CanisiusPsychologyWiki: SchmidtSchoolPsychPracticum

Daily Practicum Journals
Danielle Schmidt
Monday June 22nd 8-4 (8 hours)
My practicum was completed over the summer. I was a research clinician in The Connections Program, a behavior modification program for children with Asperger’s Disorder and other high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Today was the first day of training at Summit. The first thing was that we had to take a test on the Connections manual. Any questions that we got wrong were reviewed with us so we could take those questions over again tomorrow. Then Dr. Thomeer and Dr. Lopata both lectured on the schedule of Connections and on Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. They then reviewed a little more on the Connections program itself and went over how to conduct the social skills program. We spent the rest of the day practicing the social skills group. First we watched all of the other returning counselors conduct a social skills group so we could begin to memorize and learn how to conduct the group ourselves.
Tuesday June 23rd 8-4 (8 hours)
Today the first thing we had to do was take over the questions that we got wrong on the test from the day before. Dr. Thomeer went over some more treatment strategies and procedures such as prompting and reinforcing of behavior. Then we practiced the skillstreaming more. Then Dr. Thomeer went over the specific steps of the point system, and how the children earn and lose points. Then we spilt into groups and practiced conducting skillstreaming more, with everybody getting a turn to be the lead.
Wednesday June 24th 8-4 (8 hours)
Today, we were taught the basic steps of running a therapeutic activity. The therapeutic activity is the fifty minute activity that is done after the twenty minute skillstreaming session. The therapeutic activity was created to give the child a chance to use the social skill they just learned during the activity. The rest of training today was used to practice conducting the skillstreaming group and then go right into a therapeutic activity. Today was my first day to practice conducting the social skills group, the first time was very hard. It was hard trying to combine memorizing the steps of running the social skills group, giving and taking points away from people while finishing the whole thing in about seventeen to eighteen minutes. Everyone must pass a fidelity sheet and score at least a 90 on their social skills group in order to be able to be a counselor.
Thursday June 25th, 8-4 (8 hours)
Today we learned how to handle a timeout, and the specific wording for what you say to put a child in timeout. Today we spent the whole time basically just practicing conducting the social skills group and going right into a therapeutic activity. I went today, it was my second time conducting the social skills group and I passed fidelity. We were also told to think of professional goals for ourselves and a team name; we would have to go over both of those with the lead clinical supervisor tomorrow. My group consists of myself as well as two other girls.
Friday June 26th, 8-4 (8 hours)
Today we practiced doing the social skills groups all day long. Then we went over our goals and team name with the lead clinical supervisor. Our team name is the Fearless Falcons and we have six boys in our group, ages ten to twelve. My first professional goal is to become more animated and loud when conducting the social skills group. My second goal is to try to get more description and detail out of the children when conducting the social skills group. Lastly, my goal is to become more confident in giving and taking away points when conducting the social skills group. I think each of these goals will become easier to attain when I am more comfortable with conducting the steps of the social skills group. We continued to practice the skillstreaming groups. Then we spent the rest of the time creating our banner and point sheet for our room. Then we all went over to the Delevan Townhouses and finished creating our banners and set up our rooms. We also had to make sure our room had all of the supplies and we would need for each activity.
Monday June 29th, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today was our first day of camp with the kids. Giving them points is a way to reinforce their good behavior, which is positive reinforcement. Additionally the schedule for reinforcement of giving a child points each time they use a social skill is a continuous reinforcement schedule. It is because the children are reinforced each time they engage in the behavior. This reinforcement is often used when someone is learning a behavior for the first time. We learned in Behavior Modification, points are tokens or symbolic reinforcers. The points symbolize their progress towards being able to attend the fieldtrip at the end of the week. When they do something they shouldn’t be which is emitting negative behaviors or not participating, they lose points. Which is a form of negative punishment, we take away points because we want the occurrence of those various behaviors to be decreased. We then praise them immediately after they discontinue their negative behavior and substitute with a positive behavior. We also use prompting for some of them in order to keep them on task or to keep them doing what they should be. The prompting, praise and giving directions are also some things we learned in our Behavior Modification class in order to increase or decrease different behaviors. Timeout is another form of After they day was over I took home the score sheet to check all of the scores that another counselor had added up and started getting used to the format of the point sheet.
Tuesday June 30th, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today was our second day of camp, some of the children’s behaviors started to come out more once they were getting more comfortable with camp. As we were taking more negative points away from them they were getting really down. Children with Autism get much more upset about things more easily than typically developing children would. We have to make sure to praise for doing positive behaviors and give them points after we take away a lot of points.
Wednesday July 1st, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today on our third day of camp, we made it a point to always follow up with praise and giving points to a child for a positive behavior they are emitting right after we took away points from them. As we learned in our behavior Modification class the immediacy of a reinforcer after the occurrence of a behavior greatly affects the reoccurrence of that behavior. The quicker we reinforce the children’s behaviors the more likely they are to continue. Today was an awesome day with the children, but they were getting louder and more of their behaviors were coming out since they are becoming more comfortable with each other as well as the counselors. We were also beginning to think about goals for each of the children. Tomorrow we have to create three goals for each child which will become part of their IDN, which is their Individual Daily Note or report card. These are individual behaviors that each child needs to work on. If they do not meet all of these goals each day then they do not earn their snack at the end of the day. Their snack at the end of each day serves as a consumable positive reinforcer, which I was familiar with because of my Behavior Modification class.
Thursday July 2nd, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today is the last day before the first fieldtrip Friday. Today was definitely the most hectic day at camp so far. There was a lot of silliness and communication between the campers, but they talked about one topic every single chance they got. They kept referring back to a certain Scooby Doo episode, by the end of the day the other counselors and I decided we need to make it a rule they we cannot talk about that episode anymore. Often children with Autism and Asperger’s got so fixated on one subject it is all they will talk about. This rule is going to help them with interest expansion. Then after camp was over, we went through and created three goals for each child. We will have to implement each goal next week. We will tell the child what their goals are and how they need to earn a certain amount of yes’s for meeting each goal. At the end of the day we divide the total opportunities they had by the number of yes’s the received to give them a percentage, and to see if they earned their reward.
Friday July 3rd, 7:45-5:10 (10 hours)
Today was our first fieldtrip. In the morning of the fieldtrips there are still two intervals of skillstreaming and therapeutic activities. The kids behaved very well, I think partly because it was Friday and they knew their fieldtrip would start in about three hours. Every child makes it on the first fieldtrip, although we do not tell them that. We tell them that they all have points to earn to be able to go on the fieldtrip. After we had our two sessions of skillstreaming we sat the kids down and pretended we had to add up the points to decide who would be able to go and who wouldn’t. As we talked in the corner loudly, pretending that we weren’t sure about some of them the kids got extremely nervous. Then we announced one by one that they all made it, and they were all so relieved. For the fieldtrip today, it was actually at the Delevan Townhouses. We watched a movie with another group and had popcorn and gummy worms. At the end of the day we had one more round of skillstreaming and an activity. Then we passed out there end of the day snack.
Monday July 6th, 7:45-5:10 (9 hours 25 minutes)
Today was our second week of camp. This morning before camp we were given packets of questionnaires on two of our children that we have to fill out and hand back in by Wednesday morning. We were each assigned two children out of our group. That means that on the fieldtrip we are mainly responsible for our two children, even though you stay together with the group. We also only fill out packets on our two main children and then we fill out the same questionnaires at the end of camp, to track their progress. The rating scales that we have to fill out on both of the children are the BASC-2-TRS, the Social Responsiveness Scale, a narrative description of the child, a sheet with a staff checklist regarding the child’s behavior and the Emotion Recognition and Display Survey. In addition to getting these packets we also received the child’s IDN that we would start to implement. They each have three goals of things they must achieve, in order to get their reward at home and their snack at the end of the day at camp. During every break I go over my two specific children’s IDN with them and tell them their progress and show them how they are doing completing all of their goals. Additionally I go over their IDN with them at the end of the day reporting to them how they did and if they would be receiving a reward that day.
Tuesday July 7th, 7:45 to 5:10 (9 hours 25 minutes)
Today we went through our normal routine at camp. We went over the IDN’s with our kids and a lot of them are doing really well on them. Additionally today the research team came around and asked the children to pick a number on a thermometer for how they feel for the day, The first question was how good they feel, and the second was how stressed out they feel. Then the collected spit samples from all of the students, they had to spit into viles filling them up. The spit samples are part of Dr. Putnam’s study of the children’s cortisol levels. Today was also the first day we went into the pool with the children; it was our last activity of the day.
Wednesday July 8th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours 40 minutes)
Today we had to collect spit again from each of the children. This time we again had the children fill out the thermometers on how good they were feeling and how stressed they were feeling. They were then split up into different rooms with different counselors and we had to collect spit samples from them in three different ways. The first way was for them to have a piece of cotton on their mouth collecting spit into it. The second way was for us to hold two swabs in the side of their mouths so it would collect spit and the third was again just having them spit into a vile filling it up. We then had the children point on a scale on how easy and comfortable each one felt. Besides collecting that data we carried on with our normal routines and kept track of the children’s IDN’s going over them with them. We had three out of our six children score a 100 percent on their IDN’s today.
Thursday July 9th, 7:50-5:45 (10 hours)
Today was our last day before our second fieldtrip. In order for the children to get to go on the fieldtrip, they need to pass three out of four of their IDN’s. In order to pass an IDN, they need above a seventy percent. This week all of our children passed their IDN’s. They get different rewards at home based on what percentage they got. So scoring a seventy to and seventy-nine is one reward, an eighty to an eight-nine is a little bigger reward and a ninety to a hundred percent is their largest reward. Some examples of their rewards include playing on the computer, playing a videogame or earning different amounts of money. At the end of the day today, we had to create new goals for each child for their IDN’s for next week. Some examples of different goals include having quiet hands, having at least two conversations per interval, having no more than one interruption per interval and many other things targeting their most problematic behaviors. Overall the children are praised and encouraged for using social skills and emitting good behavior. They also earn points, earn consumable rewards at the end of the day, earn rewards at home and can earn their large reward of going on the fieldtrip. This program is constantly trying to reward the children for using social skills so we can increase their overall usage of social skills at home and after the program is over.
Friday July 10th, 7:50-5:10 (9 hours and 20 minutes)
All of our children earned more points than last week and passed all of their IDN’s so they all got to go on the fieldtrip. Our fieldtrip today was taking the subway to the naval park and then getting ice cream before we took the subway home. All of our children had a great time exploring the different ships and getting ice cream. In the morning we had two skillstreaming sessions then we all had lunch outside. After lunch we took the kids back to our room and then told them one by one if they made it on the fieldtrip or not. We left them in a little suspense but they all made and were all really excited. On the field trip we were given special IDN’s basically asking if they followed all of the rules and how many times they had to be told to do or not do something.
Monday July 13th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours 40 minutes)
Today we were given more packets to fill out on our two specific children. The four protocols inside each packet included the GADS which is the Gilliam Asperger’s Disorder Scale, the ASDS which is the Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale, the GARS-2 which is the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition and the CARS which is The Childhood Autism Rating Scale.
Today was our first day of earning points toward the fieldtrip which we announced to the children is bowling, pizza and pop. Today went good except during our last activity interval. A few of our children were losing many points on negative comments, and violating personal space that results in harm, which results in an immediate time out. As we learned in Behavior Modification, time out is a form of negative punishment. The idea of time out is that the child is given a time out from any positive reinforcement. To accomplish this we do not talk to or give the children any attention when they are in time out. They also are not able to earn any points while they are in time out. Timeout is meant to decrease their occurrence of the behavior in the future. We also had one of our children emitting behaviors that are much younger than his age, which is typical of children with Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. One example was he cried over dropping a dime and a nickel out of his pocket.
Tuesday July 14th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today one of the counselors in our group was out because of a family situation. So for two periods of the day we were missing a counselor and the rest of the periods we had somebody fill in for her. Today the children had an awesome day, there were much less negative behaviors and they all made sure to use a lot of social skills. We also made sure, just as we did yesterday to go over their new IDN’s with them. They each had three new goals for this week which all focus on each of the child’s biggest behavior problems. We all go over their progress during each transition and remind them of their IDN goals each morning. Also this morning when they came in we showed them on a thermometer how many points they earned Monday and how many they need to earn by Friday to go on the fieldtrip.
Wednesday July 15th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
We had another great day today at camp. The kids are all earning more than enough points each day than they need. The totals that they are working towards are all different according to their number of points they earned during their first week, which was their baseline data. A high number for a total of points for the week is around 10,000 points. Two of our children are working towards their totals which are around 9,800 points. The rest of our children’s goals are 13,000, 14,000 and 15,000. We are pushing the kids more every day to use their social skills.
Thursday July 16th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
They are all doing an excellent job using many social skills. This week one of our children has begun to get worse. He is beginning to not participate in group discussions. Although we are prompting, encouraging and complimenting him when he is doing well he sits and refuses to raise his hand. He seems to go into a daydream mode and just doesn’t participate. Towards the end of the day we talked to one of the research assistants who use to be the lead clinical supervisors. She suggested we tell this child that he has to participate and raise his hand as many times as he can during group discussions. Then after the interval we are going to have him pick a number from a grab bag. Then that number is the number of times he had to have contributed. So if he had contributed that many times he will earn a yes, but if he fell short of the number he picked he will earn a no for the interval. This way he will always being striving to raise his hand and participate as much as he can. We will begin that next week and see how that works. Today we also had to come up with new goals for each child for their report cards for next week.
Friday July 17th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our third fieldtrip, which was bowling. All of our children worked hard this week and each of them passed all of their IDN’s all week. We had two skillstreaming groups and one activity interval before we left for the fieldtrip. One of the children in our group was sick all week except Tuesday but he made it today for the fieldtrip. Another one of the children in our group was here all week but was sick and didn’t make it to camp on Friday for the fieldtrip. We took a bus to a bowling alley, and bowled two games. They also turned off the lights and put on music and we danced to different songs while bowling. We told our group that we had thirty rule violations for the whole fieldtrip, they did well. Then after we got back we all had pizza together in one of the rooms and then had one more activity interval before it was time to go home. Additionally at camp every Monday and Wednesday they videotape our children while they play board games. Today they had to videotape our group because one of our children was out sick Monday and Wednesday. When they videotape, we have three kids play one game and three play the other and half way through the interval they switch games.
Monday July 20th, 7:50-5:00 (9 hours and ten minutes)
Today we were given new IDN’s for each child with our new goals for each one on there. We reviewed the new IDN’s with the children in the morning. The IDN’s have gradually been getting harder each week and the child’s goals have changed to adapt to new problem behaviors the children have been exhibiting. Today we were missing one of our children because they were out sick. Then another one of our children left during our third treatment cycle for an appointment and did not come back to camp. We were having a lot of fidelity done this week because each group needs a certain amount of fidelity’s completed. This is done by having a research assistant observing us and checking off on a sheet they we are following each step in correct order during the skillstreaming and activity intervals. This is to make sure we are following protocol. So today we had the lead clinical supervisor sitting in on our group almost all day completing fidelity on us. Today we learned responding to failure, dealing with contradictory messages and we had mind reading. Mind reading is a computer program which teaches the kids facial expressions, and emotion recognition in voices.
Tuesday July 21, 7:50-5:10 (9 hours and 20 minutes)
Today we were missing one of our children, he was still out sick. Today the kids had a great day, there was only one child that got a low score on his IDN, he scored a seventy seven percent. One of his tougher goals that he had trouble with today was negative comments. His goal is that he must have no instances of negative comments, which is tough. The skills we learned today were dealing with group pressure, avoiding trouble and dealing with another’s anger. One of the child’s amount of points that he is working towards to earn to go on the fieldtrip by this week is 19,000. Again, a good score for a child in this program is to earn 10,000 points by the end of the week. He has been using many social skills and doing an excellent job having conversations. He has excelled so much that we are able to have goals on his IDN this weeks that help shape how he uses his social skills. Being able to shape his behavior and get more specific is really great to have a chance to work. We are able to do this as a result of him using so many social skills and having so many conversations.
Wednesday July 22nd, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
We were still missing one of our children today it was his fourth day out sick, so hopefully he will be here tomorrow. One of our children came in with his mom this morning to talk to Dr. Thomeer because he was upset that the day before he did not do well on his IDN. He was complaining about camp and wanted to give up. He was also upset that he was getting so much praise and attention for using social skills at camp and it is not being carried into his home. Today went really well, we didn’t let him give up and he did an awesome job today using so many social skills and earning more points than he ever has. The skills we learned today were idioms, Mind Reading which is face and emotion recognition, we also learned dealing with another’s anger and negotiating. Today we had one of our children lose it at the end of camp, he lost several points for negative comments. He was being a bad sport when we played basketball and soccer because he can not handle it if he loses or doesn’t do perfect. He also lost points on bragging and saying how he is the only one who is good at anything.
Thursday July 23rd, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today we were missing two children, one was still sick and the other had family plans for the day. The skills we learned today were, showing concern for another, dealing with being left out and idioms. We had a great day at camp and the children are all using many social skills and they are all losing a lot less points than they were in the earlier weeks. We went swimming today as our last activity interval; we go swimming every Tuesday and Thursday. Today we also came up with new goals for each of the children’s IDN’s next week. It is there last IDN and our last opportunity to shape them as much as we can. We focus on there largest problem behaviors. We were also told that we have to start thinking of awards for each child that they will receive on the last day of camp. The awards are supposed to be specific and match their strongest qualities.
Friday July 24th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our fourth field trip, we went to the zoo. Everyone in our group made it on the fieldtrip. Although we still only had five children, one of our children is still sick, although he is supposed to be back on Monday though. In the morning we had two intervals. For our first skillstreaming we learned being a good sport again because a few of the children, one in particular can really use the extra practice. Then we split into two group and played board games for our therapeutic activity. They research team videotaped the children playing board games. Our next interval was Mind Reading. After mind reading we announced to the children who made it on the fieldtrip going through each of them one by one. Then we boarded the bus, as soon as we got to the zoo we all ate lunch. Then we split up into our groups and I was the leader for the fieldtrip. Our group leader really stayed quiet throughout the fieldtrip letting the other counselor and I lead as a learning experience. We were totally in charge of leading the children through each exhibit and announcing when it was time to move to the next one. After we saw all of the exhibits we got ice cream and then met in the front of the zoo to board the bus. Once we arrived back at camp, our whole group played a game of apples to apples until the end of the day.
Monday July 27th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our first day of the last week of camp. All of the children in our group are well again and they were all back today. This whole week we do not learn any new skills, we just go over the skills that we have learned in the past four weeks. The only exception is today, we did learn the new skill of dealing with losing. The reason our group learned it is because we have one child in our group that has to use it during each activity interval as a goal on his IDN, because he is such a poor sport. Our second skill today was Mind Reading and our third was having a conversation. On three of the children’s IDNs we were able to have, used social skills appropriately as a goal. By having this as a goal we are able to target and shape how the children use all of their social skills. One way is when they are having a conversation. Many of them begin by asking their peers if they want to start a conversation. We are able to target that this week and help explain to them that you don’t have to ask, you just have to make a statement and then ask the other person what he or she thinks about it.
Today we also came up with awards for each of our child for the last day of camp. Our awards include the Mr. Entertainer Award, the Mr. Social Skills Award, the Mr. Creativity Award, the Idioms Master Award, the Mr. Derek Jeter Award and the Mr. Smiley Award.
Tuesday July 28th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today we were trained this morning on how to administer the BASC-2-SRP and during one half of one of our activity intervals we split up. Each counselor and research person had one child and we each administered the BASC-2-SRP to them. We were all separated into different rooms because of the nature of some of the questions. Today some of our children are beginning to revert back to a few of there old behaviors that they had improved upon such as interrupting or negative comments. During the last week of camp that is usually typical because they are getting nervous that camp is ending and they are realizing it is all over in a couple of days. Today one of the activities was t-shirt art. All of the children brought in a t-shirt and they decorated them with sayings and pictures from camp. They will be finishing the t-shirts on Thursday and that day they will be signing each others as well.
In addition this morning Dr. Thomeer read us an email that one of our student’s moms sent to him. She wanted to thank us and tell us what an amazing difference we have made in her son. This program has made more of a difference than the years of different types of treatment he has been getting. She said they have lived next to their neighbors for awhile and her son would have never gone up to talk to the neighbor, and never has before. After camp that night he went up on his own to start a conversation with the neighbor and her and her husband were amazed. It was great hearing how much of an impact we have made on the child and how much change has carried over into environments outside of camp.
Wednesday July 29th, 7:50-6 (10 hours and 10 minutes)
Today we went over more previous skills. All of the counselors were urged this week to really focus on how much the children’s social skills have improved over the past five weeks. We were reminded to realize that their problem behaviors might still be their, but their social skills will hopefully have improved. At the end of the day today we were given packets on each of our two primary children. They were the same packets that we received the second week of camp, this is the post data. They each contained the BASC-2-TRS, the Social Responsiveness Scale, a narrative description of the child, a sheet with a staff checklist regarding the child’s behavior and the Emotion Recognition and Display Survey. We had to have these packets filled out by Thursday at the end of the day.
Thursday July 30th, 7:50-6 (10 hours and 10 minutes)
Today was our second last week of work and the children’s behavior was a little worse than normal. It’s similar to how children’s behavior starts to change during the end of a school year also. Today we were missing our group leader she had to be out of town for one day, so the lead clinical supervisor filled in for her for the day. Everyday when the children are picked up our group leader talks to each of the parents and tells them what we did that day, anything crucial that happened and gives the parent the child’s IDN. Since our group leader was not here, the other counselor and I talked to the parents. We split it up and each talked to three of the children and their parents, getting this new experience of communicating their progress with their parents.
This morning we were also trained on how to administer the DANVA-2 and the CAM-C. For one whole activity interval each counselor was paired up with one student to administer the post test to them. They had all been pretested on these at the beginning of camp. The CAM-C is a computer program which tested the child’s ability to correctly recognize emotions on face and voice clips. The DANVA-2 is another computer program which tests the children’s ability to recognize the correct facial expression on both adult and children’s facial expressions. Today was our day to finish up our t-shirt art and it was our last day in the pool.
Friday July 31st, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our last day of camp and we went to Fantasy Island. Basically every child gets to go to Fantasy Island, unless they had extremely bad behavior. We had a skillstreaming and one activity interval in the morning. Then we did one last skillstreaming before we left for the fieldtrip. Our first skillstreaming today, which was also our last one yesterday, was a skill that the lead clinical supervisor created for our group. We printed up copies so the children were each able to bring the steps of the skill home with them. It was how to deal with middle and high school. We taught the children how there are different cliques, how to approach different groups of people, how to decide if you want to approach different groups of people and to be confident and proud when talking to others. Our very last social skill was how to say good-bye. It taught the children how to recognize whether it is goodbye for a long or short time and what to say to each other. Some different possibilities were, see you soon or can we exchange phone numbers to get together soon.
Then we all left for Fantasy Island. When we got back from Fantasy Island we went to straight to our rooms and the parents of each of the children were sent down to the rooms. Then we announced how well the children did in front of everyone. Then one by one we brought them up to the front of the room and presented them with their award and gave a story to go with each. We then handed them their certificate for their award, their certificate for completing the program and a Connections t-shirt.
I had one parent in particular come up and explain how much improvement she has seen in her son and how much of a difference the five weeks has made in him. It was really rewarding to hear about what a difference we had made in that child’s life.
Monday August 3th, 8-4:30 (8 hours and 30 minutes)
Today we spent the day at Summit helping with the research part of Connections. They were packets that teachers from Summit had filled out on their children and we were all working on scoring the protocols in each packet. Today I learned to score the ABC, which is the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, the RBS which is the Repetitive Behavior Scale, the ABAS-2 which is the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-Second Edition, and the SRS which is the Social Responsiveness Scale. After finishing one packet I was given another job to do which took up the entire day. I was working with two other people on emptying the arts and crafts bins from each group. Then we created a list of materials that we needed for each bin for IES. IES is the Connections program which is implemented in the schools by the teachers.
Tuesday August 4th, 8-4:30 (8 hours and 40 minutes)
Today I helped check the thermometers of how the children recorded they were feeling in the beginning and end of the day during prior years of Connections. We checked to make sure the numbers were copied correct then shredded the data when we were done. The numbers would then later be fixed if there were any changes by the Research Coordinators. I spent about an hour checking the thermometers. I spent the entire rest of the day scoring protocols. Again I scored the same protocols as yesterday, the ABC, the RBS, the ABAS-2, and the SRS. Three additional ones that I scored were the MESSIER which is the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills for Individuals with Severe Retardation, the STEP which is the Screening Test of Feeding Problems, and the PDDBI which is the Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Behavior Inventory.

1/26/10
Today was my first day of practicum. My placement is at Grover International Preparatory School/Grover Cleveland High School; they are located in the same building. I am doing my practicum with Dr. Duffy, the school psychologist. Today we sat down to meet and set up a schedule of when I would do my hours. This week is Regents exam week for the high school so there will not be much to do with the students either in exams or out of the building. I was introduced to the school social worker, who shares a room with the school psychologist. Additionally I was introduced to one of the school counselors. The school counselor and Dr. Duffy talked to me about their weekly SST meetings, which stand for Student Support Team. It is where the school psychologist, school counselors, the social worker and others come together once a week to discuss different students who are referred and what their course of action is to help those students.
We spent most of the day reading different books on RTI, which is response to intervention. RTI is a new way of doing intervention with students. There are many people in the field of school psychology who have different viewpoints on how best to do this intervention. Some believe in doing no assessment before you begin intervention on a child, and then see how the intervention helps them. While others believe there still needs to be assessment done in order to assess the child’s problem and to figure out what the best plan for them will be.
I was able to spend about twenty minutes talking with a young girl today. She came in to talk with the social worker because she had been kicked out of class and written up the previous day. Instead of just talking with the social worker, the social worker had the girl sit down and talk to three other interns and myself. She shared with us why she got angry with her teacher, and many other times that she gets angry with others. She also showed us a journal that she writes in when she gets angry as a way to calm herself down.
1/28/10
Today was the second day of practicum and it was still exam week so there is not that much to do. Dr. Duffy gave another intern and me the file for the student we will be working with. We looked over his IEP, other paperwork on him, and different reasons on why he was initially referred to the school psychologist. His IEP states that he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD. Many of his problem behaviors include walking out class, skipping class, leaving the building, swearing in class and getting frustrated easily. He has been suspended four times this year thus far. We looked through his file and began to brainstorm different ways of how we will be able to help improve his behavior. The other intern and I then met with his Special Education teacher who is with him during all of his core classes except lunch and specials. We will be working with her to implement a plan for him. While we were going through his file we also looked through different books on executive functioning problems. These are problems students have with not being to make a plan or see how to organize things that they need to do. He can verbalize what he is supposed to do, but does not do it.
2/2/10
Today we began by meeting with the students who we were supposed to be observing. The three kids were already sent to the assistant principal’s office during first period. We went there to meet the students; two other interns and I were each assigned a student to observe. The other two students were sent back to class with their intern who would observe them. The student I was assigned to was suspended and sent home. He may not be coming back to school at all. He slammed the classroom door shut and hit the teacher’s knee, hurting him. This student was diagnosed with ADHD as well as ODD. About two hours after he was sent home, one of the interns saw him in the lunch room. A group of us then went to search for him in the hallways; he was not allowed to be back in the school because he was formally suspended and it was technically trespassing. As I was standing in the hallway with Dr. Duffy and the assistant principal the student came running up the stairs and down the hall past us looking for a place to hide out. He has oppositional defiant disorder and it was interesting to experience a child with that disorder firsthand. This student hates being in school and skips classes to avoid it but then when he was told he was formally suspended and would not be allowed back for a while, he snuck back in the school and was running around.
Afterwards one of the other interns then told us that the student she was observing ran out of the middle of his class. He asked the teacher if he could go to the bathroom, she said no so he ran out of class and was running through the hallways. He was upset that there was someone observing him. He ran around the building, and we all split up looking for him. He finally reported back to the assistant principal’s office and was suspended; he cannot come back until he brings his mom with him so they can have a conference. This student was also diagnosed with ADHD and ODD.
2/4/10
Today the first thing I was sent to do was to check to see if the one student who was suspended was back in school because his mom did not come in for a conference. I found him in one of his classes, he just came to school anyway, so I brought him down to the assistant principal’s office and she called home. Then Dr. Duffy gave me a list of students that he needed to test. I had to have all of their schedules printed up so we knew where to find them. Dr. Duffy ended up not having time to test anyone today though. Later, Dr. Duffy went through the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement and the WAIS-IV, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV. He showed us all of the different sections and told us what each part of the test measures. There are parts that measure working memory, short term memory, planning, attention to detail, reading comprehension, spelling, math, and much more. He said that when he is administering the tests he pays close attention to the way the students figure out the problems and how and why they get the questions wrong or right.
2/9/10
This is my third week at Grover Cleveland. Today Dr. Duffy gave me two articles on RTI to read and emailed me three additional articles on RTI, dyslexia, and reading disorders. RTI is response to intervention. In most models of RTI there are three tiers. A general overview is that, in tier 1 there is general effective classroom instruction by the teacher. Students’ progress is monitored and most of them will respond to this intervention. If some students still do not respond they will move on to tier 2, within this tier students will receive more individual instruction form the teacher and their progress will be monitored. For those students who still do not respond they move into tier 3 and those who still do not respond will qualify for special education.
I sat and read one of the articles on RTI and Dr. Duffy told me to read the other four at home so we could discuss them later. Later today I observed one of the students in two of his classes, because he is on a list for referral. First I went to his architectural design class, in which he sat there and did absolutely nothing but talk to friends for the entire period. Out of the eleven students in the class only five were working on projects, all of the others just sat there and the teacher told me they had not done anything for the past 20 weeks. The student I was observing did not listen to the teacher. He was given some directives but ignored them. The teacher finally had him move his seat; he just sat next to someone else and talked to that student loudly disrupting the class the entire time. Towards the very end of the period some of the other students were getting riled up so he was getting out of his seat walking around and put his iPod in before class even ended. Then I went to this student’s next class with him where there was much more structure and control in the classroom. He still wandered around and it took him a while to finish the task that they teacher instructed him to do, but he did attempt to work on his project with his group member.
2/11/10
This morning we called one of the students down to test him, he is also on Dr. Duffy’s referral list. First Dr. Duffy read me the teacher’s reports on this student. Basically all of the teachers said that they were frustrated with him, they said he is disruptive and it’s hard for them to teach class when he is there. They also said that he needs a lot of personal attention and does the best when the teacher is right next to him helping him. First Dr. Duffy administered the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement and I was able to observe the entire time. After this student was done Dr. Duffy sent him back to class and told him to come back after lunch so he could administer the other test. I scored the test with Dr. Duffy and then scored it on the computer and interpreted the standard score and percentile rank of all of his scores. This student scored very low in the Math Fluency section. Although he didn’t make many mistakes it took him a long time to do it which showed us he doesn’t have his basic math facts memorized. He scored in the 2nd percentile in this section, which is extremely low. He also scored low on the Calculations section. It was apparent that his lack of math fluency and basic math facts contributed to his problems in the math calculations. All of the calculations took long for him and he had to put forth a lot of effort to figure them out. He also had trouble with the passage Comprehension section. He had trouble reading sentences to himself and finding a word to go in them that made sense; he didn’t understand the passages. Another observation we made when he took this test was that he would blurt out answers and then say no let me change that. He did this 6 times on one of the tests. This showed his impulsive side and went along with what the teachers had reported, even though it was on a much smaller scale. This test showed us that this student could use help with memorizing his math facts which will help raise his ability to do harder math problems.
When he came back Dr. Duffy was then able to administer the WISC-IV, an intelligence test. During this test he scored well on everything except on the letter-number sequence section. This showed us that he has problems with working memory and keeping things in mind when something else is said to him. He also had problems with the picture concepts section; he needed the standard directions repeated 5 times until he understood them. This matched up with the trouble he had understanding the passage comprehension section of the achievement test. We can tell he has trouble understanding receptive language. We can imagine that when teachers give 3 or 4 directions at one time, he has trouble understanding and finishing the task.
Next week Dr. Duffy is going to have me stay with this student for the day observing and helping him in his classes. From looking at his behavior during the tests, we think that he can benefit from me repeating directions for him and breaking multistep directions down. I will also be able to keep him on task, redirect him, and give him more personal attention. In addition we know that he needs to take time at home to memorize and practice his math facts using flashcards. It will be interesting having the knowledge of his weaknesses while he is in class, and using that knowledge to then help him.
2/16/10
Today we went in, but it is a conference day for the students so there were no students at school. Dr. Duffy had us come in to read school psychology literature, but we only stayed for about two hours today as opposed to five and a half. I read three journal articles entitled, Dyslexia, Assessment of Children With Intellectual Giftedness And Reading Disabilities, and Cognitive Hypothesis Testing And Response To Intervention For Children With reading Problems.
2/18/10
Dr. Duffy was not here today, but told me that I could still come in and observe the student that we tested last week. I stayed with him for two periods before lunch and two periods after lunch. In his one class the teacher repeated the directions three times. I had to tell the student to ask for a sheet that he didn’t have. Then after the directions were given by the teacher, the student was not doing any work so I had to tell him to open to the page he was supposed to be working on. Then I repeated the directions that the teacher gave him and then he was able to fill out the column that he needed to, to complete the worksheet. It was interesting to see how he needed help and benefited from me repeating the directions and keeping him on task. This goes along with what the test revealed, which was that he had problems with receptive language. During this class when the teacher was giving directions, the student said to me that he couldn’t comprehend the teacher’s complicated directions.
In his later classes when I observed him my presence kept him on task and caused him to try to be on his best behavior; although he did talk out of turn and get up in the middle of the class to use hand sanitizer without permission. My presence in his next class which was an AIS (Academic Intervention Services) math class also kept him on task. This class was a free period in which the students are allowed to do their homework, the student I was observing was the only person in the class that did any work. He finished two of his math sheets. I had to point out the directions to him and tell him how to go about doing one of his math sheets, before he could start it.
2/23/10
Today I observed Dr. Duffy administer the WISC-IV and the WJ-III to a sixth grade female student. First he administered the WISC-IV and she got through it all but looked at some of the hard things and just gave up at first glance. Then he began to administer the WJ-III and she got through some of the subtests. During the passage comprehension she just gave up and was really upset. This girl was a tough girl and she was almost in tears. We sent her back to class and told her to come back down after lunch to finish the rest, so she could have a break.
After lunch we called the student’s classroom to bring her back down and her teacher said she was suspended during lunch. The girl was so upset about the test that she got herself suspended on purpose so she could get out of finishing the test. We spent the rest of the day reviewing folders of preschoolers that Dr. Duffy received. The Buffalo School district is having him test children who will be entering kindergarten next year. We just looked through the folders and copied down their social history and the scores from the previous times they were tested; most of them were previously tested when they were two years old.
2/25/10
Today when I got to school Dr. Duffy had me observe one of the students that are up for an evaluation. I went into three classes with him to record his behavior. In his first class he had a substitute teacher and therefore did not do any of his work. The substitute told me that he has not done any work all week, for as long as she has been there. During his second class his behavior was pretty good. He did what he was supposed to and presented a project with another student in front of the class. In his third class he also did the work that he was supposed to. In both of his classes he was talking out of turn and to other students; although it was only a couple of times in each class.
Then I went back down to the office, because the children had advisory and lunch period. After lunch we called the student down that we needed to finish testing from Tuesday. She finished three of the subtests of the WJ-III that she hadn’t finished before. We will score her tests on Tuesday to see how she compares to students of her same age.
3/2/10
Today Dr. Duffy had a meeting so he had me do some observations of three of our students who are up for referral for special education. First I observed one male student in three of his classes. In his first class I walked in at the very end of it and saw that he had done no work the entire class period. Then the teacher brought over his folder of recent in class assignments that they have been working on and most of them were blank. He just refuses to do any work in this class. Then I followed him to his next class. In this one they were supposed to be copying down notes that are a review for an upcoming test. I had to give the student a blank piece of paper and tell him to copy down the notes about four or five times. He kept getting off task and was talking to the students around him. Then I followed him to his next class and it took him almost half way into the period until he finally decided to do any work. He then moved his desk away from the other students and laid his head down on the desk. I had to walk over to him and tell him to get started on his paper. Then he would get distracted and I would have to tell him to move onto the next question and read the directions. From talking to the teachers of this student, and from my observations in his class it is apparent that this student needs constant attention to get him to do any school work. Dr. Duffy believes he would benefit from being placed in a 6:1:1 classroom where he can constantly be redirected and assisted throughout the school day. I spent the rest of the day observing two different students who are also up for referral for special education.
3/4/10
We had two CSE meetings today. First Dr. Duffy had me type up the background section on the reports for those two student’s meetings. Then I was able to look through the rest of the report and look at what sections are included on it and what Dr. Duffy had written up on the students. These two students were also the ones that I was able to observe him administering the WISC-IV and the WJ-III to. Then I sat in on the first CSE meeting. A parent did not attend the meeting for this child. To begin the meeting the chair person introduced herself and then asked for the first teacher’s observations of how they think the student is doing. Then the second teacher talked about how she believed the student was doing in class and brought a couple of her spelling tests to show everybody. Both of the teachers believed this student was at the benchmark of where she had to be and did not see any reason that this student needed to be referred for special education. Then Dr. Duffy gave his results of what he observed while he was testing the student. She was the student who did very poorly on reading, spelling, and writing. She is a student who should be in 7th grade but is only in 6th, and according to the testing she performed very low compared to students who are in 6th grade. They talked a little more and agreed that right now even though the tests showed she was having a lot of trouble that they would not change anything just yet. The teacher’s said she is doing fine and they decided it would be best to keep her in the classes that she is in. Dr. Duffy said that at the beginning of next school year they can go back and reevaluate her and look to see how she is doing next year with a new set of teachers.
Then after a short break we had another CSE meeting, the parent did show up to this meeting. In the meeting with this student everyone agreed that he does not have any learning disabilities and is not mentally retarded but his behavior gets in the way of him learning. He gets distracted easily, can be impulsive, likes to clown around in class to gain attention, and ends up not getting any work done. His father was very insightful and understood the student’s problems and said he has been trying to explain to his son for a long time how important getting an education is. The decision for this case was that this student would be put into a general education classroom next year which has a co-teaching model. In the classroom there are at most twenty students and two teachers. One of the teachers would be there to help not only this student but other ones who also needed the special attention. There would be an extra adult in the room and the general education teacher could continue teaching while the consultant teacher would be able to control his disruptive behaviors and keep him on task.
3/9/10
I only spent a couple of hours at my practicum today. I spent my time looking over and talking about an FBA with Dr. Duffy; an FBA stands for Functional Behavioral Assessment. This assessment gathers information on a student’s problem behaviors, antecedents, possible reinforcements, and other specifics of the intervention.
3/11/10
When I first got to my practicum today I spent my time working on an FBA for the student who I had been observing. I was also able to sit in on this student’s CSE meeting last week. After I worked on the FBA for some time, Dr. Duffy called down one of the students he needed to test. This student is in 7th grade and is fourteen years old, so he really should be in 9th grade. He asked me if I wanted to administer the WJ-III to the student, while Dr. Duffy sat next to us helping me if I needed it. I administered the entire WJ-III; this student was overall an easy student to test. He understood all of the directions and did not give me a hard time, or get frustrated if he didn’t know an answer to a question. Then the student went to lunch and afterwards the student came back to the office and Dr. Duffy administered the WISC-IV to the student.
Afterwards we were able to score some of his test it seems he has the largest problems with math and spelling. Although it was interesting to look at the score the students received, Dr. Duffy advised us to also think about the clinical observations we were able to make when he was taking the test. When I gave him the one math section, he was able to use scrap paper. Afterwards we were able to take a closer look at his scrap paper. When he needed to multiple 120 by 12, he had to add 120 twelve times. This along with his score on the math fluency section showed us that he cannot do math efficiently. It took him a very long time to get through simple addition and subtraction problems. He showed us that he does not have his math facts memorized. Overall we concluded that this student does not have a mathematics disorder but instead has checked out and has missed out on a large amount of math instruction over the past few years.
In looking at his spelling, Dr. Duffy pointed out that the way he misspelled words is an important thing to notice. This student misspelled a lot of words but the way he spelled them was the way they sounded. This tells us he had an understanding of letter sounds and creating words. This is different as opposed to a student who does not spell words as they sound; a child who does that may be trying to reproduce the word by how they remember it to be spelled rather than by trying to sound it out themselves. We will talk more about this student’s problems next week and we will score the WISC-IV that he took.
3/16/10
Today I went up to the classroom of a student who needs to be tested. I observed her for about thirty minutes in her class. Her behavior was good; she didn’t talk out of turn or talk at all really. She was working on sentences and her teacher came by to tell her that she needed to redo her sentences. The teacher tried to explain to her why her sentences didn’t make any sense and told her to start over. The girl got a new packet and started over.
Then I brought the student down to the office with me and Dr. Duffy let me administer the WJ-III to her. This student scored extremely low. On the subtests the student needs to get six correct in a row in order to move forward, and ultimately give them all of the points prior. With this student I had to go back extremely far with very simple questions, in order for her to get six correct in a row. After I administered all of the subtests I scored most of them. Her scores were equivalent to first, second, and third graders; this student is in sixth grade and is twelve years old.
After we tested her I drove to Dr. Duffy’s private practice with him because he had to sign some reports. He also works doing evaluations on children and adults out of an office.
When we got back Dr. Duffy brought the student back down to the office and administered the WISC-IV to her. We scored the WISC and took a look at her scores. She scored a seventy two, which is only two points above the cut off for mental retardation. It seems this students needs a lot of support already and will need a lot more support when she gets into high school. She has almost no skills and struggled through most of our tests.
3/18/10

Today when I arrived at Grover Dr. Duffy had two CSE meetings to go to so I went with him. The first meeting was for the student we tested on Tuesday. Her parents did not show up to the meeting. This student was the one who’s scores were extremely low, she scored only two points above the cutoff for mental retardation. Her scores on the achievement test were also extremely low. The general education teacher reported the same finding and concerns that we had found after testing her. The teacher was concerned that she didn’t possess the skills necessary to complete or understand the sixth grade material. After discussing the test scores and concerns of everyone at the meeting they decided that this student would need to be moved into a classroom with a co-teaching model and see how that works for her. In addition this student was already receiving services for speech therapy, so they continued those services and also added the classification that she is a student with a learning disability. Then they went through some of the possible goals for her new IEP. They created new goals having to do with learning to write a paragraph, reading comprehension, modified testing conditions, less homework expectations, use of a calculator, and much more.
Right after this meeting we then had a meeting for the other student that we tested last week. It was found that this student does not qualify for special education services. He has a lot of problem behaviors and fails to come to school on time for the majority of the time. It was found that since September he has progressed, although slowly. He has recognized that he was very distracted by the other students so he moved his seat to the back of the room, away from the other students. This student can take a long time to get started, but when he does get started is able to complete his in class work. His apathy towards school work and his problem behaviors has affected his school work; it was found that he does not qualify for special education services.
3/25/10
Today I sat in on a CSE meeting for a student; this student’s aunt came to the meeting for her. This student had transferred from another school where she was a ninth grader and was put into tenth grade. She comes to school so infrequently that she actually has zero credits for high school. She has a baby and currently the biological father was awarded custody. She is currently in substance abuse counseling for her problem with alcohol and marijuana. She also has terrible and unsafe living conditions at home. The possibility of physical and sexual abuse is present at home and there is currently an open CPS case on the mother. There were two teachers present at the meeting, although they weren't able to speak much about the student’s performance because she is hardly ever there. Most of the meeting was about the possibility of the student looking into a GED program. Dr. Duffy also talked about the student’s performance on the WJ-III and the WAIS-IV, her IQ score was low and she scored the lowest in spelling and math on the achievement test. They committee went over some of the accommodations for the student that would be put/continued on her IEP. Most included testing accommodations, use of a calculator, extra examples in the directions, and several other things. This IEP would stay with her, and she would be able to receive these services when taking the GED.
Another main problem that was discussed was her family and living situation. She needs to get out of her house, but she is afraid of leaving her siblings alone in the house without her there to protect them. The student told us that CPS would be coming to the house tonight, but her aunt asked Dr. Duffy to also place a call into CPS. Dr. Duffy also addressed his concerns that the student was possibly suffering from depression and was attempting to self-medicate to escape her reality. He suggested that the student look into counseling and medication to begin helping herself. After the meeting ended we went back to Dr. Duffy’s office and he placed a call to CPS about this child. The rest of the day we worked on writing reports.
3/30/10
Today I came in and observed a student in one of his classes. This was the same student who was formally suspended for three months starting in January. Dr. Duffy tested him yesterday so he wanted me to see how he is behaving in his classes after coming back to school. He did not do much work, he was writing a note or doing something personal that was not his class work. He finally got started on his class work late into the period. He was playing and texting on his phone throughout the entire period. Then the substitute teacher grabbed his cell phone out of his hands and ended up giving it to the principal. Then after class I saw the guidance counselor in the hallway and told him where I just was. After speaking for a few minutes about what class I was just in with the student we realized he had skipped his first period, because the guidance counselor had seen him in a class he shouldn’t have been in. The student ended up being suspended for one day for skipping first period and for using his cell phone in class. The behaviors this student is emitting after coming back from a three month suspension are not normal. We would think that a typical student would want to keep himself under the radar and not in any trouble. Instead this student has been back to school for three weeks and has been suspended twice already. Later that day I spoke with one of the special education teachers about any more students who we need to be concerned about. She gave us a list of four students to possibly observe and test.
4/13/10
Today we worked on doing pattern determinations for students who have been suspended. We were looking for a pattern between their IEP, their goals, their behavior modification plan (if they have one) and ultimately if their reason for being suspended had to do with any of those things. We found that there was a pattern for two of the students. The first student’s reasons for being suspended were bringing a weapon to school, harming people, insubordination and other similar things. This child was classified as having an emotional disability. One of his services on his IEP was counseling, a behavior modification plan in place and well as social and emotional annual goals relating to his behavior. Therefore a pattern was found between this student’s actions and their deficits. What this means is that the student can no longer be suspended for these actions. Additionally they need to set up a new CSE meeting for this student.
The other student we found a pattern determination with is a student who had lead poisoning and is classified as Other-Health Impaired on their IEP. Lead poisoning has been shown to result in cognitive deficits as well as hyperactive and impulsive behavior. This student was suspended for behavioral misconduct four different times. The term misconduct goes along with other health impaired and hyperactive behaviors. Therefore a pattern determination was found for this student.
This morning we also had a teacher come down to tell us that she was worried that one of her students was going to harm himself. This teacher was close to this student, he had a very sad home life and he was telling her that he didn’t know why he woke up this morning and that he doesn’t know if he wants to wake up tomorrow. Dr. Duffy then called Spectrum Cares, which is a crisis center for children. They opened a case, had to get permission from the student’s adoptive parents and then came to the school to meet with the student. If Spectrum then determined that this student was an immediate danger to himself, they would then call ECC to have him picked up by an ambulance and taken to the hospital for a psychological evaluation. The reason Dr. Duffy did not want to meet with him first to determine if the child needed immediate attention was that Dr. Duffy would have to call the hospital on this student. In the past, when this has happened the student then does not trust Dr. Duffy anymore and will not open up to him again. This way Spectrum can make the decision and Dr. Duffy and the social worker can maintain trust with this student for the future.
4/15/10
When I first arrived at Grover today, Dr. Duffy had me go up to the class of one of the students that we had worked with in the beginning of the semester. This was the student who ran around the building and was suspended for three months when I first started at Grover. Since he came back he has been skipping class, so I went to class with him to make sure he is there. In doing this I found out that he was twenty minutes late to first period, and was wandering the halls the beginning of second period. I am going to check in on him at the beginning of each class to make sure he goes to all of his classes. When I checked in on him later in the day, I found him wandering the halls, so I walked him to his next class. For another period I went to go meet him at his class so I could walk him to his next class. Instead I found he had left his class five minutes early because he was bored. So I walked with him to his next class and waited until the bell rang so he could go in. Then I walked him to his last class of the day.
4/22/10
Today I spent the entire time working with one of the other students on the Functional Behavior Assessment/ Behavior Intervention Plan (FBA/BIP) for two students. In the FBA/BIP we had to come up with an intervention plan for the students to help decrease their problem behaviors. We added in positive reinforcement, punishment, and many other things to help increase good behaviors. We also had to problem solve on what we thought was the antecedent to their problem behaviors. The problem behaviors we focused on for the first student was his lack of ability to get to class on time. He would leave class early if he was bored and go to class late if he felt like it. If he didn’t like one of the classes he just skips, usually he skips English. The second student’s behavior problems are being distracting during class and sometimes disrespectful. He likes to be the class clown and uses it as a way to get out of doing any work.
5/4/10
Today at Grover I spent most of the time working on an FBA/BIP for one of the preschool evaluations that Dr. Duffy has to do. This particular child has problems with staying on task; they need to redirect him often. A larger concern that they have for him is his aggressive behavior issues. This child was adopted but still has set times that the court has allowed his biological mother to visit him. He was classified as emotionally disturbed, he has had traumatic emotional experiences and because of that has a lot of anger. When he gets mad he has tantrums, hits, bites, and has urinated in public. He usually lashes out at adults rather than classmates and they would like to work on his lack of respect for authority
Dr. Duffy and I spoke about the child and what kind of behavior plan would be best, although I worked on it mostly independently. I added in things for appropriate behavior, praises, prompts, consistency, small class setting, and relaxation techniques to help combat his aggression. I also added in a token economy with rewards that are reinforcing for him. In addition to working on the FBA/BIP I checked in with one of the students who likes to skip class. I made sure he was in his classroom, doing what he was supposed to be doing and not roaming the hallways of the school.
5/6/10
I spent my last day at Grover typing up the FBA/BIP’s that we had previously been working on. Dr. Duffy had me type them up into the document form that they use for the formal FBA/BIP that they put into the child’s folder.
Overall at my practicum I have learned so many things. I was able to get firsthand experience of exactly what a school psychologist does on a day to day basis. I also gained experience with folder reviews, testing, CSE meetings, encounters with students, and many other aspects of the job. I felt that gaining experience in a middle/high school in the Buffalo School District was very valuable. I have never had experience with this population before and am glad I have had the chance. This population was full of mostly students with behavioral problems, attitudes, disrespect for authority, and disorders such as ODD and ADHD. I found this population challenging and I think this experience will help me later in life as a school psychologist. The last thing that I gained from this internship that I didn’t think about prior to starting was learning about the politics within the school. Behind the career, there are directives from administrators, issues with other faculty and staff and many other things that affect the experience of the job on a day to day to basis. It is important to actually experience the job and every aspect of school psychology rather than just reading it out of a textbook.

Daily Practicum Journals
Danielle Schmidt
My practicum was completed over the summer. I was a research clinician in The Connections Program, a behavior modification program for children with Asperger’s Disorder and other high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Monday June 22nd 8-4 (8 hours)
Today was the first day of training and it is held at Canisius College. The first thing was that we had to take a test on the Connections manual. Any questions that we got wrong were reviewed with us so we could take those questions over again tomorrow. Then Dr. Thomeer and Dr. Lopata both lectured on the schedule of Connections and on Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. They then reviewed a little more on the Connections program itself and went over how to conduct the social skills program. We spent the rest of the day practicing the social skills group. First we watched all of the other returning counselors conduct a social skills group so we could begin to memorize and learn how to conduct the group ourselves.
The program has a set schedule for everyday once the program begins. There is a twenty minute social skills group followed by a fifty minute therapeutic activity. Together there five social skill and therapeutic activities each day. In the social skill group one of the three counselors is the lead and goes through the steps of various social skills. Then the therapeutic activity that follows is designed so the children can use and practice their new and previously learned social skills. Some examples of therapeutic activities include, kickball, making a collage, playing board games, charades and many other types of various activities involving social cooperation. In addition to social cooperation this program is designed to improve the childrens usage of social skills, interest expansion, face emotion recognition and interpretation of non-literal language. These are the main areas that children with Asperger's and other Autism Spectrum Disorders have problems with.
Tuesday June 23rd 8-4 (8 hours)
Today the first thing we had to do was take over the questions that we got wrong on the test from the day before. Dr. Thomeer went over some more treatment strategies and procedures such as prompting and reinforcing of behavior. Then we practiced the skillstreaming more. Then Dr. Thomeer went over the specific steps of the point system, and how the children earn and lose points. Throughout the entire day the children are constantly earning and losing points based on their behavior. The earn points for using their various social skills and for having good behavior. They lose points for various things such as having poor eye contact or using negative comments. The points are designed to increase their usage of social skills and decrease some of their problems behaviors.
Then we split into groups and practiced conducting skillstreaming more, with everybody getting a turn to be the lead. Within each group there are three counselors. One counselor is the lead, one is responsible for materials and the other is responsible for recording points. The roles switch every cycle throughout the day, so five times a day. It was stressed during training that we have to make sure to never step over the lead person in group. We all need to work together and focus on our role so that the group can work cohesively and we can help the children succeed the most.
Wednesday June 24th 8-4 (8 hours)
Today, we were taught the basic steps of running a therapeutic activity. The therapeutic activity is the fifty minute activity that is done after the twenty minute skillstreaming session. The therapeutic activity was created to give the child a chance to use the social skill they just learned during the activity. The rest of training today was used to practice conducting the skillstreaming group and then go right into a therapeutic activity. Today was my first day to practice conducting the social skills group, the first time was very hard. It was hard trying to combine memorizing the steps of running the social skills group, giving and taking points away from people while finishing the whole thing in about seventeen to eighteen minutes. Everyone must pass a fidelity sheet and score at least a 90 on their social skills group in order to be able to be a counselor.
Thursday June 25th, 8-4 (8 hours)
Today we learned how to handle a timeout, and the specific wording for what you say to put a child in timeout. Today we spent the whole time basically just practicing conducting the social skills group and going right into a therapeutic activity. I went today, it was my second time conducting the social skills group and I passed fidelity. We were also told to think of professional goals for ourselves and a team name; we would have to go over both of those with the lead clinical supervisor tomorrow. My group consists of myself as well as two other girls.
Friday June 26th, 8-4 (8 hours)
Today we practiced doing the social skills groups all day long. Then we went over our goals and team name with the lead clinical supervisor. Our team name is the Fearless Falcons and we have six boys in our group, ages ten to twelve. My first professional goal is to become more animated and loud when conducting the social skills group. My second goal is to try to get more description and detail out of the children when conducting the social skills group. Lastly, my goal is to become more confident in giving and taking away points when conducting the social skills group. I think each of these goals will become easier to attain when I am more comfortable with conducting the steps of the social skills group. We continued to practice the skillstreaming groups. Then we spent the rest of the time creating our banner and point sheet for our room. Then we all went over to the Delevan Townhouses and finished creating our banners and set up our rooms. We also had to make sure our room had all of the supplies and we would need for each activity.
Monday June 29th, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today was our first day of camp with the kids. Giving them points is a way to reinforce their good behavior, which is positive reinforcement. Additionally the schedule for reinforcement of giving a child points each time they use a social skill is a continuous reinforcement schedule. It is because the children are reinforced each time they engage in the behavior. This reinforcement is often used when someone is learning a behavior for the first time. We learned in Behavior Modification, points are tokens or symbolic reinforcers. The points symbolize their progress towards being able to attend the fieldtrip at the end of the week. When they do something they shouldn’t be which is emitting negative behaviors or not participating, they lose points. Which is a form of negative punishment, we take away points because we want the occurrence of those various behaviors to be decreased. We then praise them immediately after they discontinue their negative behavior and substitute with a positive behavior. We also use prompting for some of them in order to keep them on task or to keep them doing what they should be. The prompting, praise and giving directions are also some things we learned in our Behavior Modification class in order to increase or decrease different behaviors. Timeout is another form of punishment we learned in our Behavior Modification class. After they day was over I took home the score sheet to check all of the scores that another counselor had added up and I started getting used to the format of the point sheet.
Tuesday June 30th, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today was our second day of camp, some of the children’s behaviors started to come out more once they were getting more comfortable with camp. As we were taking more negative points away from them they were getting really down. Children with Autism get much more upset about things more easily than typically developing children would. We have to make sure to praise for doing positive behaviors and give them points after we take away a lot of points.
Wednesday July 1st, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today on our third day of camp, we made it a point to always follow up with praise and giving points to a child for a positive behavior they are emitting right after we took away points from them. As we learned in our behavior Modification class the immediacy of a reinforcer after the occurrence of a behavior greatly affects the re-occurrence of that behavior. The quicker we reinforce the children’s behaviors the more likely they are to continue. Today was an awesome day with the children, but they were getting louder and more of their behaviors were coming out since they are becoming more comfortable with each other as well as the counselors. We were also beginning to think about goals for each of the children. Tomorrow we have to create three goals for each child which will become part of their IDN, which is their Individual Daily Note or report card. These are individual behaviors that each child needs to work on. If they do not meet all of these goals each day then they do not earn their snack at the end of the day. Their snack at the end of each day serves as a consumable positive reinforcer, which I was familiar with because of my Behavior Modification class.
Thursday July 2nd, 7:30-5:30 (10 hours)
Today is the last day before the first field trip Friday. Today was definitely the most hectic day at camp so far. There was a lot of silliness and communication between the campers, but they talked about one topic every single chance they got. They kept referring back to a certain Scooby Doo episode, by the end of the day the other counselors and I decided we need to make it a rule they we cannot talk about that episode anymore. Often children with Autism and Asperger’s got so fixated on one subject it is all they will talk about. This rule is going to help them with interest expansion. Then after camp was over, we went through and created three goals for each child. We will have to implement each goal next week. We will tell the child what their goals are and how they need to earn a certain amount of yes’s for meeting each goal. At the end of the day we divide the total opportunities they had by the number of yes’s the received to give them a percentage, and to see if they earned their reward.
Friday July 3rd, 7:45-5:10 (10 hours)
Today was our first fieldtrip. In the morning of the field trips there are still two intervals of skillstreaming and therapeutic activities. The kids behaved very well, I think partly because it was Friday and they knew their field trip would start in about three hours. Every child makes it on the first field trip, although we do not tell them that. We tell them that they all have points to earn to be able to go on the field trip. After we had our two sessions of skillstreaming we sat the kids down and pretended we had to add up the points to decide who would be able to go and who wouldn’t. As we talked in the corner loudly, pretending that we weren’t sure about some of them the kids got extremely nervous. Then we announced one by one that they all made it, and they were all so relieved. For the field trip today, it was actually at the Delevan Townhouses. We watched a movie with another group and had popcorn and gummy worms. At the end of the day we had one more round of skillstreaming and an activity. Then we passed out there end of the day snack.
Monday July 6th, 7:45-5:10 (9 hours 25 minutes)
Today was our second week of camp. This morning before camp we were given packets of questionnaires on two of our children that we have to fill out and hand back in by Wednesday morning. We were each assigned two children out of our group. That means that on the field trip we are mainly responsible for our two children, even though you stay together with the group. We also only fill out packets on our two main children and then we fill out the same questionnaires at the end of camp, to track their progress. The rating scales that we have to fill out on both of the children are the BASC-2, the Social Responsiveness Scale, a narrative description of the child, a sheet with a staff checklist regarding the child’s behavior and the Emotion Recognition and Display Survey. In addition to getting these packets we also received the child’s IDN that we would start to implement. They each have three goals of things they must achieve, in order to get their reward at home and their snack at the end of the day at camp. During every break I go over my two specific children’s IDN's with them and tell them their progress and show them how they are doing completing all of their goals. Additionally I go over their IDN with them at the end of the day reporting to them how they did and if they would be receiving a reward that day.
Tuesday July 7th, 7:45 to 5:10 (9 hours 25 minutes)
Today we went through our normal routine at camp. We went over the IDN’s with our kids and a lot of them are doing really well on them. Additionally today the research team came around and asked the children to pick a number on a thermometer for how they feel for the day, The first question was how good they feel, and the second was how stressed out they feel. Then the collected spit samples from all of the students, they had to spit into viles filling them up. The spit samples are part of Dr. Putnam’s study of the children’s cortisol levels. Today was also the first day we went into the pool with the children; it was our last activity of the day.
Wednesday July 8th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours 40 minutes)
Today we had to collect spit again from each of the children. This time we again had the children fill out the thermometers on how good they were feeling and how stressed they were feeling. They were then split up into different rooms with different counselors and we had to collect spit samples from them in three different ways. The first way was for them to have a piece of cotton on their mouth collecting spit into it. The second way was for us to hold two swabs in the side of their mouths so it would collect spit and the third was again just having them spit into a vile filling it up. We then had the children point on a scale on how easy and comfortable each one felt. Besides collecting that data we carried on with our normal routines and kept track of the children’s IDN’s going over them with them. We had three out of our six children score a 100 percent on their IDN’s today.
Thursday July 9th, 7:50-5:45 (10 hours)
Today was our last day before our second field trip. In order for the children to get to go on the field trip, they need to pass three out of four of their IDN’s. In order to pass an IDN, they need above a seventy percent. This week all of our children passed their IDN’s. They get different rewards at home based on what percentage they got. So scoring a seventy to and seventy-nine is one reward, an eighty to an eight-nine is a little bigger reward and a ninety to a hundred percent is their largest reward. Some examples of their rewards include playing on the computer, playing a video game or earning different amounts of money. At the end of the day today, we had to create new goals for each child for their IDN’s for next week. Some examples of different goals include having quiet hands, having at least two conversations per interval, having no more than one interruption per interval and many other things targeting their most problematic behaviors. Overall the children are praised and encouraged for using social skills and emitting good behavior. They also earn points, earn consumable rewards at the end of the day, earn rewards at home and can earn their large reward of going on the fieldtrip. This program is constantly trying to reward the children for using social skills so we can increase their overall usage of social skills at home and after the program is over.
Friday July 10th, 7:50-5:10 (9 hours and 20 minutes)
All of our children earned more points than last week and passed all of their IDN’s so they all got to go on the field trip. Our field trip today was taking the subway to the naval park and then getting ice cream before we took the subway home. All of our children had a great time exploring the different ships and getting ice cream. In the morning we had two skillstreaming sessions then we all had lunch outside. After lunch we took the kids back to our room and then told them one by one if they made it on the fieldtrip or not. We left them in a little suspense but they all made and were all really excited. On the field trip we were given special IDN’s basically asking if they followed all of the rules and how many times they had to be told to do or not do something.
Monday July 13th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours 40 minutes)
Today we were given more packets to fill out on our two specific children. The four protocols inside each packet included the GADS which is the Gilliam Asperger’s Disorder Scale, the ASDS which is the Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale, the GARS-2 which is the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition and the CARS which is The Childhood Autism Rating Scale.
Today was our first day of earning points toward the fieldtrip which we announced to the children is bowling, pizza and pop. Today went good except during our last activity interval. A few of our children were losing many points on negative comments, and violating personal space that results in harm, which results in an immediate time out. As we learned in Behavior Modification, time out is a form of negative punishment. The idea of time out is that the child is given a time out from any positive reinforcement. To accomplish this we do not talk to or give the children any attention when they are in time out. They also are not able to earn any points while they are in time out. Timeout is meant to decrease their occurrence of the behavior in the future. We also had one of our children emitting behaviors that are much younger than his age, which is typical of children with Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. One example was he cried over dropping a dime and a nickel out of his pocket.
Tuesday July 14th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today one of the counselors in our group was out because of a family situation. So for two periods of the day we were missing a counselor and the rest of the periods we had somebody fill in for her. Today the children had an awesome day, there were much less negative behaviors and they all made sure to use a lot of social skills. We also made sure, just as we did yesterday to go over their new IDN’s with them. They each had three new goals for this week which all focus on each of the child’s biggest behavior problems. We all go over their progress during each transition and remind them of their IDN goals each morning. Also this morning when they came in we showed them on a thermometer how many points they earned Monday and how many they need to earn by Friday to go on the fieldtrip.
Wednesday July 15th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
We had another great day today at camp. The kids are all earning more than enough points each day than they need. The totals that they are working towards are all different according to their number of points they earned during their first week, which was their baseline data. A high number for a total of points for the week is around 10,000 points. Two of our children are working towards their totals which are around 9,800 points. The rest of our children’s goals are 13,000, 14,000 and 15,000. We are pushing the kids more every day to use their social skills.
Thursday July 16th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
They are all doing an excellent job using many social skills. This week one of our children has begun to get worse. He is beginning to not participate in group discussions. Although we are prompting, encouraging and complimenting him when he is doing well he sits and refuses to raise his hand. He seems to go into a daydream mode and just doesn’t participate. Towards the end of the day we talked to one of the research assistants who use to be the lead clinical supervisors. She suggested we tell this child that he has to participate and raise his hand as many times as he can during group discussions. Then after the interval we are going to have him pick a number from a grab bag. Then that number is the number of times he had to have contributed. So if he had contributed that many times he will earn a yes, but if he fell short of the number he picked he will earn a no for the interval. This way he will always being striving to raise his hand and participate as much as he can. We will begin that next week and see how that works. Today we also had to come up with new goals for each child for their report cards for next week.
Friday July 17th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our third field trip, which was bowling. All of our children worked hard this week and each of them passed all of their IDN’s all week. We had two skillstreaming groups and one activity interval before we left for the field trip. One of the children in our group was sick all week except Tuesday but he made it today for the field trip. Another one of the children in our group was here all week but was sick and didn’t make it to camp on Friday for the field trip. We took a bus to a bowling alley, and bowled two games. They also turned off the lights and put on music and we danced to different songs while bowling. We told our group that we had thirty rule violations for the whole fieldtrip, they did well. Then after we got back we all had pizza together in one of the rooms and then had one more activity interval before it was time to go home. Additionally at camp every Monday and Wednesday they videotape our children while they play board games. Today they had to videotape our group because one of our children was out sick Monday and Wednesday. When they videotape, we have three kids play one game and three play the other and half way through the interval they switch games.
Monday July 20th, 7:50-5:00 (9 hours and ten minutes)
Today we were given new IDN’s for each child with our new goals for each one on there. We reviewed the new IDN’s with the children in the morning. The IDN’s have gradually been getting harder each week and the child’s goals have changed to adapt to new problem behaviors the children have been exhibiting. Today we were missing one of our children because they were out sick. Then another one of our children left during our third treatment cycle for an appointment and did not come back to camp. We were having a lot of fidelity done this week because each group needs a certain amount of fidelity’s completed. This is done by having a research assistant observing us and checking off on a sheet they we are following each step in correct order during the skillstreaming and activity intervals. This is to make sure we are following protocol. So today we had the lead clinical supervisor sitting in on our group almost all day completing fidelity on us. Today we learned responding to failure, dealing with contradictory messages and we had mind reading. Mind reading is a computer program which teaches the kids facial expressions, and emotion recognition in voices.
Tuesday July 21, 7:50-5:10 (9 hours and 20 minutes)
Today we were missing one of our children, he was still out sick. Today the kids had a great day, there was only one child that got a low score on his IDN, he scored a seventy seven percent. One of his tougher goals that he had trouble with today was negative comments. His goal is that he must have no instances of negative comments, which is tough. The skills we learned today were dealing with group pressure, avoiding trouble and dealing with another’s anger. One of the child’s amount of points that he is working towards to earn to go on the field trip by this week is 19,000. Again, a good score for a child in this program is to earn 10,000 points by the end of the week. He has been using many social skills and doing an excellent job having conversations. He has excelled so much that we are able to have goals on his IDN this weeks that help shape how he uses his social skills. Being able to shape his behavior and get more specific is really great to have a chance to work. We are able to do this as a result of him using so many social skills and having so many conversations.
Wednesday July 22nd, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
We were still missing one of our children today it was his fourth day out sick, so hopefully he will be here tomorrow. One of our children came in with his mom this morning to talk to Dr. Thomeer because he was upset that the day before he did not do well on his IDN. He was complaining about camp and wanted to give up. He was also upset that he was getting so much praise and attention for using social skills at camp and it is not being carried into his home. Today went really well, we didn’t let him give up and he did an awesome job today using so many social skills and earning more points than he ever has. The skills we learned today were idioms, Mind Reading which is face and emotion recognition, we also learned dealing with another’s anger and negotiating. Today we had one of our children lose it at the end of camp, he lost several points for negative comments. He was being a bad sport when we played basketball and soccer because he can not handle it if he loses or doesn’t do perfect. He also lost points on bragging and saying how he is the only one who is good at anything.
Thursday July 23rd, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today we were missing two children, one was still sick and the other had family plans for the day. The skills we learned today were, showing concern for another, dealing with being left out and idioms. We had a great day at camp and the children are all using many social skills and they are all losing a lot less points than they were in the earlier weeks. We went swimming today as our last activity interval; we go swimming every Tuesday and Thursday. Today we also came up with new goals for each of the children’s IDN’s next week. It is there last IDN and our last opportunity to shape them as much as we can. We focus on there largest problem behaviors. We were also told that we have to start thinking of awards for each child that they will receive on the last day of camp. The awards are supposed to be specific and match their strongest qualities.
Friday July 24th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our fourth field trip, we went to the zoo. Everyone in our group made it on the field trip. Although we still only had five children, one of our children is still sick, although he is supposed to be back on Monday though. In the morning we had two intervals. For our first skillstreaming we learned being a good sport again because a few of the children, one in particular can really use the extra practice. Then we split into two group and played board games for our therapeutic activity. They research team videotaped the children playing board games. Our next interval was Mind Reading. After mind reading we announced to the children who made it on the field trip going through each of them one by one. Then we boarded the bus, as soon as we got to the zoo we all ate lunch. Then we split up into our groups and I was the leader for the field trip. Our group leader really stayed quiet throughout the field trip letting the other counselor and I lead as a learning experience. We were totally in charge of leading the children through each exhibit and announcing when it was time to move to the next one. After we saw all of the exhibits we got ice cream and then met in the front of the zoo to board the bus. Once we arrived back at camp, our whole group played a game of apples to apples until the end of the day.
Monday July 27th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our first day of the last week of camp. All of the children in our group are well again and they were all back today. This whole week we do not learn any new skills, we just go over the skills that we have learned in the past four weeks. The only exception is today, we did learn the new skill of dealing with losing. The reason our group learned it is because we have one child in our group that has to use it during each activity interval as a goal on his IDN, because he is such a poor sport. Our second skill today was Mind Reading and our third was having a conversation. On three of the children’s IDNs we were able to have, used social skills appropriately as a goal. By having this as a goal we are able to target and shape how the children use all of their social skills. One way is when they are having a conversation. Many of them begin by asking their peers if they want to start a conversation. We are able to target that this week and help explain to them that you don’t have to ask, you just have to make a statement and then ask the other person what he or she thinks about it.
Today we also came up with awards for each of our child for the last day of camp. Our awards include the Mr. Entertainer Award, the Mr. Social Skills Award, the Mr. Creativity Award, the Idioms Master Award, the Mr. Derek Jeter Award and the Mr. Smiley Award.
Tuesday July 28th, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today we were trained this morning on how to administer the BASC-2 and during one half of one of our activity intervals we split up. Each counselor and research person had one child and we each administered the BASC-2 to them. We were all separated into different rooms because of the nature of some of the questions. Today some of our children are beginning to revert back to a few of there old behaviors that they had improved upon such as interrupting or negative comments. During the last week of camp that is usually typical because they are getting nervous that camp is ending and they are realizing it is all over in a couple of days. Today one of the activities was t-shirt art. All of the children brought in a t-shirt and they decorated them with sayings and pictures from camp. They will be finishing the t-shirts on Thursday and that day they will be signing each others as well.
In addition this morning Dr. Thomeer read us an email that one of our student’s moms sent to him. She wanted to thank us and tell us what an amazing difference we have made in her son. This program has made more of a difference than the years of different types of treatment he has been getting. She said they have lived next to their neighbors for awhile and her son would have never gone up to talk to the neighbor, and never has before. After camp that night he went up on his own to start a conversation with the neighbor and her and her husband were amazed. It was great hearing how much of an impact we have made on the child and how much change has carried over into environments outside of camp.
Wednesday July 29th, 7:50-6 (10 hours and 10 minutes)
Today we went over more previous skills. All of the counselors were urged this week to really focus on how much the children’s social skills have improved over the past five weeks. We were reminded to realize that their problem behaviors might still be their, but their social skills will hopefully have improved. At the end of the day today we were given packets on each of our two primary children. They were the same packets that we received the second week of camp, this is the post data. They each contained the BASC-2, the Social Responsiveness Scale, a narrative description of the child, a sheet with a staff checklist regarding the child’s behavior and the Emotion Recognition and Display Survey. We had to have these packets filled out by Thursday at the end of the day.
Thursday July 30th, 7:50-6 (10 hours and 10 minutes)
Today was our second last week of work and the children’s behavior was a little worse than normal. It’s similar to how children’s behavior starts to change during the end of a school year also. Today we were missing our group leader she had to be out of town for one day, so the lead clinical supervisor filled in for her for the day. Everyday when the children are picked up our group leader talks to each of the parents and tells them what we did that day, anything crucial that happened and gives the parent the child’s IDN. Since our group leader was not here, the other counselor and I talked to the parents. We split it up and each talked to three of the children and their parents, getting this new experience of communicating their progress with their parents.
This morning we were also trained on how to administer the DANVA and the CAM-2. For one whole activity interval each counselor was paired up with one student to administer the post test to them. They had all been pretested on these at the beginning of camp. The CAM is a computer program which tested the child’s ability to correctly recognize emotions on face and voice clips. The DANVA is another computer program which tests the children’s ability to recognize the correct facial expression on both adult and children’s facial expressions. Today was our day to finish up our t-shirt art and it was our last day in the pool.
Friday July 31st, 7:50-5:30 (9 hours and 40 minutes)
Today was our last day of camp and we went to Fantasy Island. Basically every child gets to go to Fantasy Island, unless they had extremely bad behavior. We had a skillstreaming and one activity interval in the morning. Then we did one last skillstreaming before we left for the fieldtrip. Our first skillstreaming today, which was also our last one yesterday, was a skill that the lead clinical supervisor created for our group. We printed up copies so the children were each able to bring the steps of the skill home with them. It was how to deal with middle and high school. We taught the children how there are different cliques, how to approach different groups of people, how to decide if you want to approach different groups of people and to be confident and proud when talking to others. Our very last social skill was how to say good-bye. It taught the children how to recognize whether it is goodbye for a long or short time and what to say to each other. Some different possibilities were, see you soon or can we exchange phone numbers to get together soon.
Then we all left for Fantasy Island. When we got back from Fantasy Island we went to straight to our rooms and the parents of each of the children were sent down to the rooms. Then we announced how well the children did in front of everyone. Then one by one we brought them up to the front of the room and presented them with their award and gave a story to go with each. We then handed them their certificate for their award, their certificate for completing the program and a Connections t-shirt.
I had one parent in particular come up and explain how much improvement she has seen in her son and how much of a difference the five weeks has made in him. It was really rewarding to hear about what a difference we had made in that child’s life.
Monday August 3th, 8-4:30 (8 hours and 30 minutes)
Today we spent the day at Summit helping with the research part of Connections. They were packets that teachers from Summit had filled out on their children and we were all working on scoring the protocols in each packet. Today I learned to score the ABC, which is the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, the RBS which is the Repetitive Behavior Scale, the ABAS-2 which is the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-2, and the SRS which is the Social Responsiveness Scale. After finishing one packet I was given another job to do which took up the entire day. I was working with two other people on emptying the arts and crafts bins from each group. Then we created a list of materials that we needed for each bin for IES. IES is the Connections program which is implemented in the schools by the teachers.
Tuesday August 4th, 8-4:30 (8 hours and 40 minutes)
Today I helped check the thermometers of how the children recorded they were feeling in the beginning and end of the day during prior years of Connections. We checked to make sure the numbers were copied correct then shredded the data when we were done. The numbers would then later be fixed if there were any changes by the Research Coordinators. I spent about an hour checking the thermometers. I spent the entire rest of the day scoring protocols. Again I scored the same protocols as yesterday, the ABC, the RBS, the ABAS, and the SRS. Three additional ones that I scored were the MESSIER which is the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills for Individuals with Severe Retardation, the STEP which is the Screening Test of Feeding Problems, and the PDDBI which is the Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Behavior Index.

My practicum was completed over the summer. I was a research clinician in The Connections Program, a behavior modification program for children with Asperger’s Disorder and other high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Today was the first day of training and it is held at Canisius College. The first thing was that we had to take a test on the Connections manual. Any questions that we got wrong were reviewed with us so we could take those questions over again tomorrow. Then Dr. Thomeer and Dr. Lopata both lectured on the schedule of Connections and on Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. They then reviewed a little more on the Connections program itself and went over how to conduct the social skills program. We spent the rest of the day practicing the social skills group. First we watched all of the other returning counselors conduct a social skills group so we could begin to memorize and learn how to conduct the group ourselves.
The program has a set schedule for everyday once the program begins. There is a twenty minute social skills group followed by a fifty minute therapeutic activity. Together there five social skill and therapeutic activities each day. In the social skill group one of the three counselors is the lead and goes through the steps of various social skills. Then the therapeutic activity that follows is designed so the children can use and practice their new and previously learned social skills. Some examples of therapeutic activities include, kickball, making a collage, playing board games, charades and many other types of various activities involving social cooperation. In addition to social cooperation this program is designed to improve the childrens usage of social skills, interest expansion, face emotion recognition and interpretation of non-literal language. These are the main areas that children with Asperger's and other Autism Spectrum Disorders have problems with.
Today the first thing we had to do was take over the questions that we got wrong on the test from the day before. Dr. Thomeer went over some more treatment strategies and procedures such as prompting and reinforcing of behavior. Then we practiced the skillstreaming more. Then Dr. Thomeer went over the specific steps of the point system, and how the children earn and lose points. Throughout the entire day the children are constantly earning and losing points based on their behavior. The earn points for using their various social skills and for having good behavior. They lose points for various things such as having poor eye contact or using negative comments. The points are designed to increase their usage of social skills and decrease some of their problems behaviors.
Then we split into groups and practiced conducting skillstreaming more, with everybody getting a turn to be the lead. Within each group there are three counselors. One counselor is the lead, one is responsible for materials and the other is responsible for recording points. The roles switch every cycle throughout the day, so five times a day. It was stressed during training that we have to make sure to never step over the lead person in group. We all need to work together and focus on our role so that the group can work cohesively and we can help the children succeed the most.
Today was our first day of camp with the kids. Giving them points is a way to reinforce their good behavior, which is positive reinforcement. Additionally the schedule for reinforcement of giving a child points each time they use a social skill is a continuous reinforcement schedule. It is because the children are reinforced each time they engage in the behavior. This reinforcement is often used when someone is learning a behavior for the first time. We learned in Behavior Modification, points are tokens or symbolic reinforcers. The points symbolize their progress towards being able to attend the fieldtrip at the end of the week. When they do something they shouldn’t be which is emitting negative behaviors or not participating, they lose points. Which is a form of negative punishment, we take away points because we want the occurrence of those various behaviors to be decreased. We then praise them immediately after they discontinue their negative behavior and substitute with a positive behavior. We also use prompting for some of them in order to keep them on task or to keep them doing what they should be. The prompting, praise and giving directions are also some things we learned in our Behavior Modification class in order to increase or decrease different behaviors. Timeout is another form of punishment we learned in our Behavior Modification class. After they day was over I took home the score sheet to check all of the scores that another counselor had added up and I started getting used to the format of the point sheet.

My practicum was completed over the summer. I was a research clinician in The Connections Program, a behavior modification program for children with Asperger’s Disorder and other high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Today was the first day of training at Summit. The first thing was that we had to take a test on the Connections manual. Any questions that we got wrong were reviewed with us so we could take those questions over again tomorrow. Then Dr. Thomeer and Dr. Lopata both lectured on the schedule of Connections and on Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. They then reviewed a little more on the Connections program itself and went over how to conduct the social skills program. We spent the rest of the day practicing the social skills group. First we watched all of the other returning counselors conduct a social skills group so we could begin to memorize and learn how to conduct the group ourselves.
Today the first thing we had to do was take over the questions that we got wrong on the test from the day before. Dr. Thomeer went over some more treatment strategies and procedures such as prompting and reinforcing of behavior. Then we practiced the skillstreaming more. Then Dr. Thomeer went over the specific steps of the point system, and how the children earn and lose points. Then we spilt into groups and practiced conducting skillstreaming more, with everybody getting a turn to be the lead.
Today was our first day of camp with the kids. Giving them points is a way to reinforce their good behavior, which is positive reinforcement. Additionally the schedule for reinforcement of giving a child points each time they use a social skill is a continuous reinforcement schedule. It is because the children are reinforced each time they engage in the behavior. This reinforcement is often used when someone is learning a behavior for the first time. We learned in Behavior Modification, points are tokens or symbolic reinforcers. The points symbolize their progress towards being able to attend the fieldtrip at the end of the week. When they do something they shouldn’t be which is emitting negative behaviors or not participating, they lose points. Which is a form of negative punishment, we take away points because we want the occurrence of those various behaviors to be decreased. We then praise them immediately after they discontinue their negative behavior and substitute with a positive behavior. We also use prompting for some of them in order to keep them on task or to keep them doing what they should be. The prompting, praise and giving directions are also some things we learned in our Behavior Modification class in order to increase or decrease different behaviors. Timeout is another form of After they day was over I took home the score sheet to check all of the scores that another counselor had added up and started getting used to the format of the point sheet.

CanisiusPsychologyWiki : SchmidtSchoolPsychPracticum

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