Rachel Vestri Ms.

Dudley EDUC 417 11/12/13 Observation of student B B is a sweet little girl with a great sense of curiosity. She is active and loves listening to music. When B is at school she enjoys playing outdoors with her friends and exploring the classroom. B seeks opportunities for movement and loves to be around other people, especially the teacher. She can follow simple directions when given gestural and physical prompting. She is currently four years old and being served in special education and has a medical diagnosis of Wolf Hirschhorn-Syndrome. She is currently attending school two days per week in an inclusion classroom. She also receives services from an occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech therapist, and special education teacher, within this setting. Recent assessments have revealed that B has a below average IQ and communicates within a 12-15 month old range. Her range of motion and movement ability is within normal limits, however she experiences decreased muscle tone throughout her upper extremities, which causes fine motor deficits significant enough to indicate a need for individualized instruction in this area. All of this makes learning and engaging within the classroom difficult for B. She struggles inserting herself into play, focusing, following directions, and engaging in learning activities. Although improvements are being seen as a result of her current services, B continues to struggle with task avoidance and following through with directions. In addition, B is not independent with adaptive behaviors and needs help with dressing, handling utensils,

completing meals, and toileting. Despite the struggles B experiences within the classroom setting, she shows potential for improvement related to fine motor skills, attention and direction following, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior.

Recommendations and Adaptations Based upon observations of this student, B would benefit from receiving support that encourages attention for brief spans of time, more independence regarding adaptive behaviors, and helps her to follow basic directions and insert herself into purposeful play more appropriately. Hopefully by improving Bs ability in these specific areas, B will begin also improving in academic areas of need. To begin addressing Bs fine motor, attention, and adaptive abilities, the teacher may want implement the following strategies:

Whole Group Activities:

Seating Arrangements: To help student B be more attentive to the teacher during whole group activities, it may be beneficial to have her seated closer to the front of the classroom and nearer to the teacher or have her seated near a teachers aid. During whole group activities B would benefit from close monitoring and prompting in order to encourage engagement in the activity. Having her sit close to the teacher or an aid will also help ensure that she can be monitored for understanding. This may also decrease her task avoidance because of her apparent desire to be near the teacher. Visual/tactile Representations: to help further engage B in circle time, group lessons, and activities, the teacher may want to provide B with a sheet of picture symbols or board maker visual representations that match the taught content. For example if the teacher is sharing about the letter B, it may benefit B to have a visual picture of a B placed in front of her so that she can see the letter close up and hopefully stay more engaged. The teachers aid may want to help B remain focused by pointing to the visual representation, saying its name, and asking B to

point to it. This will help hold Bs attention and keep her engaged in learning activities. Fidget: It may be beneficial to provide B with a small fidget item to hold and play with during the instructional period of whole group activities or carpet time. This will provide her with sensory stimulus and hopefully help her avoid feeling the need to move around. Being able to fidget with an item may help B to focus better so that he can interact appropriately and listen to the teacher. Prior to using the fidget, have the teacher model good fidget use and show B how the fidget should be used appropriately. The fidget use should be closely monitored by the teacher and removed if creating distraction for B or her peers. Frequent opportunities for movement: For B, remaining attentive for long periods of time can be increasingly difficult. TO help reward her for sitting and listening and provide her non-distracting ways to get sensory input, the teacher may want to change Bs learning environment frequently or allow her to stand or move around at intervals throughout the lesson. Changing Bs positioning or allowing her to move around or stand during whole group instruction may help increase her ability to focus and remain seated overall.

Individual Deskwork: Visual/modeled Instructions: Based upon observations of B, she seems to respond well to visual and physical prompts. In order to help her focus and follow directions during seated deskwork, it may be beneficial to implement the use of picture symbol instructions or teacher modeling. Through either explicit modeling or using simple board maker pictures that show what B is expected to do, she will hopefully be able to more actually follow directions. This should always be done in the most simple and efficient way in order to optimize her comprehension and ability to follow through with the directions. These visual reminders and modeling should always be accompanied with verbal queues that are simple and explicit. Brushing: Prior to completing seated activities, B may benefit from being brushed. The teacher should make sure to carefully follow the OTs instructions for brushing in order to ensure positive sensory stimulation for B. Providing this initial sensory stimulation for B, may help her to better attend and remain seated for desk work.

Math and Language Art: Math Manipulative: To provide both visual representation and sensory/tactile stimulation, using manipulatives during math related learning may offer B with opportunities to stay increasingly engaged. Being able to follow simple directions such as, give me one block, may help the teacher to begin assessing her knowledge of number sense, while also providing purposeful practice for B regarding following simple directions. Although this may be slightly advanced, using manipulatives offers B with motivation to stay engaged and begin working on increasing her participation in learning opportunities. Practical Play: In order to help B learn practical life skills and focus during learning opportunities, the teacher should focus on using play to teach her important vocabulary and skills. For example, using a doll and dollhouse might be a great strategy to teach B to follow the basic verbal queue related to the vocabulary word off, on, in, or out. The teacher could disguise purposeful learning as play by asking B to put the doll on the bed or in the house. Purposeful play is a great strategy to help B remain attention for longer periods of time, learn how to play appropriately, follow directions, and may offer engaging opportunities that help eliminate her need for avoidance behaviors. Acting Out Reading: While the teacher is reading stories to the class, a great way to involve B would be to have her help act out the story using characters. Having her use a puppet or felt characters to either act out a story or give to the teacher upon request, can help engage her in the story and maintain her attention. It can also help her practice functional skills such as following directions. Fine Motor Practice: While other students are coloring or practicing writing their letters it would benefit Bs fine motor skills to have her practice writing or drawing using an adapted crayon or marker. The writing utensil should be large and short in order to help increase her ability to grasp the object more appropriately. By having her use adaptive utensils, she can participate in writing activities alongside her peers, while also receiving purposeful fine motor practice. Although she should not be expected to compete the task correctly, the practice it offers for fine motor is crucial in her development. Another way to promote fine motor development is to encourage B to pick up multiple items at a time and manipulate them within her hands. During learning activities that involve manipulatives, the teacher can ask B to pick up multiple items up and place them in different places on the table. This can help her learn to follow directions and develop more fine motor skills.

The teacher can also have B practice using adaptive scissors to cut paper into pieces. This will increase the strength in her hands and hopefully improve her muscle tone and fine motor ability.

Science/Social Studies: Hands-On Experiments: Although the concepts of many classroom learning opportunities may be too difficult for B to understand at this point in time, the practical experiences offered through various lessons could prove to be beneficial adaptive and functional skill practice. In an effort to help B gain independence in regards to adaptive behaviors and learn to insert herself more in functional activities that encourage vital daily living skills, the teacher can use hands on learning experiences to provide opportunities for B to interact and complete related tasks. By asking B to follow simple direction and complete a task using manipulatives and hands on, sensory stimulating items, B can participate alongside her peers while receiving important functional skill practice.