Tan Wei Sian | Group A

(1)

C A S E 1


(2)

Social emotional is the area I have selected for the child for intervention. Social emotional is a critical area of development which affects how one will perform in school and daily life. The ability to recognize and express emotions appropriately, maintain relationships with peers and adults, solving social problems, manage difficult emotions as well as participating in group activities are some of the critical skills that has to be developed during preschool years (Hemmeter et al., 2008). According to Raver (2003), research has shown that social emotional development has a close relationship with ones academic performance.


(3)

Article: “Social Stories™ Improve the On-Task Behavior of Children With Language
Impairment”

The intervention (As stated in research journal)

Setting

Children are being diagnosed by a speech-language pathologist when they are in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Teachers work together with the speech-language pathologist to identify 3 (Brent, Matthew, Rodney) children with social skill deficits and challenging behaviors. One of the children is Brent, 6 years old and has a condition pretty much similar to the one in Case Study 1 (speech impairment, appropriately interacting with peers and controlling his impulsivity).

The intervention is carried out in his own mainstream classroom for Brent and Matthew. They were removed during the transition from circle time to writing. The books were read to the participants in a hallway outside their classroom or in the teacher’s office. During baseline, the participants were read a random selection of children’s storybooks from the speech-language pathologist’s classroom. Each participant’s specific Social Story™ was read during intervention. Other than the book reading, direct interactions with the first author did not occur. Data were collected in children’s classrooms. Brent participated in circle time, immediately followed by journal writing in the same first-grade classroom. His classroom teacher and 21 students were present during this time. No other adults were present in Brent’s classroom. Brent was not exposed to the Social Story™ of Matthew, and vice versa. In addition, they did not sit near each other during writing.


Procedures

Children’s teachers, their speech-language pathologist, their parents, and the first author provided information about potential behaviors to be targeted for intervention. Some of the identified behaviors were the previously described challenging behaviors but were not well suited for a Social Story™ (e.g., echolalia). The targeted behaviors were selected by the first author, and those selected behaviors tended to distract other children in the classroom and impede participants' social involvement. Hence, the responses were well suited for a Social Story™ intervention. The behaviors targeted in this study were also consistent with each child’s individualized education plan (IEP), but the specific behaviors were not operationalized in the IEP. Thus, the behaviors targeted in the Social Story™ intervention were not being addressed by the classroom teacher or speech-language pathologist.

The first author wrote one Social Story™ for each child according to Gray and Garand’s (1993) guidelines, including the sentence ratio. Two speech-language pathologists familiar with writing and using Social Stories™ reviewed each story and checked for adherence to the guidelines and sentence ratio (Gray, 1998; Gray & Garand, 1993). During intervention, the first author read the Social Story™ to participants each day immediately before their targeted routine (i.e., math, circle time, writing). The children were then asked three to four questions regarding what they would do during the targeted routine (e.g., “What will you do during math?”) to assess their comprehension. They did not take the Social Story™ with them to the subsequent routine. The first author then observed the targeted routine from the back of the classroom. Each Social Story™ was printed on 5.5- by 8.5-inch white paper. The title was in 36-point and the story was in 20-point Times New Roman font. Pictures were icons taken from Boardmaker (Mayer-Johnson, 1981). The pages of the book were laminated and bound with a black binder on the left side.


Teacher’s Behavior

Teachers were blind to both the start of intervention and the specific content of the Social Story™. The number of prompts (e.g., physically or verbally redirecting the child, pointing to the child’s work) and social reinforcers (e.g., providing a positive verbal comment, patting the child’s back, smiling) teachers gave each participant during the targeted activity was recorded during each session. Using a continuous interval recording procedure, we coded in situ only the first instances of teacher behaviors across 15 s during 5-min routines.


Experimental Design and Conditions

A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of the Social Story™ intervention (Kazdin, 1982). During baseline, each participant was read a children’s book and then participated in his typical classroom routine. The intervention was introduced when no apparent trend in the targeted behavior was evident. During intervention, the Social Story™ was read to the child prior to the activity and the child was asked the comprehension questions. After the child correctly responded to each question, he returned to his targeted routine. Throughout the study, each reading took less than 5 min.


Generalization and Follow-Up

For purposes of generalization, 5-min probes were conducted for each participant during baseline and intervention. Target behaviors were measured when the child was in the presence of different people, activities, and settings (see Table 3). Direct interactions with the first author did not occur, and the Social Story™ was not read. Five weeks following the end of intervention, data for two follow-up sessions were recorded. Again, the Social Story™ intervention and direct interactions with the first author did not occur.


Data collection

• Scoring protocol and coding system for before and after research
• Fidelity checklist for every intervention session


The Effectiveness (As stated research journal)

Brent’s baseline on-task performance was variable often at the low end of the normative range. Only one datum was above the peer mean, and four data points were more than 1 standard deviation below the mean. His baseline mean percentage of intervals of on-task behavior during writing was 59% (SD = 18.8). Social comparison data showed that peers were on-task 80% (range = 25% to 100%) of the time during writing. During the Social Story™ intervention, Brent’s mean on-task behavior increased to 86% (SD = 11.4). At follow-up, his mean was 93% (SD = 3.5). Thus, his on-task intervention data and generalization probes were regularly above the peer comparison means, which were maintained at follow-up.
Brent’s behaviors were the least problematic and, at baseline, were the closest to the level of his peers. Following intervention, he completed his writing assignment and was often on-task. Brent generalized his behaviors to different activities within his classroom and different situations throughout the school day.


Your personal evaluation how the child will benefit from this intervention

She cannot control her emotions and impulsivity. The child gets to see solutions she can use to deal with her friends’ teasing in the story. When the similar problems are faced again, she can apply the solutions appropriately base of what she recalls from the story. With facilitation and positive reinforcement, I believe that improvement can be seen as time goes by. As teacher tells the story, interaction is visible when the teacher asks the child questions. This encourages the child to speak up more, be more introvert.


your suggestions how you can make adjustments to cater to the needs of the child and to facilitate integration of the child / the intervention activity into your classroom.

Rather than using animation, using pictures of classroom environment, including pictures of the children in the story might be a better idea. I believe this is easier for the child and the classmates to relate. Share the story with the whole class instead of telling them alone.
The child is shy and withdrawn at times so what the teacher can do is to start sharing the story and asking questions when the child is alone, followed by small groups, moving on slowly to big groups.





References
Hemmeter, M. L., Santos, R. M., & Ostrosky, M. M. (2008). Preparing Early Childhood
Educators to Address Young Children’s Social-Emotional Development and Challenging
Behavior A Survey of Higher Education Programs in Nine States. Journal of Early Intervention, 30(4). Retrieved September 4, 2009, from the EBSCOhost database.

Raver, C. C. (2003). Young Children's Emotional Development and School Readiness. ERIC
Digest, July 2003. Retrieved September 4, 2009, from the ERIC Clearinghouse on
Elementary and Early Childhood Education database.

Schneider, N., & Goldstein, H. (2009). Social Stories™ Improve the On-Task Behavior of
Children With Language Impairment. Journal of Early Intervention, 31(3), 250-263.
Retrieved October 9, 2009, from the EBSCOhost database.