Descriptive Case Study: Virginia Institute Of Autism

Descriptive Case Study (3887)

I’m currently doing my practicum at the Virginia Institute of Autism and I have been working one on one with Mike and let me just say he is the sweetest kid ever! Mike is seven years old and hates homework. In his classroom there are about six teachers and 5 students. The student’s ages in that classroom ranges from seven years of age to about twelve years of age. When I first met mike he was very outgoing and super funny. He is considered the “class clown” in the classroom and I can see why. As far as academics go, Mike is a very intelligent young man. I observe him mainly during his direct instruction for math. His academic strengths in math are that Mike is able to perform mental math. If he is asked a question
As far as Mike’s behavior he is really good at completing tasks in the given time. He has been getting a lot better with that because of the new point reward system that has been implemented. Now when Mike is given a couple assignments to work on he will stay on task and continue to work until he is completely finished. And again as I mentioned before he gets along well with peers. For example if he is asked to play a game, Mike will invite another student to play Jenga with him and be very nice to the other student. A behavioral need Mike has would probably be keeping his hands to himself. Mike struggles with this quite often, during my observations I’ve noticed that if he were to get upset he would hit the teacher or touch other student’s desks that are within reach. Or even when he is on good behavior, I noticed one time he drew all over the teachers arm with a colored marker because he was
One way the teacher is addressing this need for Mike is instead of hitting he should put his hands flat on the table until he is cool and ready to get back to work. And if Mike can’t follow those directions he will start to drop levels in his folder until he starts following directions. So a lot of the ways that I have noticed teachers addressing many of the needs for Mike is through the point reward system. As for Mike he is a wonderful child to work with and I got to know him through my time at VIA. I know for a fact that Mikes enemy is homework, he always comes in with the cutest shirts that say, “I’m allergic to homework”, Or “I hate homework” so I used that as a conversation starter to build report with him. Mike also loves Minecraft and angry bird, during his free time that’s all he plays on the I-pad unless he chooses to go to the gross motor room. And I have seen teachers incorporate those games in his classwork. For example he had math and then one of the worksheets was to match laminated pictures of different tools from Minecraft under the category Minecraft and same thing for angry birds. Mike loves doing that part of the work because he knows