Running head: STUDENT LEARNING PROJECT !

Service Learning Project: Child A

Emma Rozario

University of Nevada Las Vegas

25 November, 2019
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Service Learning Project

Present Levels


Child A is a five year old male. Child A comes off as very reserved. I have been with him

since August 12, so his growth thus far has been amazing. He is more social with friends every

day, and has begun to participate in the song and dances that we do as a class. He struggles to

follow through with what the teacher instructs. Child A does well with copying things- whether it

be drawing, words, letters, etc. However, when prompted to draw or write without a model, he

struggles. Based on observation and confirmed in his IEP, Child A is unable to draw a person

when prompted, as well as struggles to understand and follow directions unless repeated multiple

times. Child A has begun to play with others at stretch break and lunch, which contradicts his

IEP. He struggles with going to the bathroom alone, however, has progressed over the last few

weeks. When prompted, he has been able to communicate with his “pinky partner” (classmate

who sits in front of him), which is something that he struggled to do for the first few weeks of

school. He can transition well, and seems comfortable in the classroom. He knows all of his

uppercase letters, most of his lowercase, and all but four sounds. He can put the numbers zero

through ten in order from one to ten, but struggles to understand the concept of the number zero,

“before”, “after”, and “next”. He speaks a different language at home, but only communicated in

English at school. Child A has a difficult time sitting on the rug without fidgeting with his

material box, shoe laces, or small things he finds on the floor (threads, remainders of leaves,

etc.). He rarely raises his hand to participate in lessons. When he does, if he is called on, he does

not respond or say anything. Child A does not respond to questions asked, however, when

prompted he sometimes will answer “yes” or “no” questions.

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Goals and Objectives

The goals and objectives for Child A have been based on screening, assessment, and are

child specific. According to An Activity Based Approach to Early Intervention, “The purpose of

goal development is to individualize and prioritize a set of goals and objectives that are

developmentally appropriate, functional, and important behaviors that will advance children’s

behavioral repertoires” (Johnson et al., 72). The goal for Child A is: Child A will verbally

respond to questions. The objectives for the goal are: 


1) Child A will verbally respond to questions four out of five times, for three consecutive days.

2) Child A will verbally respond to questions with only two further prompts, four out of five

times a day, for three consecutive days.

Baseline

The baseline data for this intervention cycle was collected over the span of three

consecutive days.
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Intervention One

Intervention one was delayed a week, since Child A was out sick for the entire duration of

that week. With that aside, intervention one was interesting to say the least. I realized during the

first few minutes that my objective may be too challenging and unattainable for Child A at this

time. However, once I found a strategy that worked, I decided I will stick to my objective. I

pulled out some rhyming flashcards. The fact that they rhymed was not relevant to this activity. I

\\chose to use these cards due to the accessibility for they were already in my binder! I asked him

if he would prefer to eat an orange or an apple. He pointed to the apple. We spent the time

picking between two and even went up to three cards. I did this because I wanted to see if he was

able to make choices and answer nonverbally, before asking him to answer verbally. I used this

as an intervention technique because, “once children’s goals are developed, intervention efforts

focus on providing events and activities that address the children’s individual goals” (Pg. 67).

This intervention I focused on providing activities that can help Child A reach the objective. This

activity was done in the least restrictive environment (LRE), which was a general education

classroom that he is in most of the day. A least restrictive environment is mandated by the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA mandates “that children with

disabilities be educated with children without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate”.

Intervention one’s results are as follows:

Day one (2A): Two of five questions answered

Day two (2B): Two out of five questions answered

Day three (2c): three out of five questions answered

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Intervention Two

Data collected shows that Child A is progressing to meeting the objective. Child A’s

objective is: Child A will verbally respond to questions four out of five times, for three

consecutive days. On day one of the second week of interventions, Child A answered two out of

five questions asked. On day two, Child A answered three out of five questions asked, which is

his highest success rate, thus far. On day three Child A trumped day two by answering four out of

five questions asked! During this second intervention, I had him verbally label his choice. This

was different than intervention one, for in that intervention week he was only expected to point,

and when given further prompts, still struggles to verbally dictate his answer, or choice.

However, during this intervention week, I really focused on encouraging him to use his words. I

incorporated the Super Improvers System from Whole Brain Child, hoping that it would be
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positive reinforcement and an extrinsic motivator. By doing this, I hoped his confidence would

grow. The way the system works is that whenever a child gets better at something, they receive a

star. They work their way up the animal chart all the way to a Falcon. On day one of intervention

two, I began using it with him every time he answered a question. When I told him to go give

himself a star the first time, he came back to the table and worked even harder, trying to get

words out and answer the question. We used flashcards again for this intervention, and I asked

him further questions. I asked him “Do you like frogs or do you like dogs?” And he pointed to

the frog. I then asked him to tell me what it is while I pointed at it. He responded and said “frog”.

I pointed to each sound in the word and encouraged him repeat after me. I did this because in

article I had found when doing my research prior to the intervention, it mentioned that “It is

essential for all learners, even those who are nonverbal, to develop literacy skills, as these skills

can promote reading and independent communication”. The literacy skills he could build from

this activity include awareness of print as well as sounds of language. The National Reading

Panel (NRP), identified 13 effective instructional strategies geared toward reading

comprehension. Two of the most effective strategies were question answering and question

generating. After he pointed and verbally said “frog”, I then asked further questions about the

frog that he did not respond to. On day three, he was able to answer higher order thinking

questions! I gave him a card with a hat, a sock, and a brush. I asked him which he does first when

he gets ready in the morning. He responded saying “brush”. Then I asked questions about what

he does next, and he responded to three out of four of them with one-word answers. Overall, this

intervention showed so much progress and allowed me to tap into where he struggles. I found

that he struggles most with answering open ended questions. The results from intervention two

are as follows:
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Day one (3A): two out of five questions answered


Day two (3B): three out of five questions answered


Day three (3C): four out of five questions answered


Intervention Three

Intervention three was the final intervention session of this cycle. During the intervention,

I went back and asked some of the questions that I did during weeks one and two, to see if he can

now verbally answer those, with two prompts if needed. Child A needed only one prompt for

seven out of the ten questions that he responded verbally too. Based on intervention one and two,

I was unsure if he could answer an open-ended question. However, I asked anyway. I asked him

what he did at recess, which is always, up to this point, accompanied by “uh” “uhm” and “mm”.

Today when I asked him what he did at recess at the beginning of the intervention, he responded
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“run”. That was huge progress for Child A, since I did not give him options to choose between, I

only prompted once, and it was an open-ended question.

The data shows as follows:

Day one (4A): two out of five questions answered

Day two (4B): four out of five questions answered

Day three (4C): four out of five questions answered


Assessment

To assess progress with Child A, I used a line graph. By using a line graph, I was able to

easily analyze and study the progress and growth towards the objective for Child A. The data

shows that Child A, if intervention is continued, should reach the objective within another week

of intervention. He answered four out of five questions two consecutive days during our last
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week of intervention. However, to meet the objective he needs to answer four out of five

questions for three consecutive days. Looking at the data, one can see that day two (4B) and day

three (4C) of week four were successful; However, on day one (4A) he only answered two of

five questions. He would of had to answered four out of five questions to have made it three

consecutive days, therefore meeting objective. I believe that I did not give enough opportunities

for him to reach his goal. If I did four interventions a week, he would have a higher chance of

meeting his objective. With three interventions a week, he had no “wiggle-room” or room for

unsuccessful trials. I did three weeks of intervention, three days a week. Therefore, he would

need to answer four out of five questions every intervention day one of the three weeks. I also

found that the first day of intervention every week was the poorest performance Child A showed

during that week. The first day (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A) also happened to fall on Monday mornings.

Changing intervention days to mid to late week may enable Child A to show progress toward the

objective sooner. I am unsure of Child A’s environment, sleep schedule, etc. during the weekend

and that can all play a massive role in performance on Monday’s- especially in the mornings.

Giving an extra day of intervention once a week, and moving the intervention sessions to begin

on Tuesdays would more than likely yield a more successful intervention. That being said, the

data recorded definitely shows Child A’s improvement and progress. During baseline, the highest

number of questions answered were two out of five. During intervention, the lowest number of

questions answered were two out of five, with the highest being four out of five. During

intervention, I started with pictures. I would put a picture of a dog and a cat and ask him which

he liked to play with more. He chose the dog by pointing to it. I would then ask him what he

chose, and encourage him to say “dog”. We did a few cycles of this. After the first three, he did
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not hesitate much with finding the word that fit the picture that he chose. I used a lot of positive

reinforcement with him, giving him praise and encouragement each time he answered verbally,

and giving him stars every other time he answered verbally. Giving stars is something that we do

in the classroom as a reward system. It is similar to the token reward system commonly used

with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. “The token board serves as a visual tool to help

others convey which behaviors are appropriate/on task and which or not. This gives students a

way to visually and physically understand acceptable behaviors in specific situations (Peoples,

2013). The star system is called “Super Improvers” and my mentor teacher got the idea for this

from the book Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids by Chris Biffle. This was the only

external motivator used with Child A, for it was the first one I tried and it worked well so there

was no need to change. With Child A, I saw most progress when I asked a question directly

related to something he was doing. For example, he would not answer questions about what he

wrote about, however, if I pointed to an object in his picture he would be able to answer what it

is. When asked what he did at recess, he would say “uh…uhm …uh” with no answer, until the

last day of intervention. When asked if he played with the ball at recess, he would say “yes” or

“no”. After mastering objective one, I would do an intervention process with objective two

(answering questions with no prompts). Once that is mastered, which ultimately means the goal

is mastered, I would begin to create objectives that require him to work towards answering

questions with three word to five word sentences.

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Appendix A

Intervention Guide

1. Basic information

CHILD A
Child’s name:

Emma Rozario
Team members:

Date intervention
2. Goal, initiated:
objectives/benchmarks, Date intervention
program steps completed:

Goal
Child A will verbally respond to questions.

Objectives
1- Child A will verbally respond to questions four out of five times, for three consecutive
days.
2- Child A will verbally respond to questions with only two further prompts, four out of five
times a day, for three consecutive days.

3. State standard(s) or IFSP outcome(s)

Pre-k Standards that Child A should already have mastered:

7.PK.1b Listen to and follow a two-step oral direction with the use of formal and informal language.

Kindergarten standards that need to be met by end of the year:

7.K.2 Listen to and respond to oral communication.

7.K.1 Listen for a variety of purposes, including


gaining information, being entertained and understanding directions. With assistance, listen for and
identify main idea, purpose and messages.

From IEP: 

“At four years of age, children should be able to… draw a person with 3 body parts.”

4. Multiple and varied learning opportunities, functional and generative goals,

timely and integral feedback or consequences
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Antecedents designed List of possible child Feedba

to provide learning responses: ck or
opportunities targeted (+) and consequ
nontargeted (–) ences

OBJECTIVE 1:
 OBJECTIVE 1: OBJECTIVE

+ responds “yes” and 1:
A: Do you like frogs or points If a non targeted
dogs? Point to the one + Points and verbally response is
you like
 dictates answer presented, prompt

 again. “Point to
+ Points to card
A: What did you do at which you like more.
recess?
 + Answers verbally (ie:
Frog, or dog? Use

 played with friends,
A: Do you use a brush your finger and point
dug, played tag, ate
or put on a hat first? snack) like this (hand on
- Does not respond or hand model)”.
acknowledge “Can you tell me
antecedent what you pointed
- Responds “no” to?.”

If targeted response
IS presented, give
encouragement, and
provide new
challenge. Verbally
dictate? Higher
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5. Accommodations, modifications, and intervention strategies

While children work on adding detail to their stories and characters, Child A will work on drawing
characters. No modifications need to be made thus far. Intervention strategies include individual
one on one intervention, with strategic prompts, which will be done in the least restrictive
environment (LRE). For Child A, the LRE would be in the classroom.

6. Data collection procedures

Who (person responsible Where (which activities or When (how often or How (which methods)
for collecting the data) locations) on which days)

Emma Rozario (Me) Phonics, centers, Monday, Graph

complex text, writing, Tuesday, Anecdotal notes
math Wednesday for
three weeks.

by 12/05/19
If adequate progress does not occur in (specify time frame for when the team
will review the data), then the team will (check all that apply):

change which goals are targeted

X change selected antecedents or feedback/consequences change accommodations, modifications,

or intervention strategies


X change how often learning opportunities are provided

change where learning opportunities occur

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Appendix B
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Personal Reflection

Overall, this experience has equipped me with so much more knowledge, insight, and

confidence with interventions and Individual Education Plans (IEPs). This project was, at

first, very challenging for me and very confusing. With an amazing professor and mentor

teacher, I was able to come out of it and look back with such pride. This project will definitely

be going into my portfolio, and the tools I learned through the process will definitely be

applied when my career as a teacher begins in August of 2020. I think that this helped me gain

a new perspective on children with IEPs. I can now understand a lot of the process that goes

into the linked system of screening, assessments, goal and objective planning, interventions,

and evaluations. I think that the most valuable information that I have to date on children and

students came from this class and professor Messina.

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References

Biffle, Christopher. Fast Track: Seven Steps to Teaching Heaven. Whole Brain Teaching LLC,
2018.

Johnson, J.J., Rahn, N., & Bricker, D. (2015). An activity-based approach to early Intervention
(4th ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Kemper, T. (2012). Promoting listening reading comprehension for nonverbal english language
learners who have a severe intellectual delay (Order No. 3521687). Available from
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1035309522). Retrieved from http://
ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1035309522?
accountid=3611

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the
National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read. Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office.

Peoples, Janelle. (2013). The Effect of Modifications to a Token Board-Based Reward System on
Motivation and Engagement of Students with ASD when Completing Challenging
Activities at School.

Yell, Michael, "Least Restrictive Environment, Inclusion, and Students with Disabilities: A Legal
Analysis," 28 J. of Special Education 389, 390 (1995).