language and communication difficulties
This task requires you to further develop one of the student impact statements from your journal entries in Part A. (All of the student impact statements you wrote throughout the course should form the appendices of the assignment). Develop a student profile from one of you impact statements and use terminology from your readings to create a report that could be presented to a multi-disciplinary team. The report should cover the student profile, their challenges and strengths, the effect on learning and social outcomes, and your recommendations for supporting this student in their education context with reference to support literature. A video will be available for viewing prior to beginning the assignment. please use the video on this website to as a proforma example http://www.youtube.com/watchv=vCXdk_cliiQ and the format below Multi-disciplinary TEACHER REPORT
Name: Dave DOB: 1.1.2006
Age: 8 Teacher: Andrea Garner
Assessments: Results:
My socially speaking app
Spat-R Delayed by 3.5 years, social age, 4.5 years
Reading age 5 6. 8 years
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Dave is an 8 year old boy who has Autism Spectrum Disorder and a Speech and Language delay. He lives with his mother and father and he attends the SSP at a public school where he commenced year 2 this year. He is in a Multicategorical class made up of 6 students with varying support needs ranging from kindergarten to year 6. Dave recently commenced Speech Therapy with the school Speech and Language Therapist.
General Strengths and Challenges:
Dave is very skilled in science and art. He enjoys creating crafts and showing them to teachers. He loves to be read to but generally wants the same 4 books over and over. He is very adept on the computer and iPad and can stay on class task (particularly craft or science on animals) for up to 10 minutes.
Dave has been having trouble in class. He is unable to focus on a task for more than 1 minute without requiring teacher attention. He frequently yells out echolalic phrases and the other students laugh which leads to him doing it more often. His articulation is poor and prosody is lacking. He has 6 expressive labels for items he likes to eat but otherwise does not communicate with adults or peers verbally. He can follow a simple instruction but only one step.
Language and Communication:
TYPICAL PERFORMANCE
DEFINITE DIFFERENCE
Here you write what would be expected of a typically developing student of the same age.
Here you write what you suspect the challenge is (for example: oral motor issues, phonological issues, or hearing impairment related to articulation ); and what the cause of the challenge is based on your readings.
Comments: Write a brief summary statement of what the above table tells you about the student and what support people you might need (SLP, OT).
School observations:
Playground:
The following difficulties were observed in the playground:
• Dave became very focused/fixated on playing with an older boy. When this boy said “I don’t want to play with you, go away” Dave still remained intent on playing with him. The interactions increased in intensity as Dave repeatedly attempted to play with this boy and received repeated refusals which resulted in Dave hitting out.
• Dave has not developed the problem solving skills needed for the playground when things don’t go to plan. He is unable to independently shift his focus and come up with alternative ideas.
• Dave repertoire of games and play ideas for the playground seem to be limited and he does not have appropriate language to approach peers to play.
• Dave seems to have difficulty processing what other children (and teachers) are saying to him in the playground (receptive communication) (Kuder, 2008), i.e. during his interactions with the older boy Dave may have only picked up on the intense and aggressive signals rather than what was being said.
• Other children and adults did not always understand what Dave was saying (expressive communication) which can lead to misunderstandings.
• Dave does not fully understand the concept of sharing/compromising which is often a precursor to Dave becoming upset/aggressive.
Classroom:
• Dave wanted a particular song on but was unable to request it (limited vocabulary and pragmatic understanding), when a different song was played Dave became upset and hid under his desk. This occurred approximately 3 times in one hour.
• Dave regularly interrupts the teacher for off topic issues or because he wants iPad
• Dave has the ability to sit well and focus when completing work at his desk.
• Dave has good imaginative play skills (Vygotsky, 1978) but little verbal communication with peers as most attempts are rejected.
• Dave seems to have grasped the classroom routine and is often compliant with this when visuals are used.
• Dave is reading well, comprehension is shown through visual responses to questions (Mesibov, 1998).
Discussion:
There are a number of factors that are potentially limiting Dave’ participation and success at school, these include:
• A lack of structure and predictability in the playground. Research tells us that many children with autism struggle where there is a lack of structure and predictability (Firth, 1994; Mesibov, 1998).
• Dave has not yet developed the social skills needed for the playground. Prior to Dave starting school his exposure to other children was very limited and therefore he has had little chance to develop these skills. Social skills that come naturally to most people must be taught in an explicit and concrete manner to people with autism then be practiced repetitively (ASPECT manual, 2010). Use of visuals to support both receptive and expressive language may help (Baron-Cohen, 2001)
• Dave needs support with articulation because he is not easily understood by peers or teachers
RECOMMENDATIONS:
• Dave should be around his same age peers in the playground to give him a chance observe, model and practice appropriate interactions and play activities. Comic conversations (Gray, 1994) will be used to practice tag phrases and accepting ‘no’.
• To practice turn taking, waiting, and requesting e.g. doing structured turn taking games and activities in the classroom, role playing, social stories etc. Use the app ‘go fish’ (Deacon, 2010).
• Recommend input from a behavior support specialist to help identify other possible barriers and triggers. Also to help Dave work on skills such as problem solving for different scenarios when things don’t go to plan. Strengthen planning and executive functioning with the program CogMed (cogmed, 2005).
• Recommend ongoing intervention from Speech Pathologist to further develop skills and strategies for expressive and receptive communication (verbal and non verbal) so that Dave can understand students and teachers and they can understand him. Use program Socially Speaking (Schoeder, 2002)
• Use visual cues to aid understanding of routines, rules and expectations.
Additional Information:
Here you write general strategies for students with these particular difficulties using research and literature.
References: