Alex Dailey

Case Study Report

11/29/16

(For privacy purposes, the name of the student has been changed)

While Sara appears to be fully capable, she has routinely demonstrated an inability to stay on-task
during class. Sara is not easily motivated to work and shows a general lack of interest in school and
learning. Mixed with a seeming indifference to authority and refusal to participate when it does not suit
her mood, Saras academic performance has been on a steady decline. The goal we set out to achieve
was to design a behavior plan in which Sara would become motivated or incentivized to participate and
engage more frequently in class.

We came up with a broad plan of providing more positive attention, positive reinforcement, academic
support, a consistent expectation of work ethic, and an established consequence plan, in the hopes that
Sara would become more comfortable in school and would develop positive, self-regulation habits that
would lead to improved academic performance.

Original behavior plan under IOSIE Method:

Guidance and Consequence Approach

Identification Academic performance is declining due to a lack of interest, emotional factors,

and poor self-regulation habits.
Objective Increase participation during class.
Solution Provide student with positive self-regulation habits through positive attention,
positive reinforcement, academic support, consistency in expectation, and an established
consequence plan.
Implementation Frequent interaction and development of positive personal relationship so
that support and training is accepted, respected, and considered meaningful.
Evaluation Ineffective. Attempts to build relationship and pass on self-regulation habits were
unsuccessful due to a misidentification of the behavioral problem root.

We experimented with many different strategies over the course of the semester without much success.
Consequences seemed to have little effect and only served to push Sara further away. Reward systems
were unreliable and only mildly effective when they did work. Self-evaluation prompts were rejected.
Respect oriented request-over-demand strategies showed promise at first, but quickly became
ineffective. Parent involvement, while an effective motivator, only provided short-term gains.

Most disconcerting, attempts to build a positive relationship with Sara were failing. I spent a lot of effort
trying to empathize and connect with Sara, but whenever I made moderate progress, the slightest
professional interaction would effectively undermine all of my work.

Strategies that did show positive results had less to do with discipline and more to do with environment
manipulation.

It became clear that Sara was routinely coming to school under-rested and that it was playing a role in
her disengagement. Sara has a very active imagination and has a proclivity for doodling. Her drawings
are often disturbing, scary, and graphic. I recently discovered that many of the characters she has been
drawing are coming from a horror-themed video game. She later revealed that she was having difficulty
sleeping due to nightmares and disturbing imagery. At this point, the parents were contacted to inform
them of the situation. The parents removed access to the game and other adult material. Soon after,
Sara was coming to school more energized and showed a marked improvement in her willingness to
participate in class.

In addition to drawing, Sara tends to sneak out picture books to read during instruction or at times when
she should be doing something else. While removing her book as a consequence during class has only
had negative effects on her participation, disallowing her to keep a book at her table from the get-go
has had positive results.

Unfortunately, these strategies do not provide guidance or promote self-regulation and are
consequently not valuable for Sara outside of our immediate academic goals.

Months into the first semester, Sara was still not participating at a level that we had hoped for. Nor was
she making significant progress. She was still prone to refusal and her work ethic seemed to come and
go on a day-to-day basis.

It wasnt until recently, when the host teacher started looking into a referral for Sara that we got some
surprising news. Sara had previously been enrolled in the special education program and had only
recently been removed due to success using an accommodation plan. I can only imagine that this was
some sort of unfortunate oversight. I understand that IEPs are confidential, but if a students success is
due to the implementation of a specific accommodation plan, it seems obvious to me that that plan
should be shared with educators, regardless of its active status.

Unbeknownst to us, Sara had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and had tested extremely
low in working memory tasks. As a result, her reading comprehension was significantly below average
explaining a lot about her refusal to engage in work involving text interpretation.

It is difficult for her to remember complex or multi-step directions, which explains her seeming
indifference to classwork expectations. This, in turn, explains my difficulty in developing a positive
relationship with Sara. I was regularly prompting her to follow through with class instructions and
activities. This was met with refusal and resentment. Likely because she wasnt sure what it was she was
expected to do. A few instances of these kinds of interactions and Sara would completely withdraw and
refuse to re-engage in classwork.

It had also been determined that Sara was easily distracted and would withdraw in noisy or especially
stimulating environments. It is unfortunate that this information was not used in the placement of Sara
in Mrs. Mullins classroom as there are several students in that class who are known disruptors. It should
have been recognized that these students would likely trigger withdrawals from Sara.

After reviewing Saras old accommodation plan, we came up with a new behavioral plan that was based
on previously successful strategies and better suited to Saras needs.

Modified behavior plan under IOSIE Method:

Guidance Approach
 Identification Academic performance is declining due to a lack of participation caused by
disinterest, emotional factors, and an inability to focus and process complex tasks.
Objective Increase participation during class.
Solution Provide student with a more stable/calm learning environment, frequent positive
reinforcement, necessary instructional supports, and positive attention.
Implementation Provide accommodations to allow for solution strategies. Frequent
interaction and development of positive personal relationship so that support and training is
accepted, respected, and considered meaningful.
Evaluation. TBD. This plan was recently implemented, though preliminary results are
promising. Also, understanding of the actual problem root has made discipline issues easier to
address.

For the most part, the major difference between the modified and original behavioral plan are in the
approach. Before, I saw work refusal as purposeful, where now I see refusal as an indication of
misunderstanding. This has allowed me to change the way in which I interact with the student. I believe
this change will allow me to achieve a permanent positive relationship. In turn, allowing me to really
reach Sara and help her develop positive behavior habits.

Throughout the semester, I would argue that all of my interactions, though misguided, were in-line with
my own philosophy of discipline. I believe that discipline is all about teaching self-management skills and
that this endeavor is best approached through building and leaning on positive relationships. That is
precisely what I attempted, though a lack of information led me to be unsuccessful. Had I known what I
know now, my strategies and interactions would have been different, though I would have still targeted
self-management habits through positive student-teacher relations.

Ive learned a valuable lesson during this case study about seeking out information about your students.
Oversights do occur. And sometimes these oversights may hinder the success of my students and the
effectiveness of my instruction and education plans. But there is no reason that I cant take steps to
ensure that such occurrences dont happen by being proactive in seeking out all the information I can
about my students.

(At no point was Saras IEP plan exposed to me or any other person without the consent of either the
school or Saras parents. All the information I received regarding Saras diagnosis and previous
accommodation plan was through a summarization passed on to me by my host teacher and through the
consent of the school.)