Interviews Karen Hollet Sped Teacher (9/28/12) Who is K most likely to communicate with?

? - people she is comfortable with - teachers - NOT peers really at all What is Ks main way of communicating? - speaks very limited, uses one word commands - gestures Does she use an AAC device? - Boardmaker pics on choice board - PECS book doesnt really use it that much - Learning Proloquoe2Go What other ways does she communicate? - behaviors lashing out o lashing out = needing a break o being affectionate = she is tired/doesnt feel well o singing = very good mood

Nicole Sayer October 9, 2012 SPED 461 Communication Assessment

Does she communicate with anyone differently than others? - talks more to Mom than teachers - talks the most to Dad shes completely different with him Sandy Melvin SLP (10/1/12) How is Ks progress on Proloquoe2Go? - can select I want/need but cant go further - just picks pictures randomly Have you experienced outbursts? What is the cause/message? - recently yes, kept pushing I want and I need but couldnt go any further, she lashed out - later found out she needed to use the restroom because she ran to the door and started trying to open it Does she do better with picture or verbal direction? - picture she gets overwhelmed with too much verbal direction Does K understand social cues?

no has trouble greeting others especially if she doesnt like the person has trouble understanding when others are upset

Does K understand multi-level directions? - no needs simple 1 or 2 step directions K has a lot of trouble communicating to others what exactly it is that she needs. She doesnt use the devices provided to her, to her advantage and she gets frustrated when learning new devices to use. K has a lot of trouble socializing with peers, but is more openly social to staff members and teachers who understand more of what it is she is trying to communicate. Most of Ks communication comes from behaviors she displays. She displays a lot of negative behaviors that allow teachers to know that she is upset and needs to be removed from the situation for a break. I believe that K has trouble communicating because she has not been taught the correct way for her in which to express her needs. She uses these negative lashing out behaviors as a way in which she can express herself that people will understand. I believe teaching K to express herself in a non-violent manner will be beneficial to her and others around her. Observations *see scanned packet sheets (FORMS A & B) for notes below Observations were completed during the typical routine of the student. She is mostly in the self-contained autism classroom, so a couple of the observations were during this time. She was once observed during her reading period in the classroom with the classroom teacher (Karen). She was given directions to read the word held up, and then she was told to type the word, after she typed the word she was then told to file the word alphabetically. This observation took about 20 minutes to complete, that was how much time it took for K to complete the task. Another observation that took place was before

school started when we were all just hanging out in the classroom. Jon, one of the classroom aides was talking to K and she was attentive to what he was saying. This observation lasted about 10 minutes. Another area observed was in the speech room with the SLP, Sandy. Ks speech time lasts from about 5-10 minutes depending on behavior. This observation in particular was about 5 minutes long, during this time K played around with the Proloquoe2Go program. The last two observations took place during periods in which K was in classes with peers her age. She is enrolled in both gen ed PE class, and foods class with peers. I am the only adult that interacts with her at the time, unless the classroom teachers choose to come up to her and interact with her. In PE, K was observed for 45 minutes, which is the full duration of the class. She doesnt participate or interact with students that much during this period because her social behavior tends to scare students away from her. During the period she walked on the track with her class, stretched before and after walking, and went to and from the building with them. During foods class K was observed cooking with her group. Her group members help her complete her assigned tasks and are very good at working with her and asking me for help with her when her behavior is hard to deal with. Her foods class period was about 40 minutes; she was removed a couple minutes early for her behavior in the classroom.

FORM A -1

FORM A-2

FORM A-3

FORM A-4

FORM A-5

FORM A-6

FORM A-7

FORM A-8

FORM B-1

FORM B-2

FORM B-3

FORM B-4

Preference Assessment 1. See scanned data sheets below (FORM C) 2. I selected items for the preference assessment based on observations completed on K and interviews with my cooperating teacher. I selected eight items based on highly preferred activities or food items, which werent overly distracting to K when presented. After a long discussion with my cooperating teacher and a trial run of the multiple stimulus preference assessment, it was decided to continue assessing K using a two-stimulus preference assessment. K was given items two at a time because when she was presented with multiple items it was too overwhelming for her and she displayed anxious behaviors. She was presented with a total of eight items in seven different trials. Within all these trials each item was paired with every item selected so she was given an option of all possible pairs. I would hold out two items and tell her to select one. She would either say the name of it, or grab it indicating that was the selection she was making. I discovered through this process that K loves to have her nails painted. She loves getting pampered and whenever the nail polish was pulled out she instantly quieted down and gave me her hands. Ive also discovered that K loves iCarly, the TV show, more than anything else presented to her, other than nail polish. She sees any picture of iCarly and will say hi Carly and then smile and laugh at it. These two items are highly desired by her compared to everything else. Another highly selected item was Cheetos, which I dont know if she was choosing this because she liked them the most, or if she was choosing them because I was giving the assessment before lunch time. 3. Preference Hierarchy

MOST DESIRED LEAST DESIRED a. b. c. d. e. f. Nail Polish iCarly Cheetos Movie Computer / Electric Company Rings / M&Ms

4. Based on my preference assessment I conclude that the use of nail polish, iCarly movies, or Cheetos would be the best reinforcement tools in teaching communication skills. As displayed in the data sheets on Form C, the student shows little interest in playing with rings, or eating M&Ms, these items will be listed as nonpreferences because she would much rather be doing something else than playing with rings or eating M&Ms. K gets daily access to the computer, so that has become an item of low interest when it comes to reinforcement, as well as the Electric Company because she gets to watch that on the computer everyday as well. It seems to me that the items she selected more frequently were items she had little to no access to during the regular school day, which she still loves. I believe the items that K selected most frequently can be used as a reinforcement tool in teaching her communication skills because she will work for these items. Since most of these items represented an activity, she can have one of these activities as a free choice option for reinforcement. K does like to work for free time because she enjoys being alone, so having these different options available to her may be helpful.

FORM C

Direct Interaction When presented with most items of little interest K will just walk away without even looking at the item. During foods class I present K with the ingredient list and without direction she will go get the different ingredients out of the cabinet or refrigerator. On form A-4 there are notes of how K reacts to certain items presented to her. I presented seven items to her over the course of this assessment; her responses are recorded for each item. She is good at relating an object to a specific meaning, for example, when a teacher picks up her schedule, K will walk over to her teacher time table and sit down with her schedule binder to put it together. When giving directions, need to use single or two-step directions paired with a gesture or visual aide (see form A-3). When she is familiar with a task simple verbal directions are okay. Assistive Technology and Visual Supports As stated in the interview, the student currently uses Boardmaker pictures to communicate desired activity for free choice when presented to her. She has a PECS book that she occasionally communicates from. The SLP discussed how the student uses the Proloquoe2Go; I observed her learning to use this system during her speech time. In the classroom K uses a picture schedule using Boardmaker pictures, she also uses a mini picture schedule during PE class so she can rip off whats been completed and know whats next. Assessment Tools I used the following assessment tools:

Communication Assessment This is a packet I used along side direct observation and direct interaction methods. I looked for specific components of communication listed in the assessment and noted whether or not my student has these components present in her communication. Components that were looked for are expressive and receptive communication skills. Social Skills Assessment This is an assessment tool used alongside direct observation, which looks at different aspects of social skills. The skills are then rated on how much they occur in the student and how critical it is the student displays the skill. There then is a section that compares the students to other students in the class. Interviews I interviewed my cooperating teacher and the speech language pathologist that works with my student. I asked questions on most components of my students communication skills. Overall Summary K is a 12-year-old girl with autism. She is in seventh grade and attends Urbana Middle School. K is in the TEAACH autism room for the majority of the day, but is in general ed PE and Foods classes. She is following a mostly functional academic schedule, but is also working on life skills and social skills. She is working on mostly community and vocational skills because she has a lot of personal care life skills mastered. She is working on reading sight words at the kindergarten level, she is also working on reading community sight words. She can communicate using one or two word phrases but nothing much past that. She uses gestures and eye gaze to communicate things as well. When K is frustrated or overwhelmed she screams or lashes out in violent ways at teachers. K engages in a lot of

self-stimulatory behaviors, which distract her from working for long periods of time and makes her stand out to other students. K has developed some positive modes of expressing herself, but there are some things she still needs to work on. One of her strong points in communicating verbally is requesting or rejecting items or people with one to two word phrases as noted in Form A-2. For example, if she is in the sensory room and she wants to be left alone she will simply say, go away which means she wants to be left alone. Teachers and staff know that when K says, go away she wants to be left alone. Lately she has been incorporating someones name with a request, for example, this morning K asked for her beads by saying, Ms. Hollet, beads which is a huge step for her. She is good at calling a persons name if she wants their attention. Another thing that K is good at is using pictures to communicate what it is she wants to do when the pictures are presented to her. Ks verbal communication is mostly clear and understandable; there are some times when she is trying to communicate something that we do not know what she is trying to say. As the observations completed show, K struggles with communicating when she is upset and what she wants when she is upset. Instead of using her words or pictures, she will scream when shes stressed out. As stated in the interviews and observations done on K, if the screaming doesnt get the attention she needed she will hit, push, or kick teachers to get what she wants. Sometimes when she is overwhelmed, before she hits she will throw items as noted in Form A-2. If she is doing work at her table she will grab the materials and throw them at the teacher and then get up and run to the sensory room. When K is around teachers and peers she will most likely communicate her needs to the teacher and ignore the peer by her. K has many opportunities throughout the day to communicate to other teachers and

peers. She is approached in the hallways or classroom by other staff that will say hello to her first or attempt to communicate with her. K has does not have strong receptive skills. She can understand and perceive picture schedules and directions a lot better than verbal direction. K needs one or two step directions, if there are more steps than that she will become overwhelmed and most likely not complete the task. Step by step verbal directions paired with pictures or gestures are the most beneficial directions for K to follow. She has specific items that she will respond to when presented to her, but most items that students react to she ignores. She only responds to items that have a significant meaning to her. For example, every time her schedule case is picked she will get up and go put together her schedule, but she will ignore a timer if its going off the majority of the time and only occasionally respond to it. As noted on Form A-5, K doesnt not respond to others behaviors that often. If she is looking at a person and they wave at her she will occasionally wave back, but she will always grab a persons hand when held out to her. Also, as described on the same form (A-5), K has a hard time appropriately responding to another persons angry or upset behavior. She either ignores the person, or has a behavior of her own, which leads to her having to be removed from the room. She doesnt understand or perceive when other people are angry with her. If someone says her name she will usually look up at him or her, but sometimes she will just ignore him or her, especially if she is in a bad mood. Ks strongest weaknesses in receptive communication would be understanding when others are upset and following complex directions. K weakest point of her communication would be her social skills and interactions with others. She has made herself very isolated in her own world and engages in a lot of

self-stimulatory behaviors that scare peers off. As shown in Forms B-2 & B-3, K received a lot of Never marks for social interactions with others. She has a hard time relating to others, especially peers, and she has a hard time responding to others behaviors geared towards her. She does not invite others to join in activities and does not make friends easily. In social situations K can get very overwhelmed, which can lead to her physically acting out to other students or teachers. In the classroom, K compares very low to other students. Using Form B-4 it was determined that compared to her other classmates; K has the lowest academic competence. She has the lowest overall academic performance, and her personal and parent motivation to succeed academically is the lowest as well. On Form B-4 Ks behavior was marked as second to lowest in the class only because teachers and students tune out her self-stimulatory behaviors, but if a new person to the classroom were to come in and try to work, her behaviors would be the most distracting. K is very good about following directions and keeping her things organized. She also transitions pretty well from one activity to the next as long as its on her schedule. If there are changes made to her schedule she needs to be made aware before hand, otherwise she may display some anxious behaviors. K is a lot more social with teachers, as stated before in all observations and interviews, but this is because she works mostly with teachers throughout the day and they understand what she is communicating when she gets upset. K does not use the assistive technology to its fullest potential. She rarely uses her PECS book unless forced to do so. She likes to use one-word requests but only after given options. Since she is new to using her Proloquoe2Go she does not use that in the classroom yet. She does however, use the iPad in class as a free choice option, which is a big step for her because she used to not even touch the iPad so this is seen as another step to getting

her to use the Proloquoe2Go system. The SLP did mention in her interview that K does get frustrated sometimes when using this new device, but in my observations with K she has done well using it. The one assistive technology system that has worked well with K and still continues to work well is the Boardmaker picture schedules. We make K a daily schedule, which walks her through her day and she can rip off pictures when the activity is complete. I also make her schedules for PE class, foods class, and jobs. These are very effective in keeping her on track and keeping her calm. Her being able to visually see her progress and how much she has left until she gets break time keeps her working longer. Since she has such a short attention span, keeping her on track with these schedules is a big help in her learning progress. Using Ks preferences will be most beneficial in her learning communication skills. As stated before, K will work for free choice time, and if these items are her free choice options she will work hard to gain them. Her nonpreferences will be helpful in her appropriately rejecting an item or activity as opposed to screaming and throwing things. If K is working towards proper communication skills she should be reinforced for her work. K will always work to have her nails painted and to watch iCarly videos. She loves both of these things and talks about them. She will come up to me and say Carly which means she wants to watch it, or shell come up to me and point to her nails and say uh-oh because her nail polish has chipped off. The desire for both of these activities was clearly shown in the preference assessment data in Form C. Having these two items as a free choice option will help us teach K how to request items properly when asking for free choice.

Skills The two skills I have selected as most important for K to learn are saying hi to people when they walk into the room and requesting to take a break. Saying hi to people is very important for K to learn because we have a lot of people who constantly are coming in and out of our room to see her. Greeting others is a big social skill that she should develop in order to start having positive social interactions with others. Another reason this is important is because K takes community trips every week and saying hi to the employees at the store is part of being a member of society. Cashiers always say hi and thank you to customers, so its only polite that K say hi back. The most important communication skill for K to develop is requesting a break. Right now shell go from self-stimulatory behaviors to throwing things or hitting others. These behaviors are not acceptable in our classroom, and more importantly outside of our classroom. K needs to understand that there are others ways in which she can communicate her needs to us, but she needs to be taught them because she wont pick up on it by us just saying it one time. She has already learned so many positive alternatives for hitting to get what she wants, she now just needs to learn how to control these behaviors when she is under a lot of stress but still get her point across. The data was so consistent across the board with this skill in particular; in both the interviews and direction observations and interactions these behaviors were noted as occurring. These are behaviors that the teachers want to get under control, but it takes time and the perfect intervention for the student.