Individual Case Study Benchmark (3 Parts)

Joanna RubinsteinSERP 301September 29 2014

Benchmark Part 1: Background

Fabio is a lively, energetic five-year-old Kindergarten student. He lives in a house

with his mother, father and two brothers. Fabio’s favorite color is blue and he loves

playing football both at school and with his family. He says his favorite thing about

school is “playtime”. Fabio has an IEP that is working on his stuttering disorder. “The

disorder is characterized by disruptions in the production of speech sounds, also called

"disfluencies,”” (ASHA,n.d) Fabio often repeats the first word or phrase of sentences;

more specifically when he is speaking quickly and excitedly. Although I have not seen

the IEP yet, I have been able to gather some information from his speech therapist and

teacher.

Fabio’s strengths are that he is creative, social, and energetic. When he focuses on

his work or the task at hand, he is able to produce work that shows his capability and

intelligence. However, his challenges sometimes prevent this from happening. Frank’s

exuberance and energy often distract him from focusing on schoolwork. He does not stay

seated in his chair and will run around to different tables talking to other children when

this is not what the class should be doing. At his meeting with the speech therapist on

September 15th, Fabio hardly participated in the activity that the therapist was trying to

engage him in because he was giving silly answers that he knew were incorrect, getting

out of his seat and trying to joke around with the other student in the session. Fabio’s

high energy and lack of focus are a challenge moving forward with his goals.

Fabio has been working on his stuttering this year with the speech therapist three

times a week for about thirty minutes to an hour. She said their main goal is to have

Fabio slow down when he is speaking in attempts to reduce frequency of his stuttering. I

have not yet found out the growth that he has made since beginning with this therapist in

late July or growth that he has made since birth. The strategies the speech therapist used

were activities, modeling, and using reminding language in order to have Fabio speak

more slowly. When the therapist reminded Fabio to speak slowly, he would, and his

stuttering appeared to be less frequent. He also expressed excitement about the activity

and was participating with sound answers until he became distracted. In the classroom,

the teacher gives Fabio increased wait-time when he has a question or something to say.

She will model language as well and speaks slowly when talking to him. When Fabio

becomes too distracted in class to finish work, she has him come back during lunch or

recess alone to have more time to finish. The teacher is also working with Fabio on his

behavior both in her class and with the speech therapist. A goal is to have him focus more

on tasks and complete more work.

After doing research on stuttering disorders, I found a lot of information that

educated me more about what the disorder is and how I could try to better help Fabio in

the classroom. Since I have not yet accessed Fabio’s IEP, I am unsure about how and

when the diagnosis came about. However, I found information about how diagnosis

occurs on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website. One would think

that you could simply hear that a child is stuttering; but the website says, “At the same

time, however, stuttering can affect more than just a person's observable speech. Some

characteristics of stuttered speech are not as easy for listeners to detect. As a result,

diagnosing stuttering requires the skills of a certified speech-language pathologist

(SLP),” (n.d) Learning this made me very interested to find out if stuttering is affecting

more than just Fabio’s observable speech. If so, in what ways is it affecting him? What

strategies can my mentor teacher, the speech therapist and I do to support Fabio in

working on his unobservable challenges? This piece of information created even more

questions for me in regards to Fabio and his IEP.

Another interesting fact I found on the National Stuttering Association website is:

the exact cause of stuttering is still unknown. “We do know that stuttering is not caused

by emotional problems and it is not a “nervous” disorder. We also know that stuttering is

not the fault of the family or of the person who stutters. (NSA, n.d) While this

information may not be explicitly helpful to Fabio, it may be comforting and helpful to

him and his family to know that Fabio’s stuttering is not due to anything that they may

have done or lived with themselves. This is very important as sometimes people blame

themselves for things beyond their control, so the National Stuttering Association is

providing a statement that could help to remove any blame, guilt or concern about the

cause of the disorder. The website also points out, “Although there is no simple cure for

stuttering, people who stutter can learn to speak more easily, feel better about themselves

and their speaking ability, and communicate more effectively.” (NSA,n.d) This is very

important for families, therapists and teachers to all keep in mind. Just because there may

not be a cure for stuttering does not mean it should be given up on or accepted as it is.

There are plenty of things we can do to help Fabio work on the aforementioned goals that

can hopefully benefit him in the long-run.

Stemming from that, in my research I found several activities and strategies for

helping children with stuttering. A wonderful site that I found most of these resources on

is ‘Stuttering Home Page’. Recommended by the National Stuttering Association, this

site provides a plethora of more resources about stuttering and how to educate others and

ourselves about the disorder. It also contains links to different activities and strategies.

One in particular that I found potentially beneficial was an activity called “Self & Double

Charting: A Self-Monitoring Strategy for School-Age Children Who Stutter”. The

essential jist of the activity is this:

“Self-charting may be used initially when targeting one specific skill, although it may also be used to target several skills during the same activity. Once the goals are determined, the clinician and child create a note card for each skill. As the activity is executed, the clinician asks the child if he or she liked how the "skill" felt, sounded, etc. If in agreement, the child makes a tally mark on each appropriate note card. It is common for the child to be unsure at first, or for the clinician to ask the child to try a response again.” (Chmela, 2006).

This activity could possibly be very useful and beneficial for Fabio to work on

with the speech therapist or another specific person. If he is given the ability to chart

about his own goals and personal growth, it could potentially give him the motivation to

focus and work hard on the task at hand. While I am not as qualified speech therapist, I

find this to be an interesting idea that I may discuss with the therapist and teacher to hear

their thoughts.

References

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association | ASHA. (n.d.). Retrieved

September 28, 2014.

Chemla, K. (2006, September 1). Self & Double Charting: A Self- Monitoring Strategy

for School-Age Children Who Stutter. Retrieved September 29, 2014.

National Stuttering Association (NSA): Stuttering Help. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28,

2014.

Part 2: Observations

Part 3: InterviewsInterview 1Claudia Martinez – Kindergarten teacher at Safford K-8 Magnet School

*J-Joanna M- Ms. Martinez**Fabio is a pseudonym for my case study child

J: Does Fabio typically actively participate in class and in activities?M: Yes, yes he does want to participate. He doesn’t necessarily have- he’s not always on the right path of what we’re discussing, or he’ll just raise his hand but sometimes doesn’t even have an answer. But he just wants to raise his hand. So yeah, that doesn’t stop him, I think he wants to be called on.

J: Is Fabio ever disruptive, and if so, what does he do?M: I think he was more so at the beginning of the year, in terms of not being able to follow directions, not being able to sit quietly. Forgetting to, for example, raise his hand if he needs me. Also, like, disruptive in the sense of not being on task, whole group. He still does a little bit of that, where whole group he might be off task talking to a neighbor, or his focus will be on something else. It was way more evident at the beginning of the year, but now I think with practice and routines and I think his maturity also is starting to kick in a little bit.

J: Have you and the speech therapist established learning objectives together?M: We don’t do it together, but she does it on her end, and I’m assuming what she does is look at the Kinder objectives; I’m just assuming that’s what she’s doing. So no, we’ve never formally sat together, but we sat, for example, in a meeting with the parent and the speech teacher told us what the objectives were at the time.

J: So do you and the speech therapist ever or regularly communicate about Fabio’s performance in class or in his sessions?M: Unfortunately not orally, but she gives the family like a progress [report], so she’ll give me a copy of it as well. But no, we don’t have a time to sit formally and talk about his progress.

J: Does Fabio know and understand the goals of his IEP?M: That’s a good question. You know, I’ve never really sat with him and told him like, these are your goals.

J: Does Fabio need any adaptations to communicate in the classroom either with you or his peers?M: The good thing is that his peers are not pointing out to him, his deficiency, with the stammering and so on. The only thing I can try to do is when he wants to say something, and for me to just physically relax my body when I’m looking at him and just keep looking at him and give him his time. I know that sometimes we are in a big rush to do things and I think that could hinder or exasperate the problem. So I just look at him, nothing else, and just give him the time to talk. Because if he looks at me and I’m like, you know, we gotta hurry up, because I don’t have time for this, then I think it exasperates him. I think he gets more, I don’t know if it’s nervous, but like frustrated like,

“I’ve gotta hurry up and tell teacher because she has to go see these other kids,” and that just exasperates the problem.

J: Does Fabio ask and answer questions regularly? M: Yeah. Yes, for example, when we do a reading and I ask questions he can answer some.

J: Does he ever ask questions to clarify content? If he’s confused, will he ask? M: Yeah, there have been times where he’s confused, like at a center, he’ll ask for clarification.

J: So you mentioned his peers haven’t mentioned anything about the way Fabio speaks, do they typically understand how he communicates?M: Yes, no one has said anything and I haven’t said anything to them. So no one has made fun of him or even asked me like, “Why does Fabio talk like that?” So I’m just going to leave it alone, I don’t want to point it out. So I’m just going to leave it alone, for now.

J: Do the school’s administrators facilitate communication and collaboration between special education teachers and/or specialists and regular education staff? M: No. I wish they did. That would really have to be between us and when we had time to meet, and if she wanted to meet with me, but there’s no designated time.

J: Does the administration encourage the special education teachers or specialists, like the speech, to regularly observe students in the classroom setting?M: Yes, I believe so, because she came and she does informal observations in the classroom.

Interview 2Miriam Girard – Speech-Language Pathologist*J- JoannaG- Miriam Girard

J: Does Fabio typically actively participate during your sessions? G: Oh yeah, he’s a very active participant.

J: Is he ever disruptive, and if so, what does he do?G: He’s, you know, he’s very easily redirected if he’s ever out of line so it’s really not an issue in a small group situation.

J: How do you choose which activities you do?G: So, I’m kind of looking at their developmental level and I come up with activities that are hopefully going to be addressing their IEP goals, so each kid has a different IEP with different goals, so somewhere it has to kind of work for all of them.

J: Is it challenging working with three kids with different IEPs at the same time?G: It is really challenging, especially with a kid like Fabio, with his stuttering I haven’t really had a chance to work with him one on one. So it’s been really difficult to work on his goals.

J: What specifically are the goals of Fabio’s IEP?G: Basically just for smooth speech. So, at some point no matter what I have to find some time and teach him some strategies so when he is in a group situation I can let him know and he can respond to the group strategy.

J: Do you and Ms. Martinez ever come together to work on the objectives for Fabio?G: At his initial placement meeting, that’s exactly what we do.

J: So only that one time?G: I think his mom came to parent teacher conference, so that was another opportunity for us to talk about it.

J: Do you think you will all meet again to discuss or reevaluate later in the semester or year?G: Well his therapy is actually sort of just an ongoing assessment, and quarterly I write up a progress report that is shared with both his parents and Ms. Martinez.

J: Does Fabio need any adaptations to communicate? G: No, I don’t think so, he’s a really bright boy.

J: So Fabio’s peers typically understand how he communicates? Do the other children ever ask questions about the way he talks?

G: No, you would know more than I would since you see what goes on in the classroom and I never get to see that.

J: Do the schools administrators facilitate communication and collaboration between special education teachers and/or specialists and regular education staff? G: Um, it’s sort of just available. It’s really up to us to make that happen.

J: Does the administration encourage the special education teachers or specialists, like the speech therapist, to regularly observe students in the classroom setting?G: Well that, again, wouldn’t really come from administration. That just goes with the territory. It’s something that, in the perfect world, would be happening on a regular basis, but it doesn’t.

J: Do you find it challenging to have time for that?G: Yes, there’s really no time.