Crappy Day #1

I knew it would happen, eventually. I am happy with how long it took, I mean, I am into month 4 of 10 of this internship and today is the first truely crappy day? That really isn't too bad, right?

It all started with a planner. I write down everything into my cute polkadotted calendar. And it is always with me. Last night as I was laying in bed, I thought of all the things I needed to accomplish today: Observe a kid in SDC classroom, counsel my little tattletail, compliance training with kindergartner, Progress Monitor Tier 3 kids, meet with behavior kid, and lastly, go over info for IEP on Wednesday. Did I check my planner while I was making this beautiful mental list? Nope.

So then I get to my school site today at 8 AM sharp and am greeted by a giant, highlighted IEP notice hanging on the wall. IEP. Today. 7:45. Different School Site. WHAT?! That's not possible. It's supposed to be on Wednesday. I think to myself. I pull out my polkadotted companion and what do I see marked on today? IEP. 7:45. So at this point I am already 15 minutes late and I have no idea where the school is that I am supposed to be going to. I call my today's supervisor, Mr. H. He doesn't answer. I call my later in the week supervisor, Mr. P and he thankfully picks up and gives me directions. I get to the meeting 25 minutes late and right as my supervisor is finishing going over the results that I was supposed to have done. The mom was sweet, everyone laughed off that I was a dingbat and the meeting ended with no major issues. I however, felt, and continue to feel, like a moron. I apologized repeatedly to Mr. H who didn't really seem to care that I was late. But I continued to beat myself up. I get in my car and discover that I am pretty much out of gas. Super. I managed to make it to the gas station but that causes me to get back to my site even later and since I already feel terrible it just adds to it.

I do a classroom observation, thankfully it goes smoothly. I sit  in the corner of the SDC room and get that done without screwing anything up.

Then, it is off to compliance training with my little Kinder. The problem with little Diablo* is that even after 4 weeks of us being in his classroom, his behavior really isn't changing. At. All. Sure, he will come with us to the room to get a prize at the end of the day, but that is pretty much the greatness of his accomplishments. Little Diablo had a rough day today. Although he did manage to sit on the carpet during carpet time his hands were on everything. I mean, EVERYTHING. Drumming on the wall, pulling things off of the teacher easel, trying to squish up behind the teacher. I honestly wasn't sure what to do. Since he was up at the front of the class, if I tried something it would interrupt the entire class. So I let him be since, for the most part, he was at least sitting where he was supposed to be - which is his goal. Then, an unknown teacher comes in to pull him for bench mark testing. Ummmm bad move. He flat out refuses to go with her and I have to bribe him to get him walking. Then the teacher makes us wait for a while, which is not a good plan with Diablo. We finally get into the library where he is going to test and he refuses to go to his seat. Once I coax him to sit, he begins to pull out all the crayons and throw them as well as his test on the floor. I pick them up and hand them back to him and he gets a crayon and proceeds to color on his table and his seat. I verbally ask him to stop and he actually does, but then goes back to the previous behavior of throwing the crayons. By this time I am completely at a loss for what to do with him. The teacher gives up and tells us we can go since he is just distracting the other children. We start walking to the psych office and he starts running ahead - a major no-no that I thought we had gotten past a couple weeks ago. Once in the office I am conflicted. My supervisor had previously told me that we try and reinforce him if he has done some good. He was pretty good during carpet time and he did go with a stranger to the library - so I provide him with reinforcement, but I am pretty sure that is a stupid thing to do since the last several behaviors he had exhibited were not what we were looking for. But I give him the prize and try to explain that he got it for the smiley face behaviors we saw. When we get back to class - teacher is pissy because he got a prize. But then again - so am I.

I really don't think this strategy is working. I think the kid needs a more frequent reinforcement. He's a low functioning 5 year old. A half hour is an eternity for a 5 year old. Regardless of the strategy that is put into place - he needs a new one, because the current one doesn't work.

I emailed my sup and filled him in on Diablo's behavior today and all the difficulties I had. I asked for tips since, even the teacher pointed out that the kid does not respond to me. Hopefully he can give me some guidance.

Well, it is only lunch time, the morning has definitely sucked and made me feel like I am not cutting it as an intern. Lets hope it gets better this afternoon.

*Not his real name... wouldn't it be sad if it really was though?

Blue

I mentioned last week that we are doing "compliance training" with a kinder kid who is having a tough time following directions in class. Well, I can't recall if I mentioned that the kid pretty much refuses to speak - to anyone. Some actually wondered if he was mute or at least a selective mute. Well, last week I met him, and yesterday I attempted to work with him. He pretty much refused to acknowledge me so I kind of just guided him about the room forcing him to do everything he was attempting to escape. He would cover his ears and although he looked in my direction if I was to lock eyes with him he'd quickly look away. Today I seemed to make a lot more progress. I would give directives and then walk away, come back and praise for whatever minute progress he had made or prompt again and then walk away again. He didn't get much of his work done still, and he still ripped apart his workbook, but he stayed in his seat (one of our goals) and did do some of his assignment. The big progress came in working with him one-on-one. He actually came with me today to walk down to our little room to play video games. Sure, he got side tracked a bit, but I didn't have to use any muscle to get him where I needed him to be - so that was a huge improvement. Once we reached out little room I let him pick out a video game and play for 5 minutes. Then I let him know we needed to take a break and do some of the classwork he hadn't got to while we were in class. AND he actually stopped playing the game without tantruming/shutting down on me/acting out agressively and did the work. I, of course, continued to lavish him with praise for every little thing he did. Gotta feed this new it's ok to do my work mentality. My biggest excitment of the day was when I asked him what a color was and he actually replied back,

"Blue"

After that he even said a couple of short phrases to me! I was shocked and completely tickled pink. He was compliant the rest of the time together, even put away the video games without being asked. We made a deal that he would win a toy if he walked (I specified this meant no running, skipping, or hopping) back to the class with me. He shook my hand in agreement and we had a pleasant walk back to the classroom. Who is this kid? I am amazed. Guess that compliance training stuff actually works.
I've got another behavior modification kid that I just started working with yesterday. We have a Direct Behavior Rating (DBR) sheet that is passed back in forth between the teacher who fills it out and my supervisor and I who talk with the kid. Yesterday I met with this little 2nd grade girl for the first time and explained to her the system. She has 2 goals: stay in her seat AND raise her hand and not call out. I made her say them to me at LEAST 10 times until I knew she had the memorized. Then, we practiced them. I said silly questions that I knew she knew the answer for and she practiced raising her hand and waiting for me to call on her. After all that she got to pick out the prize from the prize wall that she wanted to work towards getting: colored pencils. This morning, on a whim, I decided to go sit in her classroom. She got all wiggly and excited to see me so I squatted down next to her and made her tell me, again, what she was going to be working on. She told me and then I stayed in the classroom and watched her for a half hour. That kid cracked me up. She kept checking back to see if I was watching her and occasionally, when she needed to get out of her chair to throw away a paper or something she would bolt out and bolt back, like if she did it quick enough I wouldn't see her. Too funny. Anyway on my way out I stopped by and told her what an awesome job she had done and that she should keep up her great work so she could get those pencils. She told me her goals one more time and I left. When she came and met with me at the end of the day she had done what was asked of her 2/3's of the day. pretty awesome improvement considering she didn't do it at all the day before! So she won her pencils and we played go fish to reward her for her good behavior. She said to me as she was leaving my little room "this was fantastic!"
Don't tell anybody, but some days, this internship thing is pretty fun.

Today's word is brought to you by the letter: B

Behavior Modification!

Isn't is grand? Today was full of it. I hung out in the kindergarten classroom this morning assisting my supervisor in doing "Compliance Training" with a little dude in there. My sup wore a necklace that had a green smiley face on one side and a red frowny face on the other. When the kid was following directions/staying at his center Mr. H would wear it with the green happy face showing, but if the kid wasn't complying with directions, it was switched to the red sad face. I, doing my best Vanna White impression, kept "score" on a white board that was displayed for the kid to see. Every five minutes I would draw either a happy or sad face, depending on  the kids behavior at the moment. The kid really wanted NOTHING to do with us when we came into the classroom. Mr. H attempted to explain to him what we were doing and the kid covered his face to block him out. But we kept at it. And after an hour and a half the kid was actually looking at both of us. He got lots of happy faces and won his cookie for the day, so he was a happy camper.

I really liked the technique as the kid got constant observable feedback on his behavior. And he got a tangible reward. I asked Mr. H if it was a technique that could be used with older kids and he shot that down pretty quick saying it was really just classroom training. I see his point, but I have also seen some older kids who could still use some classroom training. Maybe, someday, when I am a big bad School Psychologist at a school of my own, I will try it with an older kid and see how it works. :)

After hanging with the kindergartner I met with my other behavior mod kid. She is amazingly ADHD and  has three daily behavior goals (stay near work station, get half of work done, no rolling on the floor) and if she gets one goal met for the day she gets to play video games, two or three goals, she wins a prize. It seems like a pretty effective system for her. Token Economy for the win! She is a silly girl though. Today she popped in at her lunch recess and felt the need to sing for me. So I let her do it and she ate up the attention. Maybe she really doesn't even need the prize, she may do well with just an "atta girl!" here and there.