Trial Intervention Summary

Our trial intervention went differently than I had imagined. Our goal was that
Spencer would be able to stay on a non-preferred task for 10 minutes. Because he
has other goals on literacy in his IEP, we decided to incorporate this into the activity.
We chose to dictate a story to him and have him write the sentences on a piece of
paper. This was a very difficult activity for him to complete as it was very nonpreferred. He would write a word and then try to change the subject and talk about
one of his interests. One prompt was that we told him that when he finished the
task, we would talk about Batman or another interest of his. This seemed to help
motivate him to stay on task, but he would need another prompt a few moments
later. We gave Spencer multiple verbal prompts to help keep him on task. We also
modeled for him indirectly by having one of us writing. When we prompted him, he
would quickly go back to what he was doing and then lose focus again after an
average of two minutes or less.
The next goal we worked on was also literacy based. A goal in his IEP is that
Spencer will be able to write a 4-5 sentence paragraph using proper sentence
structure and following the 6+1 Writing traits as a rubric. After doing the first
activity we allowed to write a story based on anything he liked, but he had to do his
best and write it correctly. He kept telling us that he couldnt spell and would look
to one of us to help him spell a difficult word. However, when he took the time and
stayed on task, he often spelled the word correctly or close to. For example, he
scribbled the word Halloween but when he told him to go back and try to spell it,
he did it correctly. We had to give him the verbal prompt of try again multiple
times within the process. He responded well to that, but only for a short time.
However, we realized that many of the deficits that are surrounding this goal were
based on his phonics and lack of staying on task.
The last goal we worked on was social behaviors. The goal we have for
Spencer is that he will be able to display appropriate personal boundaries by asking
permission, giving a high-five or refraining from entering a persons personal space.
We decided to use the cartooning method with Spencer. We first drew a cartoon and
step by step showed him what it would look like if he entered a persons bubble.
We explained that this would make someone nervous. When we said this, he was
currently inside of Breannas personal space and he noticed and then asked for
permission to stay there. After the drawing, we did a role play where we took turns
being Spencer or a stranger and asked how we would approach them. He practiced
walking up to someone and not stepping too close, or if he did, then backing up.
After this, we had him draw his own cartoon to explain what he had done. After a
few minutes of drawing, he started to draw an entirely different cartoon and wanted
to act that one out. He understood the concept we were teaching him, but we
realized we might have to use repetition and do the exercise again. Towards the
end, Spencer was distracted and not understanding what we wanted him to. We
gave him multiple prompts, including verbal prompts and modeling. He wanted to
then draw a cartoon about his interests and was not coming back to the topic at
hand. Next time, we are going to review this concept with cartooning again and
possibly another applicable activity.