Running Header: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES STUDENT PROFILE

Individual Differences Student Profile

Paige Rose

Instructor: Natalie Raass

EDUC 230: Intro To Special Education

Spring 2020
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Individual Differences Student Profile Essay

I have recently had the opportunity to observe a unique and funny boy whom I will refer to as

Zack. I was able to observe Zack in his fifth grade classroom at a public elementary school that I

actually work at. Zack is an eleven year old American boy who is school diagnosed with having

an Autism Disability, as well struggles with the controlling of his emotions. In the following

paragraphs I will discuss Zack’s general information, physical development, cognitive

development, socio-emotional development, and provide a summary of major findings of this

lovely young boy.

General Information

As mentioned in my introduction, Zack is an eleven year old American boy. He Is

disadvantaged in two ways, one being he is Autistic, and two he also struggles controlling his

emotions when something upsets him and tends to become rather frustrated. Zack moved from

California two years ago. In California he was not diagnosed with Autism, but rather classified

as being Emotionally Disturbed (ED). After moving to Idaho one of the first things apparent to

the school was that based on the behavior they saw they would have actually not classify him as

being ED. The school leaned more to the Autism side of things because of his struggle to control

emotions, but this was nothing to the point of being diagnosed as ED. Zach is only school

diagnosed with Autism, a specialist has not yet stated that indeed is, however, parents are in

agreement with the school diagnosis and had even presumed it themselves prior to their findings.

Zach lives with his mom, dad, and first grade little sister. I unfortunately do not have a lot of

information on Zack’s family other than Zack is always excited to see either parent that picks
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him up after school and shares a great big hug, as well as his parents are fully supportive of the

school and its decisions.

Physical Development

Zack has short spiky brown hair, brown eyes, white skin, and has one of the biggest smiles on

his face a majority of the time. Compared to the other students in his class Zack is built a bit

bigger than a majority of his classmates and actually rather tall. Despite his struggles with being

a student with Autism, and controlling his emotions, Zach seems to be overall rather healthy only

missing school due to the average cold or flu-like any other student. When it comes to writing

Zack uses his right hand. Unfortunately, while he does use his right hand, writing, in general,

tends to be one of the major set offs when it comes to being able to control his emotions.

Depending on what the writing entails it can cause the emotional behavior of being frustrated.

When he becomes frustrated hypersensitivity to his environment kicks in and tears begin to well

up in his eyes in fear of doing it and that is when the procedure of the Individualized Education

Program (IEP) steps in. His teachers and members around him are rather good at calming him

down, as well as he is able to now, with non verbal cues, calm himself down.

Being that Zach is in fifth grade his fine motor skills and large muscle development I believe

are not up to par compared to other fifth graders. Zack’s fine motor skills are better than

kindergarten students however still not where they should be. For example cutting. When Zack

uses scissors his cuts made are rather choppy and overall messy in comparison to the rest of his

class. His writing for the most part is legible, but rather messy. The formation of letters is not

always right but it seems to go with the fact that he does not hold his pencil in the correct way.

When it comes to his large muscle development Zack seems to avoid anything to do with things

that require this development. I am able to observe him at recess quite often, and every day he
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stays on the same part of the playground just walking back and forth swinging his lunch pail. He

never plays on or with any of the equipment and stays by himself, so, unfortunately, I was unable

to really see if he can do things that require some of those larger muscles. While it seems that

Zack does not want to run around, play, and socialize like the rest of his classmates he does bring

his own healthy lunch every day to school, usually consisting of some kind of fruit, vegetable,

water, sandwich, and maybe a small treat if he chooses to eat it. Being that I am unable to

observe what he eats at home I can only assume that based on what he brings for lunch every day

that parents most likely provide this same sort of structure at home.

Cognitive Development

Zack stays in his home room regular fifth grade class the entire day even during intervention.

As far as academics go he is a very intelligent kid. His strengths are math and reading. He is

excited for math, except when there are notes to take since they involve writing, and when it

comes to reading he reads with great expression and is exciting to listen to. His weaknesses on

the other hand are english and science. English and science require more writing than a lot of

other subjects and the instant that part of the day hits he begins to shut down. During class Zack

does a rather good job at paying attention. He participates in most everything the class does, but

struggles in participating in a small group or partner settings where he has to socialize with his

peers. I will say though his peers do a great job at initiating the conversation and making sure he

participates even if it is something he doesn’t want to do. Staying motivated on an assignment

can be difficult for him if it something he does not enjoy. If it is an assignment that sets him off

completely he will even shut down to the point of complete refusal to do the assignment. In these

cases he takes a short break but has the same expectations to finish the assignment just like

everyone else and he generally does.

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From his actions I can tell Zack is in