Identifying Student Needs and Causes of Behaviors

With a new class and a new school, I find myself jumping in and hitting the ground running. I want to know "what's the deal with this kid?" for pretty much every kid in my class. I have 10 kids this year with various disabilities. They each have their quirks, but there is an important question to ask. WHY??

This can be answered with the following questions:
What is causing certain behaviors? 
What is the purpose of the behavior?
What happens if I push their limits?
How can I help them?

So some teacher love the "honeymoon period" as the kids are extra sweet getting to know their new teachers. My partner and I have a different philosophy. We push their limits from the get go! We want to see what happens when we push their buttons during this calm 1st week of summer school before we jump into the more challenging academics next week. This way we can create a plan and start working on interventions immediately!

A Few Examples!

Asking for help

"Miss Parnello, Can you help me spell ____?" My answer, "Nope! You're smarter than you think you are. I won't help you until you try!" (this is a phrase I use A LOT in SPED thanks to far too much learned helplessness!). Now why didn't I just help him? I looked at his paper, I saw he hadn't written a single letter, and I determined he just didn't think he could do it! The purpose of the behavior was to avoid the challenge of doing it on his own because of a lack of confidence. The outcome: he spelled all but one letter of the word correctly! Plus, we chatted when he finished the word and I asked him why I didn't help. His response, "I'm smart and I can do it myself." Look, he just gained some confidence! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Making Noise

Yesterday a kiddo kept making noises and silly faces excessively. I was stuck trying to decide if it was "stimming" or attention seeking, although I was pretty convinced it was negative attention seeking. None of our negative consequences seemed to help at all. Nor did praise for stopping the behaviors. How did I figure out a motivator? I took his paper from our morning writing prompt that said "I love to ___" and the kids said the things they liked. I discovered an iPhone/iPad game that he loved and was school appropriate. Today he had a chart of 10 images from the game taped on his desk (thanks to my awesome partner!). He got an "X" on one image every time he did a negative behavior. By the end of the day he still had 9 pictures and earned 9 minutes of his game. What did we learn? He can control the behaviors, but needs an appropriate motivator. Also, I have gum as a backup plan in case it really is a sensory need and he needs to fulfill! Today he had a GREAT day!

Off Topic Conversations

A kid asks questions about things from 5 minutes ago...repeatedly throughout the day. Plus he is constantly distracted while you are talking to him, and keeps turning around a lot to see what is happening around him. What's the problem? This is something newbie teachers would just get annoyed by and think the kid was being difficult. After a bit more experience, you learn this is a sign of a sensory processing disorder! NONE of these behaviors are in his control! How can you help? Sound reducing headphones for things he doesn't need to listen to, and a speaker with a microphone on the teacher for when he does need to listen. Complications: kids who don't like headphones, and speakers that can be very distraction for other students who are bothered by sound. I know, it's not an easy solution, but you can see the behaviors have a cause. 

Impulsive & Physical Behaviors

Kid is constantly calling out, grabs others when he needs/wants something and gets overly emotional to minor problems. The cause? Impulse control and inability to self-regulate! He can't help himself! The solution? Teach him how to catch himself! Teach him how to find that moment where he is about to lose it and what to do to stop it! How? Push the limits! We made our little guy lose on purpose when we know this is a HUGE trigger. I saw him get upset and start to get mad and cry and I gave him minimal prompts. I simply said, "This is a game for fun. It doesn't matter who wins or loses. Right now your goal is to figure out how to turn your mood around and figure out how to calm down" and I walked away. The outcome? He cried for about 30 seconds, said "good game" to the other team, and moved on. SUCCESS!! We praised him like CRAZY!!! We made him feel like a million bucks so he knows how great it feels to turn those emotions positive instead of blowing up!. We know he won't always react like this, but it's a start! We know what kind of prompts he needs to be successful.

Off Task
A couple years ago I had a kid who was always off task during writing despite his reading and spelling abilities. It was driving me crazy prompting him to get back to work all the time! Finally I had enough and asked why he wouldn't ever finish his work even when he knew what to do and how to do it. His response, "It makes my hand hurt! My hand gets so tired trying to write on the lines." It turns out because of his fine motor delays he got physically fatigued long before he was mentally tired of the assignment. The solution: He was allowed to type his writing assignments whenever possible. He instantly started writing stories that were twice as long as they were before!

Always remember: KIDS ALWAYS DO THINGS FOR A REASON! The trick is to find out what it is and how to fix it! Sometimes it's a really simple solution!

Creating a Home Behavior System

Today I went to visit a student and his mom at their home and we had a lovely lunch together.  Such a lovely family! At lunch he introduced me to a random dad at the cafe as his "former teacher." Haha. I discovered I can't quite give up a couple of these families...so I didn't. I met with one today, and tomorrow I start tutoring one of the kiddos.

This happens to be Genius Boy and his family who I saw today, for those of you loyal readers who've read as a babbled on about how much his brain mesmerizes me! One of my requests was for him to be officially tested for his IQ this summer so I know just how hard to push him when I work with him. It turns out...he's one smart cookie!! Realistically he's probably even higher because he lost points when he outsmarted the test by giving complex answers when it just wanted the easy-peasy version. Honestly, his mom and I chatted about switching him to home school since regular school can't keep up with him.

Out of all of out chit chatting for 3 hours we planned some projects to keep his mind busy through the summer. Then she had a great idea of working on a home behavior system together. After years of teaching special education, I have a great system that works at school. I'm going to tweak it and develop it into a full home behavior system. So now comes the part where I decide which concepts are universal, and which things need to be added in for the home.

I'd like to make this a great, all-inclusive, home behavior pack. I'd like to include behavior charts, posters for expected behaviors, and a general explanation of the behavior system and how it works. The best element of a behavior system is consistency! I want to make this an easy-to-implement system that any parent can use.

Do you have kids at home? Which concepts or routines do you think should be included in a home behavior system?

Social Skills Cards and Behavior Management

My Social Skills Reminder Cards are flying off the shelves! Well if TPT had shelves that is! I was thinking about making a second set of reminder cards. There are currently 30 cards in the set and I'd like to create about 30 more. What skills/topics would you like to see? Is there something I left out of my first set that you'd really like added to your collection? I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have! You can also email me at teacherlisasclass@gmail.com

Behavior Management is a tricky thing in the classroom. What works for some kids, does not work for all of them. This is especially true in special education! I have tested, used, and experimented more strategies than I can count! I thought I'd put together a quick list for you. I honestly pick and choose from each system and use all my favorite parts of each one.

I was reading a post on Jacqui's blog, Resource Room Rules,  and it got me thinking. Behavior is something that needs to be approached from many angles. Special education has taught me that every behavior a child exhibits has a purpose. Resolve the problem by giving the students a better way to react to problems.

Start with one consistent behavior system with rewards and consequences. I use a colored chart with velcro, many teachers have similar systems with clips. This is a school-wide system that I did not create, although I did some serious tweaking to make it work for my little guys! I teach at a K-12 school, so what makes sense for a high school system doesn't always work for the little guys.

Small version for consistency at home

Class Chart

I also use a point sheet. Every kid gets a point sheet every day. The kids get up to 6 points for each section of the chart: following directions, personal space, appropriate words/noises, respecting school community, staying on task, and stay in assigned area. I connect this to the color chart. All the points in a section = stay on blue or move up. Each point lost is a drop down on the level chart (with allowance for minor infractions). Then there are instant level drops to red for things like hitting.

At the bottom of the chart are personal goals for each kid. These allow kids to become aware of specific things they struggle with, but I don't punish them. For example, one kid had "think with your eyes" as a goal because the student has autism and wouldn't look toward people during conversations.

This helps with a lot of behaviors in the classroom, but not all of them. Then it's time to get down to business of how and why we need to behave a certain way. Links for many of these topics can be found in the tab labeled "Resource for Parents & Teachers" at the top of my blog. There are also more detailed descriptions of the resources.


Social Thinking- Michelle Garcia Winner is AMAZING! It helps kids identify different ways they may act in situations using SuperFlex and the Unthinkables.


Nurtured Heart- I prefer to call this "kill them with kindness." Make the classroom fun and full of praise and complements so kids want to stay part of the group. even when a kid is making a bad choice you praise something (anything) that they are doing right. Then guide them to a positive choice. So a kid is off task but has their name on their paper? Say "Wow! I love how you're sitting quietly and already have your name on your paper. I can't wait to see how well you do on your assignment!" So you're secretly telling them to get to work, but not in a way they feel like they're being told what to do.


Zones of Regulation- This helps kids name their feelings and find acceptable ways of releasing emotional tension and calm down. My kids earn "tool cards" for using a tool to calm down appropriately. My kids use this so well that they are able to identify what zone a peer is in, then decide if it's a good time to try to talk to them. I also use the zones when the kids are starting to drive me crazy. I'll tell them they are "putting me in the yellow zone because their interruptions are making me feel frustrated when I can't finish my sentence." I'll also fake it and use a tool like belly breathing to "calm myself down."

Lastly, Kari the speech teacher and I came up with our opposite of Michelle Garcia Winner's Unthinkables. We wanted a positive behavior to aim for. We came up with Focused Fred and Independent Iggy for the kids who are easily distracted and the kids who ask for help they don't need. These are both freebies in my TPT store if you want the charts.

Sensing the Seasons Book & Independent Iggy *Freebie*

Last night I finished my Sensing the Seasons: 5 Senses for the 4 Seasons mini unit. My kids are super excited. Our introduction lesson went so well that I stayed up insanely late last night finishing up the rest of the unit. I continued the excitement today when I told them the best part (that I thought of on my way to work). We are turning this into a book!

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my kids think my binding machine is the coolest thing in the universe!! They love anything that means they get to help me pull the levers and make a book. In the beginning of the year, my kids couldn't really sustain a big project worthy of a whole book, so they haven't gotten many chances to use it until recently. This is a huge motivator because this book is 16 pages long! It's a way for me to secretly sneak in a lot of writing and the word "illustrate."

Got a kid who struggles to work independently? Always asks for unnecessary help or worries about what what the other kids are doing? I have the solution!

Meet Independent Iggy!

Today I put this on my little dude's desk and it was like miracles happened! Every time I caught him working hard, without asking for unneeded help, or worrying about a kid finishing faster, he got a happy face or star on his sheet. When he got 10, he got a prize from the prize box. He was super awesome! He did 3 math pages! Plus he refused to let me help him on reading. I think he did 5 different reading activities!! Accurately! YAY!!

I got the image from Little Red's Vowel Sounds Clipart. I can't wait to use the rest of the bundle of images. There are so many things I can make!

I have sooo many more things I'd love to share tonight! Upcoming ideas:
Technology in the classroom curriculum
Author of the Week
My funny moment of the day... You know I teach kids with autism when this is what happens during writing: the kid wrote "silent" ON the letter t in the word castle! Below is the close up and the whole story he wrote in his writing journal.

Focused Fred is on Task! New Classroom Walls!

My friend the speech teacher is going to hate me for sharing this! Sorry Kari it's totally worth writing about :) Look below to see the new walls that suddenly appeared in my class!

I teach some VERY easily distracted little kids. Kids with autism are not known for their ability to stay on task for non-preferred activities. My speechy friend upstairs and I were trying to think of ideas to help them stay focused. I started with sticky notes on the table for specific kids. I gave the kids a star every time I caught them staying on task without a reminder. It was pretty successful!

Next Kari and I wanted to come up with a cute "unthinkable" (Social Thinking, Michelle Garcia Winner) to describe the good behavior besides boring "staying on task." Kari created "Focused Fred" and made me these super simple little 10 frame laminated sheets to replace the sticky notes I was using.

I know it's sideways, I'm too tired to fix it right :)

I tell my kids they are being like Focused Fred and give them a star every time they stay on task. When they fill up the 10 frame they get a sticker/prize. It's really starting to work! I used an overhead marker and wipe it off with a wet paper towel when it's full.

I walked in my room today crossing my fingers that the construction workers finished my wall (that used to be a window) and painted it. Much to my surprise, not only was it done, but there was a 2nd wall! Take a peek at the before and after pics!

Wall 1 before they were done:

Wall 1 after they were done:

Forgive the blurry, I was in a hurry to clean up. Note the messy shelves!

Wall 2 before it existed (AKA the entry to my kitchen, used to be hidden by that blue curtain below):

The mess I walked into after Xmas break

Wall 2 after:

Mostly fixed shelves! I'm done with the left. It has all of my curriculum separated by subject (reading, social studies, science, and math). I'm still working on the right. It has supplemental materials, books on CD in 1 gallon storage bags so the book and CD stay together. On the bottom are all my tall curriculum manuals. Three grade levels of 5 subjects is a lot of stuff!!

Then the construction guys were apparently having some fun and drew us a picture!!

Penguins, Shapes & Intervention Plan Freebie

So what do penguins, shapes and intervention plans have in common? Not much other than randomness in the life of a K-2 SPED teacher! Penguins were our focus theme this week and the kids had a lot of fun. Then I had a great intervention team meeting, and your perk for my little meeting is a little behavior intervention freebie. Then we started working on geometric shapes and did some fun centers.

Check out our cute little penguins we made! I cut the shapes out of an old file folder and had the kids trace and cut out the pieces before gluing it all together.

So I don't know about you, but I'm OBSESSED with Pinterest now! During the summer I had no idea what it even was, and now I don't know how I ever taught without it! There are so many great ideas out there, but they were all lost in the crazy world of cyber space until Pinterest put all those great things together in the world of pictures! I'm a very visual person/learner and Pinterest is just plain perfect for me!

Prekinders is one of the many fabulous discoveries I've made. It's meant for preschool, but some things are great for kids a little older than that too! The pattern blocks printables are amazing! My students were entertained for an hour!!! They were begging me to print more!

I used these dry-erase pockets I got on the dollar isle at Target during back to school time. It saved me time it would have taken to laminate all of these. I put two in each pocket and the kids just traded them around after they finished making the animal shapes on both sides of their clear pocket.

Part of my intervention plan was to work with my student during some "special time" together so we could create a feelings sheet for him to complete when he makes a bad choice. It's amazing how calling anything "special time with the teacher" makes the kids instantly think it's fabulous to have them all to themselves!

We actually talked about this during our meeting. A (great!) doctor for kids who are twice exceptional (gifted/autism, adhd/gifted, etc) came into my class to observe a kid I've been struggling with. This kid is beyond brilliant! Quite possibly the smartest kid I've ever met, but with that comes it's own challenges... So this Dr. comes in to observe to get a better idea of what's going on. One of the things that shocked me was when the doctor said "He clearly adores you! I never saw one thing that indicated otherwise!" To be clear, the kid was far from an angel that day, and he's tested my every nerve and teaching strategy this year. But Mr. Doctor Guy pointed out that it's like he loves me so much he doesn't want to share me. Which suddenly makes sense to me.

Sorry, I got on a tangent there for a minute... So the doctor's suggestion was that I work with my little guy to create a form for identifying feelings, identifying the problem, and brainstorming solutions. The point was to make it feel like it was the kid's idea to make this thing, in the hopes that he'll buy into using it everyday.

So my little guy and I used our special time to make this together! He came up with all the feeling words himself. Please note the complexity of these words and he's only 5! The very bottom box is the list of suggestions for things he could write in the "things I could have done" section.

Animal images at the top of the page are from KPM Doodles.

Time to do some serious lesson planning. I've been told there will be more construction and painting in my classroom this weekend, so I have no idea what disaster I'll be walking into when I walk in tomorrow morning! I'm making sure I have everything ready now, so I can fix/clean up my room when I get it there. Crossing my fingers that it's not too bad. Plus I'm looking forward to the new cabinet they promised to give me! I don't even have a clue what it looks like, but no teacher complains about more storage!!

Zones of Regulation Helping My Struggling Kids

Hey guys! Be prepared, this is a very SPED kind of post, but it would really work in any class with a student who struggles emotionally. This program has significantly reduced the number of "blowups" my kids have. My little guys often have humongous reactions to very tiny problems. This program has helped my little guys determine the "size of the problem" and what to do in order to calm down, instead of having a screaming tantrum or hitting. I'm in no way encouraged to write this, I just really like the way my kids are responding to the program.

The last month or two the speech teacher and I have been working on helping the kids determine what emotional "zone" they are in (happy, tired, angry, excited, etc.). Now we are teaching the kids the "tools" to get back into the "green zone" (the best zone, because you're happy, calm, and ready to learn).

So we made a little book of "tools" on colored construction paper. When I see a kid starting to "blow up" I stop them immediately and hand them the tool book. The kid picks a "tool" such as belly breathing, pushing a wall, or taking a walk. If the kid successfully uses the tool to calm down and get back to work, they get a special card. When the student earns all their tool cards (about 8 I think, I didn't count), they get a prize. The book includes tool award cards, but it's kind of a pain to lug the book to the copier every time we need more. So I made a digital copy in a jiffy today. So I figured you can have it as a surprise freebie. Have you noticed I've gone freebie crazy lately?! I didn't think you'd mind!

Happy Halloween! Killing Them with Kindness!

Trick or Treat!! In the past my students have freaked out when I have worn costumes. This group seems to love Halloween so I picked a very cheerful costume where I look as much like myself as possible. I also gave the kids a warning that I would look different, and it was still going to be me teaching them. This seemed to help a lot. Today a pink and purple butterfly taught Lower El :) Note: the student who I said was missing yesterday has been found and is safely back home!

The kids were soooo adorable in their costumes! I had Iron Man, Darth Vader, a wizard, a doctor, and Percy the Tank Engine (from Thomas the train). We all know what Halloween means in teacher world...CRAZY!! So I was on a mission to make today as pleasant as possible.

Yesterday a parent gave me Howard Glasser CDs about "The Difficult Child" to listen to in my car during my commute. The student is BY FAR the most challenging kid I've ever had. He even puts ABA to shame. He sees people as toys and really couldn't care less about prizes, rewards, or any form of consequences. Not to mention the kid is brilliant so I can't even say he has to learn to get smarter, because he's already super smart...like 3 grade levels above his age smart. This kid has tested my every limit so I'll try anything. So I'm listening to these CD's and the mom is right. Glasser describes exactly her kid. Basically, people are like the coolest toy in the world, and who cares about everything else. Even consequences are rewarding because I think it's fun to make you do something (talk, scold, whatever).
 
One of the big concepts is basically kill the kid with kindness. I was already a believer in this, but what do you do when a  kid can go 5 hours without ever doing what is asked? This was where I had a revelation. Find the good, even when the kid is being awful. So today I found my mission: kill them with kindness. I figure if I can get this kid (and the rest of them too) to behave on one of the wackiest days of the year, then there really is something to this little scheme.

Here are a couple situations I had today:

• Kid makes horribly annoying noises and I say "Wow! I love that you are keeping your hands to yourself"
• Kid is completely off task and I say "It's really great that you're sitting quietly in your chair because it shows your classmates respect so they can focus on your work." (He usually grabs and annoys them)
• Kid asks to read instead of color and I flood him with praise about how he's such a great reader and how it's a perfectly quiet activity for him to do instead

My super big "Ah Ha!" moment came when he made it all the way until recess on Blue (our best behavior chart color). This is super rare for him to accomplish. I also did this "kill with kindness" thing to the kids who were doing what I wanted when my focus kid wasn't. And the part that made me the most excited was how contagious it was. The kids started giving each other lots of complements too with zero prompting from me. At one point my tricky kid went back to his usual ways and dropped to the bottom of the behavior chart. Then when he earned his way off Red and on to Yellow the whole class started cheering for him!! It was soo cute! To any other kid Yellow is terrible, but for him it was a big step in the right direction. There have been times he's never gotten off Red during a day. I've been working hard to make sure this class doesn't hate this kid, because I've seen it happen. I love that they can find the good too, and celebrate it. It's called the Nurtured Heart Approach and I can already see it going in the right direction for the class as a whole. I haven't gotten to the "consequences" CD yet, so I'll try that another day.

Last but not least, gummy bear graphing was a huge hit and the kids were begging to graph some more. This was even the favorite part of the day for "tricky kid" when he originally was refusing to participate. Yay for gummy bears! If you want the blank graph, just go to yesterday's post.