Sara Rice

ECE

November 18, 2016

Iron Man

i. History-

i. Brief History: Iron Man is an adorable 4 year old boy born on February 1, 2012. He lives

with his father and mother as well as his older sister, they have one dog (Stella Bo Bo)

and two cats. Iron Man has autism and attends the childcare classroom and the PAL

program at the Apollo in Highland Michigan, I have observed him in both classrooms.

ii. Describe Setting: Both classrooms have up to five to twelve kids at a time around him

depending on the day. In his PAL classroom there are more boys than girls where in the

childcare classroom there is a good blend between genders.There are usually two teachers

in his childcare classroom one of which I am and around five teachers in his PAL class all

interacting with him in different ways such as physical therapy, para teachers, a language

teacher and many others. Monday through Thursday Iron Man is in his childcare

classroom from 7 or 8 o'clock until 12:30, then he heads over to PAL where he stays until

3 o'clock. On Fridays he is at childcare from 7 or 8 o'clock until 3 to 5 o'clock. Fridays

tend to throw off his schedule immensely because there is no PAL and he is required to

take a nap. Both classrooms have an open classroom concept where there is room to play

and shelves for children toys as well as cabinets for adult needs. There are many

manipulatives in both classrooms and the same labeled areas such as book area and house

area. The only differences are that there is a smart board in his PAL class and that they eat

inside the classroom where in childcare we do not have a smartboard and we have a
 specific place for eating. Childcare is the only classroom with a curriculum which is

Highscope, where teachers and students scaffold off each other and learn through play.

iii. Your Relationship: I am one of Iron Man's childcare teachers, we first met on his first day

this summer before school started and became very comfortable with each other I also

take it upon myself to work with his PAL teachers to come up with learning strategies for

him.

2. Description of Child

i. Why did I choose this child?: I chose Iron Man because he was new to the classroom and

there was so much I still wanted to learn about him. After I learned about the

requirements of the paper I just thought Iron Man would be perfect so I could kill two

birds with one stone. I'm also interested in going into special education so I thought I

could do the paper on him to see if it's something I still want to pursue after the matter.

ii. What are strengths/challenges: Iron Man has many strengths, he loves the planets so much

that he can name everyone in his song he sings with his mom in the car. His favorite

planet is Jupiter and carries a cutout of it around with him and calls it his special toy.

Along with knowing his planets he is a great singer and finds the song book for songs for

the class to sing together. He sings spanish songs too, I found this out when he kept

singing a song over and over again until I realized that I could find it on youtube so we

can sing along. It turned out that the song had many other songs attached to it that were

spanish and he fluently sang along with it. He is good at independent play and parallel

play but find it very difficult to communicate properly for group play. It is very hard for

Iron Man to communicate properly altogether, he tries very hard to make friends and

communicate his intentions. When he fails to communicate he gets angry and physical.
 Recently we had to remove our trains because he injured a child so severely that he

needed stitches. When he does play with a group he is usually building with them, he

loves building with the marble tracks or knocking down cardboard buildings and or

magna tiles. He quickly potty trained in our classroom with very little set backs and with

no treats/rewards. Iron Man loves to read and can self soothe with a book. He doesn't like

any specific genre and likes to read to himself quite often.

iii. How long has the child demonstrated the challenging behavior?: After Iron Mans first

week at the daycare he started coming full time and that's when he started exhibiting the

challenging behavior of screaming, hitting and throwing toys. This behavior has gotten

more and more severe for the past few weeks. His challenging behavior looks like a boy

who is pushing a toy off a shelf and screaming, no, The screaming is mostly separate

from the other behaviors and it usually happens when hes sitting with a teacher and the

teacher says something he disagrees with and loudly screams, no. The intensity varies

depending on what it's about. It can be a small tantrum to a time when a teacher has to

shadow him to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone around him. When these events occur it

is primarily because we are either telling him to stop doing something or because he is

trying to obtain something that a teacher or student cannot or will not give him. The items

he is most concerned about is anything to do with trains, his planets, or magna tiles.

3. Target Behavior

i. Describe Behavior: The behavior I wanted to target was Iron Man's hitting do to the

severity, we recently had to create a log for his hitting after he caused a child to get
 stitches. It also worries me because now kids are going home and telling their parents that

Iron Man hit them even when he did not. All this is causing other kids to avoid him,

blaming things on him and calling him bad. Basically he is being isolated which doesn't

help for him to improve the behavior. Iron Man began exhibiting the target behavior

about one whole month of him attending the childcare. When it did begin happening I

went down to his PAL classroom to ask his teacher if she had anything to help us. Luckily

she did and gave us the social story about hitting with his picture on it and explained that

this is for after he hits another child so he doesn't do it again.

ii. Describe Antecedent: The target behavior appears when he is playing quietly with a child

astride from him as he lifts his arm and brings the toy down on another child's head and or

face. This is the result of the other child having what he wants and or needs.

iii. Describe setting event: Unfortunately we do not have proof of problems at home but there

is definitely some sort of tension between the family members specifically between mom

and daughter and daughter and Iron Man. As well as the first two weeks of the fall season

Iron Man was out sick quite a bit and came to school sick and drowsy as well.

iv. Consequences: When Iron Man began coming to the childcare he would get timeouts

when he exhibited challenging behavior. He would also be removed from group times

where he had one choice and that would be to take a break. Now Iron Man gets things

taken away from him or has a break before the behavior even occurs. He also has a choice

in small group because it sets him off because when he doesn't have a choice in the matter

and since we are highscope we shouldn't let him but in his case we do. Since his hitting

has gotten so severe we are working on a reward system and how it works is when he has

not hit the entire time he is in the child care he gets a sticker and when he does hit he
 doesn't get a sticker, after five stickers he gets a prize. Im also aware that his PAL class

has began doing this as well to keep consistency.

4. Hypothesis

i. What is your hypothesis?: My hypothesis is that when Iron Man doesn't get what

he wants he hits teachers and other children in order to obtain an object. When this

happens we read his social story and take doesn't get a sticker.

ii. How did you come up with your hypothesis: I found my antecedent from the

assessment Motivation Assessment Scale because Iron Man scored a twelve on

escape and a eighteen on tangible which sorta go side by side. So what I

determined was that Iron Man was trying to obtain what another child has or what

a teacher cannot give him. The Functional Assessment Interview Form- Young

Child helped me pinpoint the target behavior because until I compared it to his

other behaviors I then noticed it was the most severe. I also used PTR-YC

Functional Behavior Assessment Checklist: Reinforce taught me how to give him

a proper consequence and that was to give him a sticker for every time he did not

hit and do not give him a sticker for when he does.

5. Describe Plan

i. Prevention Strategies: A prevention strategy would to be to moderate and monitor the

interaction between Iron Man and another teacher because it appears that Iron Man tends

to act differently around her just to get a reaction from her. If the interaction improved

between these two I believe that he wouldn't behave this way just to upset the teacher.
 One prevention strategy we already had to put into place was the removal of the trains

because of the safety factors. When Iron Man hit the child with the train he was brought

into another room and helped put the trains away for awhile. He was very upset but could

tell me why they were going bye bye. We knew the trains were going to be a problem

because he is overly stimulated by them and tend to cause more issues in the classroom

and ever since we removed them he has been able to focus on other things that help

improve his interactions with other children. Iron Man's social story about hitting comes

in handy as well, he already knows how to use it so when it comes time to read it he

knows what is needed of him. He follows along with his finger as I or another teacher

reads it as well as identify that this is his due to his picture at the top of the page. If there

is a day that the social story has no effect on his behavior then another prevention strategy

would be needed to be taken into effect by either another teacher or the same teacher,

depending on his reactions. I have also been working on a rainbow walk with Iron Man

when I see his behavior taking a turn. Normally I'll say, you look angry, do we need to

go for a walk. If he says no then we will sit and talk but if he says yes which is most of

the time then I tell him, okay what color is your shirt, let's find those colors in the

school. Sometime this works and sometimes it doesn't. I will ask Iron Man how he feels

after the walk and if hes still angry we will figure out why we are so upset and what we

can say to someone if they are making us mad. Communication is not his strong point but

self soothing isn't either so I find this as a teach strategy as well.

ii. Reinforce strategies: Currently we have began using a calendar that collects stickers;

stickers that Iron Man got to pick, the stickers represent the amount of days Iron Man has

not hit another child or teacher. We decided to start small so for every five stickers Iron
 Man gets to pick a surprise from a box in the classroom. We have been using this for less

than two weeks and he already has three stickers. Currently Im working on a visual for

him to know what the sticker means even when the calendar is put away. A reinforcement

we haven't tried is picking his lunch partner, because he goes to PAL Iron Man has to eat

a half an hour early, usually eating with just one teacher. I think that a reinforcement such

as if Iron Man had a good day he could pick a friend to come and eat lunch with him or he

can pick a special teacher for him to sit with. Whatever his preference might be this could

be a good reinforcer because he is getting something he enjoys and makes him happy.

Although we removed all the trains from the classroom we still have a train across from

our building which Iron Man gets extremely happy about. We also recently discovered a

train sign in our outside toys that he has become very interested in so as a reinforcement

when he is having a good day all around he can announce there is a train coming by

holding up the sign to let all his friends know on the playground. Unfortunately we cant

use this in the classroom because we can't see the train from our window but he hasn't

mentioned anything so we are just letting him be content with his outdoor sign. If the sign

becomes a problem then we will have to come up with a social story to help explain his

behavior. I doubt this will have to be executed because he loves to help me and other

teachers.

iii. Teach strategies: For Iron Man we are working on teaching other methods to

communicate to teachers and children to reduce and hopefully get rid of the hitting. One

way is that I found new visuals that pertain directly to Iron Man. These visuals are

emotions like sad, happy and angry which work for the teacher to express her emotions or

Iron Man himself if he can not communicate to us how he is feeling. I've learned that
 because he is autistic he is a visual learner so even the simplest things are labeled like

wash hands and even stop. Currently Im teaching Iron Man that when he can't find things

to say that he can grab his cards that are always on me or another teacher and point to it.

This comes along with adjusting the reactions that he has to other children so that he can

eventually say to them I'm mad, instead of hitting them. Im also teaching Iron Man to

clean up appropriately. Some days are better than others but the strategy works best if we

are consistent. We give a clean up warning five minutes ahead of time and when it is time

to clean up we turn off the lights and tell them to clean up what they are playing with first.

Then I assist Iron Man with only the things that he was playing with which is like two or

three things. I assist him by walking with him and finding the things we need to pick up.

If we cant find where the toy belongs then I send him to another student to help find the

proper place for that toy. Lately we have only had to clean up two or three things with

him until he can go abouts cleaning up his or even others messes. After he's done cleaning

I ask him where he needs to go and he usually takes himself to the large group carpet. If

this doesnt work and occasionally it doesn't I give him two choices and that is he can

take a break and then continue on for the day or we can wait for the other kids to go eat

snack and we'll pick up whatever is left in the classroom that they saved for us to pick up.

Something we have in the classroom but don't use a lot of is our classroom schedule. This

would be helpful because Fridays are a little bit harder for Iron Man due to his schedule

change. What we could do is make a schedule that he controls that will teach him what's

coming next and how to transition from activity to activity.

6. Describe plan
 i. Teacher implementing: All of these plans will be executed by my lead teacher and I

because we have the most control of over the situation and have created a bond with the

student. My lead's role will be the enforcer and communicator to the parent because she is

the one there in the morning. In the morning Iron Man's mom and the lead talk about

simple things and ways to improve his behavior. I usually come up with the new ideas

and altar them when I see fit, I will be the enforcer in the classroom and his companion in

the classroom. We give each other lots of hugs and talk about our feelings. As for the

teacher who does not work well with Iron Man, she will be and is trying to create a bond

with him and is learning to communicate with him.

ii. Parent communication: As for the communication with the family which is primarily with

his mother is very helpful. Since Iron Man began aggressively hitting in the childcare and

his PAL class his mother took him to see a police officer who has an autistic child and

talked about what happens to people when they hit. Now Iron Man wears a police badge

to school and will have a picture of him and the police officer together to remind him not

to hit.

Work Cited

PTR-YC Functional Behavioral Assessment Checklist: Prevent

PTR-YC Functional Behavioral Assessment Checklist: Reinforce

PTR-YC Functional Behavioral Assessment Checklist: Teach

Handout 3a.4: Individualized Intensive Interventions

Motivation Assessment Scale