Reference no: EM133774944

CASE SCENARIO

You have been assigned to work with Sandra, a third grader who is being assessed for referral to special education because of behavioral difficulties including yelling and crying when corrected by her teacher or challenged by other students, being overbearing with her peers, and yelling and arguing with them when an interaction does not produce the outcome she desires. Preliminary screening has indicated that these behaviors are social skills difficulties, primarily those of a cognitive or problem-solving deficit rather than being due to a developmental or medical issue. In hopes of avoiding a referral to special education, Sandra's parent has agreed to have you work with Sandra and has participated in preliminary screening measures. Sandra has also agreed to participate in the intervention. You meet with her and discuss some of the behaviors that have been identified as problematic. Sandra tells you that she gets frustrated because the other students "don't like" her and "tease" her. She explains that she is new to the school and has been tardy or absent several days because her mother sometimes has to work a night shift, leaving Sandra to get herself and her younger sibling ready for school. She also thinks the teacher is "mean" and sends her to "time-out" in a separate classroom for no reason. Sandra seems particularly concerned about being "singled-out" and sent out of the classroom by her teacher. She says it happens almost every day and makes her feel even more like she doesn't "fit in" and "can't catch up" with her classmates.

You meet with Sandra's teacher and find that discipline procedures used in the school include an office referral that requires teachers to document occurrences of behaviors that are intense and/or disruptive enough to warrant the student's dismissal from the classroom for a period of time. Students who are dismissed from the classroom are typically sent to a separate classroom called the "behavior room" in order for the classroom teacher to continue the class without further disruption and for the offending student to have time and space to "settle down". Three or more referrals to the "behavior room" generally initiate a review by a Child Study team that is the first step in the referral process for special education. As noted above, the Child Study team review has concluded that Sandra's behavioral issues are most likely due to a lack of acceptable social skills. You are being asked to work with Sandra in hopes that a social learning intervention will allow her to remain in her general education class.

You decide to conduct a single subject design to monitor Sandra's progress. Since being dismissed from the classroom and sent to the "behavior room" seems to be a source of concern for Sandra, as well as a consistently documented measure of disruptive or unacceptable behavior in the classroom, you and Sandra decide to construct a graph charting each week's visits to the "behavior room". School records indicate that over the past 4 weeks, Sandra has been sent to the "behavior room" an average of 3 times per week: 3 times in the first week, 2 times in the second week, 5 times in the third week, and 4 times in the past week.

You review the disciplinary records to determine what behavior initiated or triggered each dismissal to the "behavior room". As noted previously, most of the incidents appear to involve interactions with the teacher or other students where Sandra was corrected or challenged. You and Sandra talk about your findings. She says that in most of the situations, she felt that either the teacher or the other students were trying to make her "feel dumb and bad" and she wanted "to make them feel dumb and bad instead".

Sandra and her younger sibling participate in the after-school program at their school, so you and Sandra agree to meet for up to a half-hour each day at the after-school program to examine what makes her feel "dumb and bad", and to come up with better responses to the various triggers. To reward any progress, you and Sandra agree that if she stays in the classroom all day, she will get a "commendation" star on her chart and she can reward herself with a snack or another small prize during your daily session. If she has no visits to the "behavior room" for 1 week, she can check out a video-game for the weekend. For the next four weeks, you and Sandra chart her progress and graph her weekly visits to the "behavior room" each Friday.

Week one, she has 3 visits to the "behavior room". You congratulate her for the stars she earned for the 2 days she got to stay in the classroom all day, and examine what triggered the 3 dismissals to the "behavior room". For two dismissals, she was frustrated because she did not understand math problems and "felt stupid". The third dismissal was initiated when she knew the correct answer, but the teacher did not call on her and Sandra wanted to answer the question. You are able to get a math tutor to work with Sandra during the after-school program. You and Sandra also discuss and role-play 1) how Sandra can ask for more explanation if she doesn't understand something in class, and 2) how even if she knows the answer, she can take turns and acknowledge that other students may also want to answer the question. For one session, you play the role of Sandra and have her play the role of the student who was called on by the teacher.

Week two, she has onevisit to the "behavior room." Again, you congratulate her for the stars she earned for the 4 days she got to stay in the classroom all day, and you examine what triggered the 1 dismissal to the "behavior room". Weeks three and four, Sandra has no dismissals to the "behavior room" and decides that she wants to focus her time in the after-school program on getting math tutoring and playing video games with her new friend.

Question 1. What type of SSD is being used in this scenario?

Question 2. What is the independent variable in this scenario?

Question 3. What is the dependent variable and how is it operationally defined?

Question 4. Complete the student's single-subject graph (below). Be sure to label the design, the phases, the target behavior, and time interval.

Question 5. If you wanted to chart a positive dependent variable/ behavior (one you want to increase instead of decrease), what is a variable/behavior you could identify and chart?