Connections Internship Log
June 26th, 2009
This week I started my internship with the Connections Program. The Connections Program is a therapeutic program set up like a summer day camp for children with Asperger’s Disorder that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to teach them social skills. The first weed of the program consisted of training. The first day of training we took a test on the program manual, were trained in the diagnostic criteria of Asperger’s Disorder, and saw a demonstration of Skillstreaming. The rest of the week we role-played and practiced skillstreaming, taking turns acting as children and leading the group. While we were leading fidelity was done on use by the supervisor and if we received a 90% than we passed and were able to do the program. The role-playing was very useful because we were able to get comfortable with implementing the therapy and the behavioral point system at the same time.
July 2, 2009
The Connections program started this week but, I am part of the IES program, which does not start for two weeks and only runs for three weeks. The purpose of the IES program is to show how the skillstreaming therapy can be incorporated into a normal school setting, and to get the IES students used to the program because they will be doing it in school. So, until the program starts I am part of the research team along with the other IES counselors. I really don’t mind being part of the research team because it is nice to see both sides of the program. I get to see and appreciate what is done at the research end of the program and be directly immersed in the program when I am a counselor. I feel like I am getting the most out of the experience because I am involved in both parts that make up the program.
This week as part of the research team I was trained on how to score two protocols the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-2 (ABAS-2). On Monday and Wednesday I collected video data of the children’s behavior. I did this by going into a group and videotaped them while they played board games. I also participated in doing fidelity on groups, which is monitoring the group to make sure that they are following the treatment manual. Along, with these tasks I also did some office task such as reorganizing the filing system, pairing the laptops with chargers, and filling parent, staff, and child packets with protocols.
July 10, 2009
This was my last week as part of the research staff. We continued to score the SRS and the ABAS-2 and learned how to score some new ones. The new protocols we learned were the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC), the Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Behavioral Inventory (PDD-BI), the Screening Test of Feeding Protocol (STEP), and the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills of Individuals with Severe Retardation (Messier). I also continued to do fidelity and video taping in Connections groups.
I was trained this week in collecting salivary cortisol using a salivette, sorbette, and passive methods. This study is trying to see if there is an ideal method for collecting saliva from children and whether certain collection methods cause stress. Collecting saliva from the children was a very interesting experience because drool is pretty gross and collecting it is awkward. The kids know that it is an awkward task so getting them to cooperate was a challenge, one kid tried to escape and one kid almost vomited, but it was a nice break from scoring protocols all day. I also got to administer the KIDSCOPE and an Uncertainty Scale, which measure coping skills of the children. In this case we were looking at specifically social situations. I liked this for the simple fact that I got to work one on one with the kids, which I had not gotten to do yet.
Next week IES starts and I finally get to work with my group of kids and I cannot wait!
July 17th, 2009
The first week of the IES program was this week, which I was really excited about because I finally got to work with the children and run the program. The IES program consisted of four treatment cycles a day. A treatment cycle consists of skillstreaming, which is teaching the children the social skill, and an activity, which is a fun way for them to use the skill they just learned along with the other social skills they have learned. Throughout the whole day the children are on a point system where they can earn points by using social skills and lose points for negative behaviors such as not be actively involved in an activity or interrupting. They are working toward earning a fieldtrip at the end of the week and they have to earn a certain number of points in order to make it. This week the fieldtrip was bowling.
My group is the Wizards of Dodge because all of our students go to the same elementary school and participated in or went to see the schools play the Wizard of Oz, so everything in our classroom was Wizard of Oz themed. It was nice to finally get to meet our six students and to begin to know their personalities. Our children are six and eight, and this is the youngest group they have tried to run the program with. The day flew by when we were working with them, there was never a moment when us three counselors were not talking to the kids, calling points on them, or trying to prompt them to use their social skills. It surprised me actually how tiring it was to run the program. I did not realize how much energy I needed to use throughout the day, and it seemed like I was going to lose my voice by the end of each day. Although, it was always a hectic and tiring day, it was always a lot of fun.
After the first two days of the program we had to develop Individual Daily Notes (IDN) for each child. The IDNs had three things that the child had to work on or improve on. For example, one child has a lot of difficulty staying actively involved in the group so on his IDN it had no more than 3 instances of not being active in the group. If this child had three or less times of not being actively involved than for that interval he received a yes for that interval in this category. If the child received at least a 70% throughout the whole day he received a reward at home, and the reward increased if the percent was higher. The IDNs, I thought were a great way to help shape behaviors that the children needed to improve in and it was also a nice way to include the parents in what we were working on with their child.
Today was the bowling fieldtrip and we were a few members short. One boy had a doctor’s appointment so he was arriving late. One girl had been saying that she would not be coming because she does not like bowling, and it turns out her mom did not send her. This was frustrating because the whole purpose of the fieldtrip is so that they have something to work toward, and if they do not get to experience the reward then they are not going to have the motivation to work toward it. Another boy, had difficulties throughout the whole week because he was consistently exhibiting several negative behaviors. He ended the week with only 90 points (The average child had around 500). He was not allowed to go on the fieldtrip, and had to stay back with students in other groups that did not earn enough points to go. So, we had three children go on the fieldtrip with us. Even though we were missing half our group it was a lot of fun spending time with the children in a less structured environment. This week was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed getting to work hands on with the children and I am looking forward to another week.
July 24th, 2009
This week has gone much more smoothly than last week. We finally started to get the timing down for all of the intervals and have become more comfortable with the program. The one thing that has been rough about this week is that our children are still not completely adjusted to the program and they are still exhibiting the same negative behaviors as last week. It just seems like all we are doing is calling negative behaviors, and it is hard to give them points because they do not use the social skills they learn without being prompted to do so. The reason this is a challenge is because most of the other group’s children had caught on to the program by the middle of the second week, and our children were not. The feedback we received from our supervisors was that we are following the program, and the children are just so much younger than the ones in other groups that it is just taking them longer to adjust. It was reassuring to hear that we were doing all we could to run the program with them, but it was also hard because they only have one more week to adjust and then the program is over. I really do not like that the program is so short because by the time they adjust and start to progress the program is over.
In order to help the child that did not make the fieldtrip last week one of our supervisors suggested that we make a behavior plan for him and helped us to come up with one. I loved listening to the discussion and contributing when I could. Our supervisor had so many ideas that I never would have thought of, and it was hard to pick something that was not only going to be effective, but that was also practical for being implemented in the program. We came up with a penny chart for him where at the beginning of an interval he starts with 13 pennies and then he loses a penny for any negative behavior he exhibits during the interval. Depending on how many pennies he has left at the end of the interval he receives a certain number of minutes, five, three, or one minute, to look at car magazines because he loves Nascar. He was very excited about it and he loves the car magazines. I think it is helping him, he has not received five minutes yet but he has been having better days and he made the fieldtrip this week.
There was a very rewarding moment earlier this week when we were at lunch. Every time we are at lunch we try to get the children to talk to each other by prompting them to ask each other what is in their lunches. The one boy, who never seems to be paying attention, asked unprompted what was in my lunch. It was amazing because it is so hard to get them to talk to anyone with out being prompted and to have him begin to use his social skills with out us telling him to was so rewarding. I get excited anytime the children use their social skills, but this moment really stuck out to me because it was such a big step for him. It felt great to see that I was actually helping these kids and making a difference in their lives. This experience is really making me think about working with children, because I really love getting to know them and I have become really passionate about seeing them improve. I really love that I am doing something that I believe in and that I am so passionate about it is making me think that maybe working with children is where I belong.
July 31st, 2009
This was the final week of the program. It has been a little bittersweet because it will be nice to not have to wake up at 6am every morning, but we are finally starting to see improvements in the children and I will miss spending time with them. It was a normal week, except for some extra testing that needed to be done to see how the children had progressed throughout the program. So I tested a child on the BASC-2, which is a measure the child’s behavior. I also tested a child on the CAM and the DANVA. Both of these tests test the child’s ability to recognize emotions; the CAM specifically tests for emotions in Mindreading, the computer program that is meant to teach emotions.
This week was very rewarding because we were able to see some progress in the children. All of the children were showing less negative behaviors, which was nice to see because that was something that we had been struggling with over that last couple weeks. It was also nice to see the small steps they were making. For example, maintaining appropriate eye contact without prompting, or starting unprompted conversations with peers. By seeing the progress that was being made I really felt like I was helping them and it made all of the hard work worthwhile.
Today was the last fieldtrip to Fantasy Island. It was a great end to the camp, because we got to have fun with the children and enjoy them in the unstructured environment. When we got back from the fieldtrip we had all of the children’s parents come into our room and we had an awards ceremony where we gave each child an award for their success at camp. Then there was a little party for everyone to celebrate the end of camp.
I really enjoyed every part of working for the Connections program. Overall, it is one of the most rewarding, challenging, and enjoyable things I have ever done. I am really grateful that it helped me to decide that I want to work with children, because before this experience I had no idea what I wanted to do. I hope that I get the opportunity to do this program again.
