAN be ignored, and this happens more frequently than you would like to think in schools. In both cases, the child has been taught by OUR responses that their crying/yelling/aggression will result in their desired outcome.
I am currently working with a child with very similar behaviors to those you describe. He refuses to participate in class activities, will not sit in his chair and will run away when the teacher tries to talk to him. For these reasons, the teacher has admitted to letting him get away with it to make life easier. So I am working on his compliance, using hand over hand and physical guidance where necessary to ensure that instructions are followed. He frequently responds with severe aggression (biting, kicking, punching, hair pulling) directed towards the 'law enforcer' (me!). I effectively ignore this range of behaviors (frustrating I know) and MAKE SURE that he does not escape the teacher's demands this way... He MUST NOT get what he wants by doing this. Upon completion of the task, once his neg behaviors have terminated, he is rewarded for his finished work (reward, motivational charts with stickers for individual tasks are great for this... plus small edible rewards - but not too high in sugar, that can be provided quickly and frequently for good behavior through the day). It has taken about 3 weeks to almost completely terminate the negative aggressive behaviors and now he is sitting through the entire school day and completing his work every day! It does work, with patience of course! It is SO important to take the attention emphasis off of the bad behavior and shift it towards the good behaviors that are occurring. We all (you, me, children, animals) are likely to want to do good things if we are rewarded for them, and less likely to do something horrible if it does not produce the results that we anticipate. However, a behavior plan like this is quite intensive and although I usually teach my clients' parents how to apply them successfully, you would be required to have a professional design one of these to successfully identify the causes of these behaviors and what may actually be reinforcing them without your knowledge. Where do you live because this always affects the services available to you.
