Who Are We Serving??

Chapter twelve reminds us that we must be responsible in our use of behavior analysis procedures. There is one section in particular that emphasizes that the behaviors targeted for change should be those whose change will benefit the student. As we begin state testing, I think that this is an important reminder because it's easy to forget that we are serving individuals and young people. It is all to easy for our students to become numbers, statistics, or miniature pscyhological experiments.

I keep signs posted around my desk and around the room that remind me why I teach, and that I am ultimately there to serve the best interests of the children. Does anybody else have any ideas about how to keep the children's interests at the forefront?

Self monitoring and recording Attempt

I just wanted to share an story. After reading all of this great stuff on self monitoring and recording, I decided to try to apply it to my current job, which resulted in some less than positive feedback from other school personnel.

I am currently a 1 on 1 aide for a 4th grade student who has diabetes, NO cognitive delays, and is in a general ed. classroom. He has a one on one primarily to ride the bus with him, but I have also been given directions to help monitor his behavior, as he is prone to behavior issues when his blood sugar is low. Every school day, Peter (the student I work with) tests his blood sugar 4-5 times. He is fairly independent with his testing and understands all the devices and numbers that go along with his condition. After every time he tests in class, he gets up and calls the nurse, who writes down in his log book his numbers, and advices him what to do if his numbers are off (which is only about 15% of the time).

After reading the last couple of chapters I began to think that Peter should be self monitoring and recording. And so I came up with the idea of having Peter keep his own log, as well as having the nurses log in the nurse's office. Peter (with my supervision) would learn how to fill out his log, and keep track of his numbers during the day. Doing this would be good practice for Peter's independent health monitoring and would give him a feeling of "responsibility" over his own health. It could also be a scaffold eventually leading to Peter being less reliant on calling the nurse several times a day (having to get up in class to call the nurse, even when his numbers are normal, is a big class distraction.)

However, when I approached the school nurse with this idea, she immediately shot it down. She did not think that Peter would be responsible enough and did not see the point. I was very disappointed. It seems like all this self monitoring and recording is a great idea, but I believe that a lot of adults would have a hard time relinquishing power to students. Thoughts?

Self Reinforcement

Self Reinforcement is the ultimate goal to teaching the children in our classrooms. When a child can self reinforce they are no longer relying on an outside source to supply their reinforcement. The individual knows what is reinforcing and then is able to manage their own behaviors. This is a life skill that is very necessary for the children we teach to blend into society. Self-recording charts are an example of how to teach students to monitor their own behavior. An advantage to charts like this is that students can observe and record more than one behavior at a time. In addition, meeting their goal on a self-recording chart can be rewarding in itself. Just filling in the chart and knowing they met their goals can be enough to keep them continuing to perform their desired behavior, even without praise or recognition from others. If self-recording is not enough to maintain their behavior, self reinforcement after completing a certain amount of steps could be used. For example, once the child has completed 2 assignments, then they could take a break for a few minutes and engage in a preferred activity.

Self-Recording

Self-recording is “data collection on one’s own behavior (also called self-observation, self-evaluation, or self-monitoring)". I engage in self-recording more than I realized! One strategy I use is checking off tasks from my “to-do” list. Although the task may not be difficult, just the idea of accomplishing something is rewarding. My dilemma is how to get students to want or strive for that feeling of accomplishment and eventually use that feeling as a reinforcement. This is probably a task that will take more than just one school year. When asked to complete an assignment or task, I usually get “I don’t know”, “I don’t know how”, or “I can’t do it”. How can I use self-recording to motivate students? And how do you teach students the importance of being honest to his/herself when conducting self-evaluations?

A caution about audience and the benefits of video

Recently I have become aware that it is really important to not only assess the consequence of behavior like getting attention for their behavior but also the intended audience. For awhile we have been trying to ignore the inappropriate behavior of a student who speaks inappropriately to the staff in a variety of ways. The behavior really seemed to be seeking attention from the staff since it was directed at the staff. However, after watching the students behavior on video it became clear that he is attempting to gain attention from his peers. While he was addressing the teacher and the inappropriate comments were directed at getting the teachers attention. It became clear that while we, the staff, were trying to ignore the behavior to put it on extinction, he was looking at the other students to see their reaction to us ignoring him since his behaviors were so over the top. We weren't seeing him look at the other students who have been trained to ignore as well but find it much more difficult to do so. I really dislike being video taped but it is instances like these that remind me how valuable a tool recording the students and yourself can be in the assessment process of figuring out the ABCs. It lets you see things in a different light.

Managing one's own behavior

After reading chapter 11, I realized how important it is to teach students how to manage their own behavior. Teachers at all levels can help their students learn goal setting. I realized that I have been teaching goals to my students without even knowing it! I work in a preschool class and potty training is a goal most of the students want to achieve. All three of the adults in the classroom make going potty a huge deal and show how proud we are of the students when they use the potty and so do the students. The students want to be a big boy or girl and wear cool underwear so they strive to achieve their goal. The students that do not want to achieve this goal don't until they are ready. We can not force a child to use the restroom, when they are ready and want to achieve the goal they usually can train within a few short weeks. I also notice in my classroom that lots of students use self-instruction, including myself. My students talk their way through problem solving when something goes wrong or they are working on a tough puzzle. We have an ABC puzzle and the student's usually say the letter then look all over the puzzle to find where it goes. I know they are using self instruction skills while putting the puzzle together.

Inclusion

After responding to Tonnette’s thoughts on the lack of education and training provided to general education teachers on the subject of applied behavior analysis, I find expanding on the topic of Inclusion as this topic is important when considering inclusion as well as a few others. Let’s begin with a definition of inclusion: a student with a disability receiving special education services being served in the general education environment. It is more and more prevalent, whether it is to find a loophole to NCLB or simply allow special education students exposure to typical peers in order to gain social skills with the added benefit of a more “real world” mixed environment that will likely exist after public education ends. It has had many benefits for all students, but there are some definite concerns when not implemented correctly or misused. I have worked in inclusion for almost five years now and the conflicts between the views and methods of general education teachers and special education teachers have been the most difficult part of my job. This first began when I assisted a young girl who was medically fragile. The general education teacher did not feel this student should be treated any different from her typical peers, that is did not see that this child, though included, still should have her needs met. Now at my current job, the general education teacher does not think that my student, in her words, needs to “get it,” i.e. learn. These conflicts create some difficult situations, mostly because the training a general educator receives and in fact often whole paradigm is much different from that of a special educator. Also, there are often just “too many cooks.” In my position as a special education aide I likely speak to five people each day that tell me what to do, some general ed, some special ed, and I am left to determine whose opinion has the most validity. Is it the child’s case manager who has followed the child from day one? Is it the general educator who spends most of her day with the student, observing him the most, but does not have the special education background or insight? I’m sure some of these questions arise in this type of position no matter what, but to me, if inclusion continues to be the direction of special education, there needs to be much more cohesion within education, training, and management of all educators involved in inclusion.