Running head: FIELDWORK INTERVENTION 1

Fieldwork Intervention

Dolores A. Collins

Brandman University

EDUU 677: Program and Strategies II

Dr. Anne Spillane

February 25, 2019

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Fieldwork Intervention

The fieldwork intervention assignment had me take a look at the two students with

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and decide who would need my assistance more in helping

them be successful in school, in the community or at home. I decided to choose my sixth grade

student, I will call him James, in order to address some communication problems I was seeing an

increase in. I will begin by providing a little background information on my student. James lives

with his grandma and aunt. He referrers to his grandmother as mom, because she raised him all

his life. His mother has been in and out of his life, but is no longer a part of his life. His father

passed away a little over a year ago, so the increase in his communication issues could stem from

this change. When James arrives to school in the morning, he is normally in a bad mood. He

does not want to speak to others and he definitely does not want anyone speaking to him. When

staff greets him in the mornings, he will cross his arms and with a rude tone tell the person not to

talk to him or to leave him alone. He will shout it at times and I feel this is inappropriate

behavior for him to exhibit on a daily basis; especially, since next school year he will be entering

junior high school. In the morning during social emotional skills and during ELA, he will

continue with this impolite tone and can become more aggressive with his words or statements.

Due to this behavior, I thought a good intervention to use with him would be modeling.

Intervention

Modeling is one of the 27 evidence-based practices (EBPs) that has shown to improve the

outcomes for individuals with ASD and has been proven to be effective according to The

National Professional Development Center (NPDC). With modeling, the learner imitates the

target behavior that is demonstrated by the model which leads to the student eventually

continually using the imitated behavior. This EBP can be used with other strategies such as
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reinforcement and prompting (The Iris Center, 2016). According to Sam & AFIRM Team

(2016), “by using modeling (MD), the learner with ASD can acquire and generalize new

skills/behaviors.” Modeling can be demonstrated with audio, video and in vivo. For my

fieldwork intervention, I chose to use in vivo modeling, which consist of a live person modeling

the target behavior for the individual with ASD. I chose in vivo modeling because I have noticed

that my student does not pay attention to the videos that I use during social emotional skills time,

but will pay attention to his peers and staff during role-play activities and try to imitate what is

happening. In order to implement any EBPs with fidelity, it begins with creating a plan.

Description Plan

My plan began with making sure the intervention I chose for him would be appropriate. I

met with my Behavior Supervisor and Behavior Intervention Technician (BIT), to ask for past

data taken on my student. I also wanted to get their expertise on whether they would recommend

modeling as a good intervention to use and if this is something we could continue implementing

if the results indicated growth. They agreed and so I spoke to his mother about what I wanted to

do with James and asked for her input. She stated she has seen an increase in his rude behavior

and wanted to help in any way she was able to. I told her that if it was successful I could show

her how we did it in this school setting to see if this would work at his home environment as

well. After meeting and collaborating with the behavior team and his mother, I completed the

AFIRM Module on Modeling, so I would understand how to implement it with fidelity.

To begin my plan, I had to first make sure James was able to meet the prerequisites for

the EBP modeling. He was able to imitate others and has shown me this through role-playing

during social emotional learning time. Based on how I have seen him use imitation skills in the

past, I choose controlled prompting to assist with modeling as well as reinforcements, such as the
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dry erase board, cubes (points), Roar bucks, and verbal praise. The cubes and Roar bucks allows

him to purchase different items such as, snacks, small toys and games. The next step was to

identify the times to take data. Based on his past behavior, I observed that he tends to display the

rude tone and statements during social skills time, ELA and music. These were the times I

choose to take data on him. After choosing the time, I looked for a potential model for my

student. There are two students he responds well to, one has always been more helpful and he

has a good rapport with him, so I spoke to the student about helping his friend in a great way and

he was excited to help his friend. I even offered positive reinforcements for helping out his

friend. Since I know his friend will not be able to go to the Learning Center with him, I asked the

technician, who goes with him to the Learning Center, if she could help and trained both of them

how to model appropriate statements and tone with him and have him imitate them back to them.

I would also be implementing modeling with him as well. The team collaborated and we

discussed that when we hear him using a rude tone and saying statements like, “leave me alone”

or “do not talk to me”, we would intervene by verbally modeling and requesting him to say more

appropriate statements such as, “I do not feel like talking right now” or “I do not want to be

bothered right now”. I reminded them to remember to require him to use a softer and more polite

tone.

The reason for implementing this plan for my student is because he is getting ready to go

into junior high next school year and he will be exposed to a lot more of his peers and teachers.

Socially, it is important that he learns to speak in a way that shows he is in control of his

emotions and not come across rude towards others. Not everyone is going to be able to look past

the fact that he has ASD and this is one of the social deficits he has and needs to work on. I want

to try to decrease the amount of times he comes across rude to staff and peers as well as uses
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rude verbal statements, so I decided to collect frequency data on him (see Appendix A). My hope

was to see a decrease in this daily behavior. I created a data sheet that my technicians or I can

use to make tally marks whenever we observe him using a rude tone or saying rude statements.

My staff and I collaborated on how we will collect five days of baseline data whenever he uses a

rude tone when he speaks and states his needs or wants appropriately. Being consistent when

collecting data is important to make sure we will have baseline data based on fidelity. The

student, technician and myself spent the next week reminding James to use the appropriate

statements and tone when he is exhibiting this behavior and modeling, when necessary, the more

appropriate ways to state his needs and speak without a rude tone when he refuses or continues

this behavior. I discussed how to reinforce the positive behavior with verbal praise and providing

him with incentives such as, roar bucks, cubes and short breaks with the dry erase board. We

then collected five more days of data on any progress he made. The data was collected just like

the last time, paying close attention during social skills, ELA and music, to make sure the data

collected was with fidelity (see Appendix B).

Data Collection

For the data collection, I created columns for his Behavior A, which indicates his rude

tone and Behavior B, which are his verbal inappropriate comments. I sectioned it by the three

subjects that I observed the problem behaviors happening most. The sections are social skills,

ELA and music. He has music only twice a week, so I indicated that on the chart. In order to see

if there was a decrease in this behavior. I then took tally marks indicating the frequency that he

exhibits these behaviors. In order to see if there was a decrease in his behaviors, I took five days

of baseline data (see Appendix A), using the form. Once implementing the intervention, I

collected another five days of data (see Appendix B), and compared the results. The baseline
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data indicated that during the five days, the total instances for his Behavior A was 95 and

Behavior B was 51. During the intervention, the five day data collection indicated his Behavior

A was at 52 instances and Behavior B was at 27. Behavior A showed a decrease by 55% and

Behavior B showed a decrease by 53% (see Appendix C). The overall decrease in both of his

behaviors being addressed was 54%.

Reflection

The implementation was a positive experience for the student, the staff and the trained

model. During the week I was collecting the baseline data, I trained the student model to work

with James. I also trained the technician on what to do and replacement statements we were

going to use. The week following the baseline data, the student model sat next to James during

social skills and the technician was with him during ELA and music. I also assisted during social

skills time. Whenever we would hear him using a rude tone or using inappropriate statements,

we would use controlled prompting to model and remind him of the appropriate tone or

statement to use and when he would imitate our behavior, he would receive cubes. We let him

know that when he uses these statements and has a pleasant tone on his own, he would earn

ROAR bucks and have dry erase board time, which he really enjoyed. He was actually able to

start correcting his own behavior midway through and restate it appropriately. This helped show

an increase in his pleasant tone and appropriate statements. He even started to apologize for the

way he spoke to the technician or other staff when he would come across rude. The fact that his

behavior showed a decreased in the school setting by 54% indicates that the modeling

intervention was a success for him. To make sure I implemented this intervention with fidelity, I

double checked everything using the Modeling Implementation Checklist. If I could change

anything, it would be that I wish I would have known about how to successfully implement an
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intervention like this when James first came into my classroom. I feel I could have progressed

him much further by now. These courses on ASD have definitely taught me a lot and helped me

be a better teacher to my students with ASD. For this specific intervention though, even though it

was successful, I would have changed the times that I implemented it. I believe it could have

been more effective if it was something we did with him all day, not just during those specific

subjects. My staff and I collect daily data on all my other student’s target behaviors and I feel I

should have done the same for James, not just during social skills, ELA and music. Even though

he showed a decrease in his behaviors by over 50% during those times, I do not think it is a good

reflection of how his entire day looks. I have continued the intervention with him and created my

own BX1, which reflects his Behavior A, and BX2, which reflects his Behavior B, daily data

collection sheet for him, so that he can continue his growth in these target areas. The Behavior

Supervisor and his mother are in agreement with continuing the intervention and I will meet with

his mother soon to show her how to effectively implement modeling at home and how to use

reinforcements and prompting to help implement this EBP on his behaviors.

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References

Sam, A., & AFIRM Team. (2016). Modeling. Chapel Hill, NC: National Professional

Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder, FPG Child Development Center,

University of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://afirm.fpg.unc.edu/modeling

The IRIS Center. (2016). Autism spectrum disorder (part 2): Evidence-based practices.

Retrieved from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/asd2/

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Appendix A
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Appendix B
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Appendix C

James Data Collection

150

140

130

120

110
Behavior Instances

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
4-Feb 5-Feb 6-Feb 7-Feb 8-Feb Weekly 12-Feb 13-Feb 14-Feb 15-Feb 22-Feb Weekly
Totals Totals

Baseline Data Collection vs Intervention Data Collection

Behavior A Behavior B Daily Totals