Jennifer Conover 1

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

Observation/Behavioral Assessment
History and Description of the Child
Jack* is a nearly three year old little boy from Rochester, Michigan. He is Caucasian,
dirty blond hair with blue eyes. He is the third youngest in his family. His brothers are both in
college and out of the house. He has a younger brother named Mike who is approaching two
years old. Jack was born on July 8
th
,

2010. He lives with his mother and his father both of whom
work long hours. His dad is out of town a lot on business. I met Jack in late October of 2011,
when his family came for the day to see what our school was like. They stayed for about an hour
and then left. At first he was quiet but soon he was running around playing and having a great
time. He joined our classroom of 12 students and three teachers shortly after that. I chose Jack
because of what we started to witness shortly after his arrival; he would burst into quick and
violent rages often with the same children. Usually when they had something he wanted or they
took something from him. However, it changed after some time, he began trying to make a
connection with the students by giving a hug or holding their hand but he was often met with
rejection which would bring on his physical abuse.
He is an exceptionally entertaining little guy, weve had multiple times where he has
amazed me with his ability to play and invent different situations in his head. I am one of his
three teachers but for a long while (because of one teacher being 5-9 months pregnant and the
other being elderly), I would spend the most time with Jack trying to tame his wild side. Jack is
tremendously caring; he wants to take care of everyone around him. He likes taking the parental
role and watching out for others. When someone needs help up he is usually the first one to pick
them up, even though he might do it with a bit more gusto that is needed. If someone spills he
will hop up say, ugh oh! and run off to grab a paper towel to clean it for them. He is very smart
Jennifer Conover 2

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

when it comes to problem solving. If something gets stuck he will sit with the toy and jiggle it
up, down and all around until he can get it loose or someone assists him. He learned how to get
the heavy closet doors open without making a lot of noise. He loves one on one attention with
the teachers. He could play with us, and just us all day if he had too. However, one of his little
bumps in the road is his quick temper. He prefers as most children do for things to go his way.
When you choose to go opposite from what he wants it will either result in him throwing a toy
and walking away or yelling NO and smacking your hands away. He hits to hurt and make an
impact; I have been a couple of bruises to prove it. But the thing is, I do not believe he wanted to
hurt anyone. He was just so frustrated and he did not know how to express himself.
Target Behavior
For Jacks target behavior I chose the one that is causing the biggest concern for parents
and impeding his social relationship with his classmates, his angry physical behavior. When
someone does not feel safe around another you can almost feel the tension in the air. The tension
around Jacks classmates when he would come near them was evident. He is a lovely little boy
who just wants to be friends with everyone however, because of the past experiences his
classmates will not allow him to get close to them. The quick flashes of anger that almost always
seem to erupt from nowhere make everyone feel jumpy. Without warning he will have someone
pined on the table squeezing them or someone will get wacked in the head with a toy. The trigger
for his sudden anger seems to be when someone disagrees with him or does not comply with
what he wants. For example, if he is not ready to come inside yet from the playground and he is
forced to do so, he will push another student over to get to their spot on the bug rope. Another
trigger is when someone rejects his outreach for attention or physical contact. During story time
I have observed that Jack likes to try and give Evan hugs or hold his hand. Because Evan is
Jennifer Conover 3

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

concerned about getting hurt by him he often yells and cries telling Jack to get away from him.
This will usually result in Jack tackling Evan or another nearby person and telling them to, Shut
up. Another student receiving special attention can also trigger his anger. An example of this
would be when Veronica brought in the cupcakes for her birthday and everyone was thanking
her and giving her hugs, Jack got up and pushed Tessa out of her chair when he thought no one
was looking. It also can occur when we are reading a story or doing work as a large group. It is
hard for him to keep his eyes on the teacher if his hands are not busy doing something. That is
when he is so fidgety he simply has to touch everything around him, including the people.
Because his parents work such long hours he gets dropped off fairly early. His mom
wants him to get enough rest so she has him eat his breakfast at school. Though, when he arrives
at school he is too excited to sit down and eat. Perhaps he will take a few bites but for the most
part he just throws out whatever it is so he can play, leaving his belly rather empty until we serve
snack at 10:15am. He is cranky each morning around story time, because he has finally stopped
moving around so his hunger catches up with him. It can be hard to remain calm as a three year
old, especially when you are starving hungry and fidgety. His mom and I had discussed in the
past how he had issues with sleeping in a normal bed. To this day he is sleeping in a pack and
play in her and her husbands bedroom; Which means that Jack does not receive as much restful
sleep as he could because he has to conform to the hours that his parents wake up and go to bed.
When there is an incident where someone is hurt by Jack, he is usually made to tell the person
that he is sorry and give them a hug. After that he will usually be relocated to a different area of
the classroom. Typically the quiet center to read stories alone. Jack arrived in my life for eight
months and in those eight months I have seen him harm someone physically at least twice a day
if not more. It is a daily occurrence and parents of classmates have begun to complain that their
Jennifer Conover 4

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

children do not want to come to school because Jack is going to push them or hit them. The last
thing anyone wants is for children to be afraid of school. At home when his brothers are visiting
from college his mom tells me that she thinks they are too rough with him. She feels this where
the idea that if my older awesome brothers do this, it must be super cool for me to tackle my
friends the same way and to climb them like they are a jungle gym. I think that this habit formed
out of play then became an outlet for him to communicate anger and frustration towards his
friends because he does not have the words he needs yet.
Hypothesis
Because there seemed to be multiple triggers to Jacks anger my hypothesis is rather
lengthy. When Jack is met with a challenging situation like, being in close proximity to another
student while having to be quiet for circle time, being told NO! by a teacher or student, or
having a toy taken away from him; he will act physically aggressive by hitting, kicking,
scratching, pushing, squeezing or slapping. He does this in order to obtain attention from others
and to avoid undesired activities like story time and group learning. I came up with this
hypothesis by closely observing Jack during the periods of his day that seemed to be filled with
the most physical disruptions or removals from the activities. These times of day were early in
the morning during morning centers, morning circle time, after nap quiet centers and afternoon
circle time. By documenting exactly what I was seeing without getting caught up in my own
perceptions it was like taking the blinders off to notice how much of what we do and how we act
really can set off a child. I watched him try and communicate and struggle to get his point across
with words and when that did not work he did the only thing he could think of, use physical
force. I had a notebook that sat in the classroom with me that I would bring with me during his
usual peak times of turbulence. I would quickly jot down notes of what exactly happened and
Jennifer Conover 5

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

then expand them into more cohesive observations. This would allow me to visualize the whole
thing in my head from start to finish, without room for error. I also used the interview form to
make myself extremely honest about his actions and his personality. Obviously this is a school
project and I could not bring it to his mothers attention that I had chosen her son for this project.
Luckily, being a good teacher and having months to have gotten to know the family I could
pretty well pin down his home life at least to see where there may be some slight dysfunction and
instability. I forced myself to clear any preconceived notions about him from my mind and just
focus on the facts. What I knew from his mother and father telling me in the past and what I had
observed personally from his day to day schedule. That is how I answered the questions in the
Functional Assessment Interview Form-Young Child. It gave me a nice base to look back on and
to show me where his most difficult times of the day were and why. I also used The ABC
recording form, I picked what had shown as his most highly effected part of the day which was
drop off, from about 8am to 9am. I sat down and just watched, trying to keep a measure of when
the issues occurred and what happened. I wanted this form to be as detailed as possible. So I
could properly measure the rate of the fights and how high there intensity was. Pulling all this
data together from the questionnaire and the multiple observation notes I had at my disposal I
could see what his triggers where, and that they typically happened with particular children. It
made it possible for me to see where his roughest spots were in the day, and then gave me the
ability to analyze why those times. I realized the drop off was rough because, he had just woken
up and as time wore on he was hungry because he was too excited to eat breakfast so his stomach
was making him cranky during circle time.
Describe Plan
Jennifer Conover 6

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

My plan to help Jack is a combination of the following: assigning responsibility, visual
cues to help him understand and work out social interaction in a positive manner, a reward
system and a change in the physical classroom. I came up with this plan by looking at the
function of his current behavior. As we know, every behavior is a form of communication, I
discovered what he was trying to tell us.
First to explain the assignment of responsibility, I noticed that during some transition
times Jack could become distracted and try to play with other classmates in the way his elder
brothers have been playing with him. Racing with classmates to get the job done faster, knocking
them out of the way to ensure he wins, jumping in the hallway and stepping on other childrens
shoes to make them trip, followed by laughter. By giving him jobs during these times like clean
up and walking as a class in the hallway, he finds more purpose in what he is doing and it helps
him to become more on task. In the hallway whenever we are walking too or from anywhere he
is in charge of carrying our green daily binder. It is light and takes both of his hands to carry. He
is so focused on not dropping it that he does not even notice the other children in the line with
him. During clean up time he will be in charge of making sure each and every chair is pushed in
all the way to the table. If chairs were not used during center time that day then another job
would take its place, like making sure each and every bin was straight and had its picture
showing on all the shelves. These two tasks keep him occupied while everyone else is trying to
clean up. Of course he should be involved with cleaning up what he was playing with so I would
pose the choice to him like this, Jack it is five minutes away from clean up time, would you like
to fix the bins before or after you clean up what you are using now? I do not really care when he
cleans up the cars as long as they are cleaned up. These jobs also give him a sense of
Jennifer Conover 7

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

responsibility in the classroom which leads to a feeling of belonging. Every person does better
when they have a task they can put their name to and say, Look at what a great job I did.
How will I use visual cues to assist Jack? The first visual cue I will use is a social story
that will be read to him before each center time. He will get to pick from two places the teacher
offers him to sit and read with her. For example, Jack, I see that you are all done with your
snack. Would you like to read your Super Friend book behind the discovery center or next to the
fish tank? The story will star Space Ranger Jack, which taps into his love of Buzz Lightyear,
and will detail how Space Ranger Jack becomes a super friend to Sheriff Woody. On the first
two pages Jack approaches Woody and asks him if he can play with Woody? This helps Jack
vocalize the fact he would like to enter play with another friend. Jack listens carefully to
Woodys response that yes Jack can play with Woody. On the next two pages it will say, Jack
wants the red truck, Jack sees Woody is using the red truck already. Jack nicely uses his words
and asks Woody if he may have a turn please? Woody says, No, not right now. Jack says,
Okay, how about I ask Ms. Danielle to use the turn timer and when it goes off, it will be my
turn then? This set of pages will help Jack to see listening and responding to what his friend is
saying works. Woody thinks about it and uses his words to tell Jack that, Yes that is okay. The
next two pages will show Jack getting Ms. Danielles attention and asking to use the turn timer
to help him and Woody take turns with the red truck. Ms. Danielle thinks that this is the best idea
she has ever heard and helps put a few minutes on the timer. These pages are important because
they help illustrate to Jack that he can always come and ask his teacher for help, plus it gives him
a solution to his problem. After using the turn timer a few times he will see that he always gets a
turn after the timer has gone off. No matter how long it takes. Any time there is an issue
between Jack and a friend involving sharing or taking turns, the teacher in the room with him
Jennifer Conover 8

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

will approach him and say, Oh Jack what a bummer, seems like you are having a problem over
here, would you like to read your Super friend story in the cushion chair or would you like to
read it in the kitchen area next to the baby doll cribs? This way he still feels like he is the one in
control even though I do not make the actual reading of the story an option. The story will be
read no matter what he chooses which is the point. Repetition is key when helping children learn
new skills. Make sure when reading the story to Jack that you are not only reading to him but
you are involving him by acting it out. Like this, Space Ranger Jack, what do you think is
happening in this photo with you and Woody? How do you think Space Ranger Jack can get a
turn and keep Sheriff Woody happy so they can keep having fun together? I will also be using
our social cue cards; they will be on a special ring in Jacks upper cubby. He will use them during
center time when interacting with anyone. They will hang on a special necklace just for him.
Each card has been gone over many times with him after we finish reading the story. There will
be a break card which he can show to a teacher to take a break from whatever they are doing.
Also he will have a help card when he and a friend are disagreeing and need a teacher, and a
gentle hands card that will go on the very top in the largest size. So that every time he looks
down he will be wearing a reminder to use the kindest of hands. Lastly for our visual cues, we
have our sit down signs attached to our circle time squares. There are three pictures, when Jack
begins to creep over and is tempted to touch a friend during circle time. Each sitting square will
have this at its place and any time a student is touching someone else the teacher only needs to
tap the no thank you picture and then point to the tap your legs picture or the bubble up picture.
Both will work for nearly every issue during circle time.
Rewards; is it truly beneficial to offer rewards anymore? For Jacks case I really believe
it is. I will design a special space ranger chart that will be kept in Ms. Ashleys office which is
Jennifer Conover 9

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

right on the way home at the front door of our school. Stickers will be earned by using his words
and sharing kindly with his friends. For example, Jack nicely asks to join everyone at the water
table and then asks for a turn to use the scoop that Veronica is using. He would earn two stickers
for that scenario. Please remember that stickers cannot be taken away once given to him. At the
end of the day once mom and dad pick him and before Charlie gets picked they will take the tally
from his daily sheet of how many stickers he has earned and go add them as a team. This way his
mother and father get to be part of the big wohoo! It will give him a small part of alone time with
them during the very busy day. Once he fills five of those spaces he can get a special snack from
the treasure bucket and he can pick one friend who gets to come with him to eat their special
treat at the front desk like a big child and a bonding moment in one. I will coach his parents on
what to say and how to say it and why it is important that they comply with the plan. If they are
not excited for the plan and willing to be on board, the success of the plan with be jeopardized.
Every child wants to make their mother and father proud. Getting a chance to do that once a day
will help him feel the sense of pride his parents have in him.
The final prevention I am putting in place is to remove the butterfly rug where we have
our circle time each day. Aside from Jack having special relation issues, other students are
beginning to fight over which is theirs and why can the not have this color or that. This is why
we are getting nice spaced out sitting squares with the sitting signs on them. Jack will have a
visual reminder of what is considered his space and what others cannot go into. This gives him a
sense of security that is shared with everyone else in the classroom. Everyone will be able to see
the story and not be so squished or knocking over people during movement activities. I think
with the extra space Jack will not be as tempted to touch his neighbor and it will also help him to
see when the more appropriate times to give other friends hugs or hold their hands would be.
Jennifer Conover
10

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

What Could Go Wrong?
I have worked hard to push out any chance for error in this plan. However, a few small
variables remain in the set up I have thus far. First, his parents are actually very busy people.
They are always rushing off one way or another to get to work or to get everyone home. I am
sure that it is difficult for him to feel like he has any one on one time at all. But I am fully aware
that they sincerely want something great for their son. I am 100% sure that mom would always
be the most excited, with that being said, I have concerns that his father would not always
remember the plan or make a big deal of it. He would probably see it as silly and not really see
the true benefit of doing it. Other than a lack of enthusiasm, I feel that dad would be on board to
at least try and help. Another variable that we have with this is that my shift ends at 4:30pm. A
variety of teachers could be walking through the doors to take over my class and they are not
completely informed on what is happening with Jacks plan. Repetition is essential in order to
make a larger impactful change on him. We do not have control over who is available when it is
time for me to leave, so because of this I will make sure there is a detailed note explaining how
to deal with Jacks issues and problems so it can be as cohesive as possible. Another variable that
could cause difficulty is what his classmates will say to him in response when they try to play? I
cannot control what comes out of every little persons mouth. All you can do is try and teach
them the same things you are teaching Jack to the whole class. I would go over it during circle
time and perhaps give the whole class a chance to come up and act out sharing and turn taking
with our timer. The last and most challenging problem is, a lot of my fellow coworkers disagree
with some of the preventions and methods I am putting into place for Jack. Some say that I am
just rewarding him with undeserved attention and jobs. They think that his parents are to blame
for his behavior and that it cannot be changed no matter what we do. I have posed to them that I
Jennifer Conover
11

*All names in this paper aside from the author have been changed for the protection of those
mentioned.

understand their frustration and can see where they are coming from; it has not always been a
happy go lucky adventure with him. But I expressed to them that we must try, because how it is
being dealt with currently is not helping, in fact it is only becoming worse. They have agreed to
join me in my efforts but I am wondering if they really will comply if I am not there. I guess
what I will have to do is pay close attention and then if it becomes a difficult issue to bring in our
supervisor to assist. I think I will talk to them about trying the ten penny trick for a week all
about Jack. The ten penny trick is where they are challenged to say ten nice and thoughtful
compliments to the child in question. I think that will give them a new and refreshed outlook on
him. He is a wonderful kid with so much potential and love. All I want is to watch him thrive in
the environment he is in. I am hoping this plan will truly work to help him, but only time will
tell.