Keelie Potter

Case Study Observation

Strategies

Observation
Observations at ​Logan’s​ school, Henry’s Fork Elementary School (February 11, 2019)
Logan​ showed many behaviors and emotions when I observed him at his school. When I first
went in to observe ​Logan​, he was playing in the dramatic play kitchen by himself. He was
pretending to cook muffins in the microwave. ​Logan​ pulled the muffins out of the microwave
and blew on them as if they were still hot. ​Logan’s​ teacher then came over and began to talk to
him and using signs and descriptive language to explain what ​Logan​ was doing. ​Logan​ interacted
with his teacher and signed a couple of words but he never talked to her. ​Logan​ played pretend in
the kitchen for about 4 or 5 minutes before he signed the word “computer” to his teacher and ran
over and sat down at a computer. ​Logan​ played a letter game on the computer for about 1 minute
before he looked around and decided to go to the Play-Doh table. ​Logan​ played side by side at
the Play-Doh table with 3 of his peers. He pretended to make noodles with a certain tool that was
laying on the table. His teacher came over and prompted him to try and write an L into the
dough. ​Logan​ watched his teacher write the L in the dough, but looked away after she was done.
Logan​ played in the Play-Doh for about 10 minutes. After ​Logan​ was done with the Play-Doh,
he went over to the sensory bin which was full of colored rice. ​Logan​ used containers and
funnels to pour the rice and play with it. ​Logan​ was playing next to another boy in the class, and
the boy tried stealing ​Logan’s​ funnel. ​Logan​ looked at the other boy and pulled the funnel away
so that he could not take it. Logan played in the sensory bin for about 10 minutes until it was
time to clean up. When the teacher started the clean-up song, ​Logan​ walked over to a cabinet
with cubbies in it and pushed it over. While he did this he showed no emotion on his face. The
teacher then grabbed ​Logan​ and put him in time-out. She set a timer and made ​Logan​ watch the
timer to see when he could be done with time-out. ​Logan​ then spit on his teacher. She made him
grab a paper towel and wipe the spit off of her leg. ​Logan​ cooperated, and still showed no
emotion. When ​Logan​ was done with time-out, his teacher had him help her pick up the cabinet
and all of the writing materials that were knocked off from it when it tipped over. With
prompting, ​Logan​ helped clean up until he was done.

Observations from the Routine Based Interview (RBI) at ​Logan’s​ home (January 22, 2019)
When we arrived for the interview, ​Logan​ opened the front door as we walked up the steps and
stepped out on the front porch, smiling. After a few minutes of watching us sit and begin to talk
to mom, grabbed the candles off the bookshelf and began waving them around and playing with
them. Then he sat at the kitchen table and got himself an apple, setting the candle sticks on the
table. He began taking bites out of it as he wiggled in his chair and continued to play with the
candles. After a few minutes and a few bites were taken out of his apple, he got down from the
chair and held the candles up to his eyes, as one would when holding binoculars. He laughed as
we laughed and squealed. He set the candles down after a little bit and then ran upstairs. He came
back down the stairs with a blanket. He laid the blanket on the floor and began jumping on it.
Mom asked him and signed “no” and to “stop”. He stopped jumping and laid on the blanket for a
second, rolling up in it. Then he got up, brought the blanket over to mom and she signed “sleep”.
He nodded and motioned for her to move from the chair she was sitting on so he could lay down
and cover himself with the blanket. He stayed under the blanket and was given his tablet for the
remainder of the time we were there.