SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J.

Kaufman

Part One

Discrepancy Analysis Assessment for Bobby

Inventory of Non-Disabled
Inventory of Bobby Skills That Require Attention
Student
- Non-disabled peer is - Bobby has vocalized - Bobby needs direct
able to participate in not being interested instruction in
group activities and forming relationships initiating and
follows established or working as a group. responding to peers
rules and protocols, - He does not appear appropriately in both
both in structured and to have the social structured and
unstructured settings. skills required for unstructured settings.
- When interacting appropriate - He requires direct
socially, non-disabled conversations. instruction in
peer is able to initiate - Bobby is unable to maintaining Deleted: mainlining
interaction and appropriately initiate appropriate topics
participate in social or continue when conversing, as
situations. conversation with well as emotional
- Is able to solve peers in both regulation strategies
problems individually structured and to appropriately
and with a group unstructured settings. handle conflict.
- Uses regulation - Bobby has narrow - Bobby can use social
strategies to cope with focused interests, skills to respond to Deleted: instructs
conflict. specifically math, verbal and non-verbal
- Accepts consequences astronomy, and social cues to decrease
and feedback. computer software. aggression.
- Responds to authority - Bobby is unable to - Bobby requires
and recognizes rules regulate his emotions support and
across settings. and use strategies to instruction to increase
- Observed to be aware deal with conflict and work production and Deleted: Is
of, and understands, instead becomes decrease outbursts in
others perspectives, verbally aggressive. academic setting.
believes, and - Bobby is observed to - Instruction in on-task
thoughts, even when be unaware of social and attention
they are different. cues and unable to strategies.
- Responds to non- respond to social cues. - Instruction in class
verbal cues and - Bobby does not participation. Deleted: has difficulty communicating
understands communicate stress
contextual factors. and anxiety.
- Understands and uses - He does not follow
appropriate attention- directions or complete
seeking strategies. work on time.
- Effectively - He does not comply
communicates stress with assignments or
and anxiety. turn in assignment
SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

- Follows directions that he expresses are

and completes work
on time.
- Complies with
assignments and turns
assignments in on
time.
- Participates in class.
not worth his time. Deleted: does not feel
- Bobby is observed to
be easily distracted
and does not
participate in class.

Direct Social Skill Assessment for Bobby

Form Context Reciprocity Goal Outcome

Bobby is The para Bobby tells the 1. Work 1. Avoided work
being asks Bobby para that the avoidance. but becoming
observed a question stuff you give 2. Possible confrontational
during about what me to do is escape and not paying
reading class. they are stupid and motivated attention.
He is seen working on boring, and (wants to be 2. Successful
being and what he then becomes asked to work
distracted by should be confrontational. leave). avoidance.
a peer and doing, the 3. Could not
daydreaming. teacher asks understand
Bobby to what is being
focus. taught.
Bobby is at The girls do Bobby 1. Motivated by 1. Unsuccessful
lunch and not respond becomes peer in his attempt
tries to to him the verbally attention. to gain peer
initiate way he aggressive and 2. Socially did attention.
conversation wanted and upset. not
with a group say they understand
of girls at dont want how to
school. He to talk initiate and
talks about about maintain
computers. computers. conversations
with peers.

In order to improve the students social performance and improve the social competence

of Bobby, I would focus my attention on teaching social skills and role playing appropriate

responses when in social situations. Additionally, I would provide Bobby with topic cards and
SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

improve his ability to self-monitor social situations, including acknowledging non-verbal cues.

Bobby would greatly benefit from emotional regulation strategies to decrease aggressive

behaviors and unexpected responses to social interactions involving peers and adults.

Part Two

The most significant deficit Bobby faces is the area of social skills, specifically initiating

and maintaining conversation, and emotional regulation. A non-disabled peer is able to

participate in group activities and follows established rules and protocols, both in structured and

unstructured settings. Bobby has vocalized not being interested forming relationships or

working as a group. It is possible that this vocalization is in response to his inability to initiate

peer relationships, react appropriately to peer attention, and regulate his emotion in a conflict

situation. Not only does Booby have difficulties interacting with peers, but with adults and those

in authority. A typical peer (non-disabled peer) is aware of, and understands, others

perspectives, believes, and thoughts, even when they are different. Bobby is unable to

understand others perspectives when they are different from his own. He is unable to discuss

the interests of others, but instead sticks with, and often perseverates on, the topics that he Deleted:

prefers.

In addition to direct instruction in social skills, along with social skills generalization Deleted: s well
Deleted: as
techniques, Bobby would benefit from support and instruction to increase work production and

decrease aggression in academic settings. Direct instruction in on-task strategies, self-

monitoring, class participation, as well as a behavior reward system, could be effective in

increasing the students acceptance of consequences and feedback. The reward system and

direct instruction could also increase his appropriate responses to authority and recognition of
SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

rules across settings. The emotional regulation strategies and behavior / consequence mapping

strategies overlap in goals.

For social skills instruction, I use a mired of research based instruction to help the student Deleted: skills instruction

to increase their social interaction skills, emotional regulation strategies, and generalization of

instructional strategies. Social Thinking and the Zones of Regulation are two curriculums that I

use to encourage students to name and understand their emotions and feelings, as well as respond

to social situations. Specifically, these curriculums clearly define and explicitly teach social

behaviors. Social Thinking has several resources that allow students to put measurement and

validity to social behaviors in order to teach them. Role play in conjunction with these

curriculums allows the students to have a display of the model behavior and practice the

behaviors. Often students are able to role play and verbalize the use of social skills, but have

more difficulty generalizing the skills. Cognitive based techniques can increase the

generalization of skills, as well as motivate and support the students throughout the

implementation of social skills instruction.

Consequence mapping would be an effective tool for Bobby, especially if it could be

connected to his interests and previous knowledge. Consequence maps show the student both

the expected and unexpected behaviors for a certain situation. These visuals are a great way to

help the student understand and visualize the outcomes before making a decision, or help the

student to emotionally regulate and change their decision in order to avoid the unwanted

consequence. Consequence mapping could be used to help motivate Bobby to complete work

without becoming aggressive, as well as help Bobby to understand a social situation better. This

is a great problem-solving method when determining the consequences of a social situation.

SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

Bobby can work with his teacher to map out social situations and determine the best plan of

action to be more effective in social situations.

Bobby could benefit from social narratives specific to his social situations. While he

does not have a strength in reading, the teacher could match the social narratives to his interests

or put them on the computer to increase his understanding and interest. These social narratives

could explicitly describe social situations and help Bobby to understand the social situation. In

addition to social narratives, Bobby could benefit from social cartooning on the computer. With

his math skills and strength, this could be included in the cartoon and reflect his analytical

thinking.

Bobby has difficulty with understanding the perspectives of other students, especially

when they do not match up with his perspectives. Perspective understanding can help Bobby to

understand situations and read n on-verbal and verbal cues in order to understand situations and

help him effectively navigate social situations. Role play with different perspectives, as well as

coming up with different stories based on another perspective may help Bobby to increase his

awareness of the cues that often come so natural to us. This explicit teaching of perspectives, as

well as the incorporation of social-thinking and understanding techniques will help Bobby to

understand his peers.

Self-monitoring and self-evaluation skills are often two of the most difficult skills for

students to master and two of the most important skills for generalizing social skills. Bobby

often wants to talk about his interests in social situations and could be instructed to monitor his

conversations for three exchanges before changing the subject to what he wants to talk about.

Bobby also gets frustrated when his advances go unnoticed or are rebuffed, he can be taught

skills to feel those feelings coming and use strategies such as walking away, deep breaths, or
SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

expressing his feelings. By increasing his ability to monitor his behavior he will be more likely

to decrease aggressive behaviors towards peers and adults.

One peer-mediated strategy that I use in my classroom is called a lunch bunch. A lunch

bunch is a group of students who teachers nominated as students who would be interested in

helping my student. The nominated students understand the goal of our game lunches is to

increase the students ability to understand social behaviors and apply his social knowledge. I

facilitate the lunch, but the students help to lead the conversation and want to be his friends.

They get to play a fun game and eat their lunch in a unique spot. My students parents are all on

board and help to review the skills that we work on at home before lunch bunch days. I have

found that the students have stuck up for my student in situations when he was being teased,

they have asked him to sit with them in the lunch room, and partnered up with him in

unstructured activities. This makes my student more comfortable and he is then able to

generalize the skills we are learning. Another thing that I think makes my lunch bunch games

days successful are that they are in the general education setting. The sixth-grade teachers let me Deleted: sixth grade

use their room and it helps to make the students all more comfortable.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions I would start by observing

Bobby to determine a baseline for the number of times Bobby initiates conversation, the number

of appropriate, on-topic turns he is able to complete with peers, as well as the number of

aggressive reactions he has to peers and students. After gaining a baseline from both structured

and unstructured settings, I would track these numbers as we implement the interventions and

determine if he is able to initiate more conversations, stay on topic appropriately through three

exchanges, and reduce aggressive behaviors. I would take a baseline for the number of outbursts Deleted: Additionally
Deleted: ,
or aggressive comments made during non-preferred activities. The behavior mapping and
SPED 843: Assignment on Assessing Social Skills Deficits J. Kaufman

emotional regulation strategies are focusing on decreasing aggression and outbursts and I would

observe at least three times weekly. If, after a few weeks, the interventions do not appear to be Deleted: do

increasing appropriate social behaviors and decreasing aggressive behaviors I would change my

interventions. Additionally, all procedures would be specifically taught to paraprofessionals and

support staff to ensure that the interventions are put into place with validity.