This week, on Monday (July 11, 2011), we started our first day of school at Aspire of WNY. The summer program lasts for a total of 6 weeks with the kids attending every day, Monday through Friday. I work as a teachers aid in the work skills room, where I work with kids who are more high functioning compared to other kids attending the school. The kids in my class range from age 15 up to 21 years old. As a staff, we work with them individually and in groups teaching them different things, doing activities, and even taking them to a work site every day.
To start each day, we break off into groups to what we call "centers". Each center has a different task, there's "errands", learning how to fill out an application, learning how to deal with money, and learning to tell time. For the full 6 weeks, I have been assigned to teach to tell time. Each week, we rotate groups to a new center where they stay for the whole week. For this week, I had four of our highest functioning students to teach. We started with making a clock that they could use and show time on. For the first day, I gave them different times of day to portray to me on the clock they made so I could assess how well each of them already knew about time. All four of them were already pretty good at it, some just needing a little assistance on things such as which was the hour hand and which was the minute hand. Other tasks for the rest of the week included working on worksheets that tested their abilities in telling time. By Friday, each of them were doing very well and had improved drastically on looking at a clock and telling time.
On Tuesday of this week, each student was assigned a place of employment for the 6 weeks of the program. The work skills class is for older, higher functioning students, and we try to teach them and give them real world experiences so they are prepared for when they turn 21 and are able to be employed and out in the world on their own. Our places of employment that we offer include Andersons, Golds Gym, Tops, a local hotel, and Chili's. There are one or two staff members that go with each group of kids to the worksite. For all 6 weeks, I have been assigned to go to Chili's with the four students who were assigned to work there. Each student is placed based on their level of functioning. Some of the jobs are more high functioning than others. For example, Tops is for the very high functioning kids where we ended up only placing 2 of our students. They hold the most responsibilities and do the most amount of work which therefore require our highest functioning students. At Chili's, we come in before the restaurant even opens and perform cleaning duties for opening. These duties include wiping down all the tables, the chairs, the booths, the floors, and taking all the chairs down from the tables. We started work on Wednesday of this week and on Fridays we don't take the kids to work since we have "Fun Fridays". In the two days that we had the kids work this week, they really enjoyed it. All four of them followed directions very well the first day, learning where the buckets and towels were to fill up and start cleaning. On the second day, it was interesting to watch them as they went on their own to pick up the buckets and fill them with the correct soap. I thought, going in, I would have to remind them more on what to do but they seemed to have it down. While they work (for approximately 90 min), I walk around and assist them on where they should start, go to next, and clean as they go along.
After work, we have lunch, and after lunch activities vary from day to day. Each student has to be treated to their individual needs. Some students spend the afternoon attending speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.
At the end of the first week, I really do love where I am and what I am doing. I am excited for rest of the program and excited to see what more comes my way.
July 20, 2011
As our second week of school slowly starts to wind down, I am still loving it and learning something new every day. This week, we started splitting into groups for reading. Reading groups are done in the afternoons and the groups are divided the same way as the morning “centers”. There are four groups based on the students functioning level and they are all placed accordingly. We label the groups by colors (Yellow, Red, Green, and Purple) with yellow being the highest and purple being the lowest. Today, while in reading groups, I was teaching and realized that some kids were not placed correctly. There was a student we have that is new to the program that was placed in the purple group (lowest functioning) and was surpassing everyone else in the group and frustrated with how “easy” the work was. There were also two other students that were placed higher than they should have. After school, it was brought to the teacher’s attention and we spent some time rearranging the groups.
For teaching time, this week I have the Red group. There are 4 students in this group and 3 of them seem to all be on the same level when telling time. The 4th of the group seems to have a little bit harder time. This student has been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. I found myself leaving the three students to complete worksheets on their own while I worked one on one with the 4th student, who I thought needed some extra one on one help. When looking at the clock, he couldn’t grasp the concept of the hour hand and the minute hand and also had a hard time keeping his attention on the questions. For this, I had to sit with him and go one by one through each question for him to understand and answer them correctly. For example, I would point to the clock and ask him to tell me what time it says. If I showed him 6:00 on a clock, he would sometimes blurt out 12:30 (mixing up the hour and minute hand) or sometimes blurt out something, such as “3:46”, which made no sense at all. But when I sat with him and broke it down, having him point out the hour first and then the minute, he could tell me the correct time right away. It was interesting because he was able to tell the time when I simply just had him focus his attention better on the clock, his inability to tell time wasn’t because he didn’t know it was just because he couldn’t focus long enough to really think it through. This was also brought up to the teacher, that this particular student really needs some one on one extra help,
The job site at Chili’s is going very well. The four students that I am with there really enjoy going into work and take the cleaning very seriously. On Monday, we met another manager of the restaurant and the four of the students perked up and acted very professional when talking to him. It was interesting to watch them as they changed their stance and knew that he was their “boss”.
We have one student in the class, who is 20 years old and lives in a group home. This particular student has extreme behavior issues that we have to deal with daily, that are really showing this week. When not getting his own way, he will kick or spit and not listen to any superior telling him what to do. When he goes to work, he will refuse to do his work. Because of this, today we had to implement a new “behavior plan” for him. The plan is mostly based on positive and negative reinforcements. If he does well at his job, he is allowed to take a 5 minute walk with a teacher of his choice (which he loves doing). He also really loves to sit in the rocking chairs we have in our classroom, and if he does well and behaves, he is allowed to sit in one of those. There are other things, such as calling his grandma (his legal guardian) if he doesn’t behave appropriately, knowing he would get in trouble with her as well. So far, the plan seems to be making some improvement on his behavior which is a good sign of things to come. I look forward to seeing how his behavior shapes in the time to come.
July 28, 2011
Every Friday, we let the students take the day off of work and enjoy what we call "fun friday". The most recent Friday we had was a Car Wash at the school. The car wash was to help raise money for our class and future endevours. At the car wash, almost every student's parent, guardian, or family member attended. This was the first time, for me, that I would meet any of their family members. I took the opportunity to try and talk to as many parents as I could. I found it really interesting to see where these students came from, to see how they act with their parents, and really get a new insight into their lives. In a lot of cases, it helped me understand these students on a different level. Even though I admit I was a little nervous at first, I really enjoyed talking to everyone who attended.
This week also brought about some new issues and challenges. Our one student, who last week we put on a new behavior plan, was put on a new medicine for the mornings to help with his attitude. In the past weeks, his attitude in the morning has been far worse than in the afternoon. After being put on a new medicine, his behavior has shown significant improvement.
There is a boy in our class, 19 years old, who does not interact with the rest of the class. For the six weeks, he was given a one on one aid due to the fact that he won't participate, sit with anyone, talk to anyone, or come out of the corner of the classroom unless forced otherwise. Even with his aid, it is not normal for him to talk or give any emotion to anyone else in the class. It's sad to say that sometimes, he does fall unnoticed and overlooked. Everyday, when lunch time comes around, I stay in the class and monitor the students while they eat while the rest of the staff takes their lunch break. This week, I decided to take the opportunity of having this boy student all to myself, and decided to give him a little extra attention to see what I could get out of him. As he sat by himself in the corner, I pulled up a chair and sat right next to him. I talked to him for a long time with no response from him at all. After about fifteen minutes, I finally started to get some response in the form of facial expressions. When he finished his lunch, I got out a book full of disney stories for him to look at. Instead of leaving him with his book (like every other day) I wanted to stay with him, and was still devoted to getting a little more out of him. I talked and I talked, I read the story with him, and by the end of lunch I had him laughing, saying a few words and sentences quietly, and singing (and I must say, he is a great singer). Just as the rest of the teachers were coming back from their lunch, he was singing "A Whole New World" at the top of his lungs. The rest of the staff were more than delighted to see him like this. After this, I left for my lunch break and the class got started on their reading groups without me. When I returned, I was informed by the teacher that this student easily sat at the table with the rest of the kids, participated in the reading (as best he could), and even continued a little singing. It was a significant improvement for this student since he started this program and it felt so great that I was able to help him feel just a little more comfortable and give him that one on one time that he clearly needed.
August 4, 2011
One of our students, who I have mentioned in previous blogs, made a significant change this week. This is the student who we had tried a new behavior plan on and who had, last week, started a new medicine. This student, in particular, gives us the most trouble out of anyone, but for the most part it is simply just refusing to do work and sitting by himself in the corner. On Wednesday of this week, his behavior showed to be a lot more dangerous than before. At his job site, Anderson's, his job is to clean up the restaurant eating area, including the patio area outside. While outside on this day, he started spitting consistently. The aid who was with him finally made him go inside, where he continued spitting on the ground. The aid told him that this was enough and gave him paper towel to clean it up. When handed the paper towel, he started tearing it apart and chewing it to make spit balls to keep chewing. Finally, he went and sat at a booth and put his head down, refusing to get up. When one of our teachers went up to him to try and get him going again, he started kicking her with his feet. This was the first time we have ever witnessed any type of physical outrage from him. Eventually, he did get up, and one of our aids handed him a spray bottle of cleaner for him to clean with. He took the bottle in his hand and sprayed it directly into the aids face. She, thankfully, was wearing glasses and didn't get it in her eyes (which could have seriously hurt her). Throughout the workday at Anderson's, he also used threats, saying he was going to put us in jail, kick us more, etc. When returning from the job site, our immediate plan of action was to go to our main supervisor and ask what we could do. Clearly, our behavior plan and using reinforcements wasn't enough for this student. We brainstormed things we could do, such as keep him from Fun Friday this week (the zoo), call his grandmother, and call the group home that he lives at. Our supervisor informed us, that at Aspire, we are not allowed to use punishment with these students. Because of that, we are not allowed to keep him from going to the zoo with us. We also considered having one of our teachers switch to working with him, because she is SKIP trained. Once again, our supervisor told us that we are unable to use SKIP on our students. This really has put us in a tough position of what to do with this student and how to handle him. This most recent outbreak has made a couple teachers uncomfortable about how he is going to act around them. The group home he lives at has yet to offer us any advice and has yet to send us their behavior plan for him. Also, his grandma just told us to keep using her as a reinforcement; if he does well, he gets to go see grandma this weekend. However, it is hard to see that working, since it hasn't in the past and since his physical aggression came out very randomly. His problems can happen anytime, anywhere, for any reason. When not at work or when not doing school work in class, this student is usually happy and a joy to be around. It's a problem that we will have to deal with and try to resolve as best we can before the next couple weeks.
This week, we also started working on work reports for the students. Every year, the students get a written evaluation of their work progress and how they did at their job site. I am a supervisor for the students who work at Chili's, so every afternoon I have been working on those four student's reports. On the report, I write what their job description is, if they meet the requirements we give them, how they take direction, how they communicate with others, how fast and efficient they are with their work, what they can accomplish and handle, and what they need to work on. We also give recommendations for them on future job site placements.
August 16, 2011
March 2012This week also brought about some new issues and challenges. Our one student, who last week we put on a new behavior plan, was put on a new medicine for the mornings to help with his attitude. In the past weeks, his attitude in the morning has been far worse than in the afternoon. After being put on a new medicine, his behavior has shown significant improvement.
There is a boy in our class, 19 years old, who does not interact with the rest of the class. For the six weeks, he was given a one on one aid due to the fact that he won't participate, sit with anyone, talk to anyone, or come out of the corner of the classroom unless forced otherwise. Even with his aid, it is not normal for him to talk or give any emotion to anyone else in the class. It's sad to say that sometimes, he does fall unnoticed and overlooked. Everyday, when lunch time comes around, I stay in the class and monitor the students while they eat while the rest of the staff takes their lunch break. This week, I decided to take the opportunity of having this boy student all to myself, and decided to give him a little extra attention to see what I could get out of him. As he sat by himself in the corner, I pulled up a chair and sat right next to him. I talked to him for a long time with no response from him at all. After about fifteen minutes, I finally started to get some response in the form of facial expressions. When he finished his lunch, I got out a book full of disney stories for him to look at. Instead of leaving him with his book (like every other day) I wanted to stay with him, and was still devoted to getting a little more out of him. I talked and I talked, I read the story with him, and by the end of lunch I had him laughing, saying a few words and sentences quietly, and singing (and I must say, he is a great singer). Just as the rest of the teachers were coming back from their lunch, he was singing "A Whole New World" at the top of his lungs. The rest of the staff were more than delighted to see him like this. After this, I left for my lunch break and the class got started on their reading groups without me. When I returned, I was informed by the teacher that this student easily sat at the table with the rest of the kids, participated in the reading (as best he could), and even continued a little singing. It was a significant improvement for this student since he started this program and it felt so great that I was able to help him feel just a little more comfortable and give him that one on one time that he clearly needed.
August 4, 2011
One of our students, who I have mentioned in previous blogs, made a significant change this week. This is the student who we had tried a new behavior plan on and who had, last week, started a new medicine. This student, in particular, gives us the most trouble out of anyone, but for the most part it is simply just refusing to do work and sitting by himself in the corner. On Wednesday of this week, his behavior showed to be a lot more dangerous than before. At his job site, Anderson's, his job is to clean up the restaurant eating area, including the patio area outside. While outside on this day, he started spitting consistently. The aid who was with him finally made him go inside, where he continued spitting on the ground. The aid told him that this was enough and gave him paper towel to clean it up. When handed the paper towel, he started tearing it apart and chewing it to make spit balls to keep chewing. Finally, he went and sat at a booth and put his head down, refusing to get up. When one of our teachers went up to him to try and get him going again, he started kicking her with his feet. This was the first time we have ever witnessed any type of physical outrage from him. Eventually, he did get up, and one of our aids handed him a spray bottle of cleaner for him to clean with. He took the bottle in his hand and sprayed it directly into the aids face. She, thankfully, was wearing glasses and didn't get it in her eyes (which could have seriously hurt her). Throughout the workday at Anderson's, he also used threats, saying he was going to put us in jail, kick us more, etc. When returning from the job site, our immediate plan of action was to go to our main supervisor and ask what we could do. Clearly, our behavior plan and using reinforcements wasn't enough for this student. We brainstormed things we could do, such as keep him from Fun Friday this week (the zoo), call his grandmother, and call the group home that he lives at. Our supervisor informed us, that at Aspire, we are not allowed to use punishment with these students. Because of that, we are not allowed to keep him from going to the zoo with us. We also considered having one of our teachers switch to working with him, because she is SKIP trained. Once again, our supervisor told us that we are unable to use SKIP on our students. This really has put us in a tough position of what to do with this student and how to handle him. This most recent outbreak has made a couple teachers uncomfortable about how he is going to act around them. The group home he lives at has yet to offer us any advice and has yet to send us their behavior plan for him. Also, his grandma just told us to keep using her as a reinforcement; if he does well, he gets to go see grandma this weekend. However, it is hard to see that working, since it hasn't in the past and since his physical aggression came out very randomly. His problems can happen anytime, anywhere, for any reason. When not at work or when not doing school work in class, this student is usually happy and a joy to be around. It's a problem that we will have to deal with and try to resolve as best we can before the next couple weeks.
This week, we also started working on work reports for the students. Every year, the students get a written evaluation of their work progress and how they did at their job site. I am a supervisor for the students who work at Chili's, so every afternoon I have been working on those four student's reports. On the report, I write what their job description is, if they meet the requirements we give them, how they take direction, how they communicate with others, how fast and efficient they are with their work, what they can accomplish and handle, and what they need to work on. We also give recommendations for them on future job site placements.
August 16, 2011
Within the past couple of days at school, there has been a significant change in the student, I had previously mentioned, and his behavior. We wrote out a formal behavior chart for him to follow and it was broken up between the morning and the afternoon. For each category, such as obeying rules and respecting teachers, he can receive either a plus or a minus. At the beginning of each day, we go over the chart with him and explain to him his goal. Out of a possible twelve, he has to earn a certain amount of pluses each day to receive his reward. His reward is to take a walk with a staff member of his choice around the school for about five minutes at the end of each day. The first day we had this formal behavior chart, we made his goal to be 8 pluses. After a couple days, his goal is now at 11 for each day. Since the last day of school for the summer program is this upcoming Friday, we plan to make his goal to be 12 out of 12 pluses starting tomorrow (Wednesday). Since starting this behavior chart, we have seen a significant improvement in this particular student's behavior. He is well aware at the beginning of each day of what his goals are and he now knows what good things can come of his good behavior and with few reminders throughout the day, he strives to make good choices.
This past Friday, we took the students on a trip to my very own, Canisius College, for them to learn about the YALT program offered for them. The YALT program stands for young adult life transitions and is for students with developmental disabilities age 21 to 25. It is what these students would consider their college education. What they do at YALT is very similar to what we do in our classroom. They are given an "internship" at a place of employment to gain more experience, and they learn a lot about real life experiences. They told us about learning how to do laundry, pay bills, and time on campus to be independent and do whatever they please. A couple of the student's responded really well to the program and were very interested. For our visit, they had some of the students from YALT giving us a tour and telling us about the program which was very cool to see. There was actually one student from YALT who was a student at Aspire last summer. It was interesting to see students, coming from a place where our students are now, and how they are thriving and going up in their education.
Today, Tuesday, was also our last day of going to our work sites. My four students and I spent our last day at Chili's, wiping down tables and taking down chairs as we have for the past six weeks. Each student will have their work report on their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination, ability to work with others, improvements made, and recommendations for things to work on and further placements. Those reports have all been written up and finished this past week.
With only three more days left of this program, we are now preparing for our end of the year party on Friday. All families of the students have been invited and we are expecting a huge turnout. The students have been split up into committees, including decorations for the parting and different cooking stations. Some kids will be making pasta salad, potato salad, fruit salad, and desserts. We will spend one day going out to a grocery store and shopping for all the supplies and then we will spend another full day preparing everything for the party. In this program, it is important to have the kids involved in everything as we help and guide them along the way. Also, at the end of the year party, each student has also prepared a short speech talking about their work site that they had for the summer. Each work site will go up together and each individual student will take turns as they read the speech they have written. The student's were helped as they wrote out who they worked with, who their bosses were, what they did at work, what they learned, what they liked, and so on.
Today, Tuesday, was also our last day of going to our work sites. My four students and I spent our last day at Chili's, wiping down tables and taking down chairs as we have for the past six weeks. Each student will have their work report on their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination, ability to work with others, improvements made, and recommendations for things to work on and further placements. Those reports have all been written up and finished this past week.
With only three more days left of this program, we are now preparing for our end of the year party on Friday. All families of the students have been invited and we are expecting a huge turnout. The students have been split up into committees, including decorations for the parting and different cooking stations. Some kids will be making pasta salad, potato salad, fruit salad, and desserts. We will spend one day going out to a grocery store and shopping for all the supplies and then we will spend another full day preparing everything for the party. In this program, it is important to have the kids involved in everything as we help and guide them along the way. Also, at the end of the year party, each student has also prepared a short speech talking about their work site that they had for the summer. Each work site will go up together and each individual student will take turns as they read the speech they have written. The student's were helped as they wrote out who they worked with, who their bosses were, what they did at work, what they learned, what they liked, and so on.
After looking back at my time at Aspire, I can clearly connect a lot of my experience with what I have learned in classes taken at Canisius. In a class called Behavior Modification, we were taught about creating and implementing behavior plans on kids. We distinguished the differences between punishment, negative reinforcement, and positive reinforcement and how they should be used. While working with the one student who I've mentioned above, these skills definitely came in handy. It was helpful in knowing how to design a behavior plan in specific for this student and how to go about implementing it. Behavior plans can be difficult to impose depending on the individual and for this particular student, we chose positive and negative reinforcement that would be most effective. After the first day of it working, we knew to keep increasing the amount of positive "checks" for him to receive in order to receive the prize at the end of the day. Behavior modification also taught me how to keep track of the progress of the student.
In Abnormal Psychology and Child Psychopathology, there was a lot of discussion about the basic characteristics and symptoms of different disorders. Working at Aspire was my first time working and encountering kids with developmental disabilities. I took my classes of Abnormal and Child Psychopathology as a helpful guide into this job. In the classroom, most of the students were diagnosed with Down Syndrome and Autism as well as ADHD. All of these disorders were discussed in my classes and helped me in communicating, listening, and understanding the students better. In going to work with them everyday, I had a better understanding of what their abilities were going to be and what they may or may not excel at. In working in the morning centers every morning, I was to teach time to different group each week. Each group was split into their categories of how functioning they were. From different test results, that I learned about in School Psychology and Assessment in Behavioral Analysis, the students were placed accordingly. The different tests studies each students conceptual, practical, and social skills. The level of the students IQ is also taken into effect. Based on the level of the group that week, that would determine the difficulty of what I was going to teach and what was expected of the students.
Understanding the development of the students is very important in this job. These kids are not on the normal path of development, such as was we learned in Developmental psychology or even adolescent psychology. Most of the kids in my class were late teenagers, ranging from 16-21 years old. It was important to treat them according to their individual needs and appropriately with how far they have developed at that point. It was interesting having a wide age range of students because every student was completely different than the other. My favorite part of every day was talking to the students and learning more about them and what they had to say. I loved to hear their perspective on life and really enjoyed helping them with anything I could throughout the day. I think I took on this job at a good point in my life and was lucky that I had the courses that I did under my belt before starting. I believe that they helped me excel at this job and in feeling more confident going in to every day.
In Abnormal Psychology and Child Psychopathology, there was a lot of discussion about the basic characteristics and symptoms of different disorders. Working at Aspire was my first time working and encountering kids with developmental disabilities. I took my classes of Abnormal and Child Psychopathology as a helpful guide into this job. In the classroom, most of the students were diagnosed with Down Syndrome and Autism as well as ADHD. All of these disorders were discussed in my classes and helped me in communicating, listening, and understanding the students better. In going to work with them everyday, I had a better understanding of what their abilities were going to be and what they may or may not excel at. In working in the morning centers every morning, I was to teach time to different group each week. Each group was split into their categories of how functioning they were. From different test results, that I learned about in School Psychology and Assessment in Behavioral Analysis, the students were placed accordingly. The different tests studies each students conceptual, practical, and social skills. The level of the students IQ is also taken into effect. Based on the level of the group that week, that would determine the difficulty of what I was going to teach and what was expected of the students.
Understanding the development of the students is very important in this job. These kids are not on the normal path of development, such as was we learned in Developmental psychology or even adolescent psychology. Most of the kids in my class were late teenagers, ranging from 16-21 years old. It was important to treat them according to their individual needs and appropriately with how far they have developed at that point. It was interesting having a wide age range of students because every student was completely different than the other. My favorite part of every day was talking to the students and learning more about them and what they had to say. I loved to hear their perspective on life and really enjoyed helping them with anything I could throughout the day. I think I took on this job at a good point in my life and was lucky that I had the courses that I did under my belt before starting. I believe that they helped me excel at this job and in feeling more confident going in to every day.
