Case Study

Case Study: Individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
This case study focuses on Alphonso Young, a 4 –year-old head start student and on Mr. & Mrs. Young, Alphonso’s parents, Susan Cross, Head Start teacher, Rory Johnson, 4-year-old Head Start student and Marsha Matchwick, school psychologist, DCSD. Main Key Factors in this case study are dealing with a 4 year child who has and attention deficit disorder. When he plays with other kids in the school, he tends to break things, take toys and other children do not want to play with him because they say that “he doesn’t play right”. He seems to spend most of his time wondering around the classroom, and he has difficulty sitting down during circle time. Alphonso also seems genuinely sorry when he doesn’t follow the rules; however, he repeats the behavior again just as if he never apologized or has not remembered doing something bad or misbehaving before. Alphonso has all of the appropriate age skills, as a matter of fact, his fine and gross motor skills are better than most children in his class. After Ms. Cross with Mrs. Young’s permission had asked a school psychologist to observe Alphonso and interview his mom, school psychologist have come to find out that Alphonso can also be a difficult child at home, and he quickly losses interest in playing with his toys. He doesn’t play well with his other siblings, and he often gets mad at his baby sister when she cries. However, when Alphonso settles down his is a very loving boy, he loves stuffed animals and he snuggles with his bear toy at night. However, Alphonso’s aunt doesn’t invite him to her house anymore because she says that he gets so excited that he just runs through their home, jumps on furniture, and disrupts everything. The main issue in this case is being able to recognize that Alphonso need to be tested to see if he does have an ADHD to find ways to help him deal with is learning and social disability and to make him more successful with other children and adults academically and socially. Character feels that Alphonso is a “wild child” and they have very little control most of the time over his actions and they may be quite unpredictable. When Alphonso sees an opportunity for disruption, he ultimately takes control in acting out on his learning disability, which is what triggered his actions. He has difficulty concentrating and paying attention to various tasks and cannot stay on tasks for a long period of time. Also according to Ms. Cross’s observation, Alphonso does not stick with any activity for more than a minute or two. At the end of the observation of Alphonso, the school psychologist agrees with Ms. Cross and Mrs. Young that Alphonso is a challenging child who may be ADHD. The only solution that is being proposed is that something needs to be done soon to assist Alphonso in learning how to interact with children and adapt successfully to the classroom experience.
It is a shame that there was no definite plan proposed from the school psychologist when after she observed Alphonso. It would be nice to see a plan that would help the teacher and propose following accommodation sand modifications to help Alphonso succeed the classroom. It would be nice if Alphonso sat away from doors and windows, and also alternated seated activities with those that allow the child to move his body around the room. Therefore, whenever possible, a teacher should be able to incorporate physical movement into lessons as well as to divide big assignments into smaller ones, and also allowing Alphonso frequent breaks.
Perhaps developing strategies for combating hyperactivity consist of creative ways to allow Alphonso to move in appropriate ways at appropriate times releasing energy to help him keep his body calmer during work time. Also, it would be important to be Try extremely brief when giving directions, allowing Alphonso to do one step and then come back to find out what he should do next.
In this case, the disadvantage could be continuing on this work at home. His parents seem to be very busy and also have other children. Successful experience would require for both parents and hois teacher to try to work collaboratively and stay on task with Alphonso to help him manage his ADHD. Therefore, as parents, Mr. and Mrs. Young can help Alphonso cope with his deficits and meet the challenges school creates. They can provide the most effective support: equipping their child with learning strategies for the classroom and communicating with teachers about how he learns best. In my opinion, with support at home and teaching strategies at work in the classroom, there is no reason why kids with ADD/ADHD can’t flourish in school.