Sarah Jones

RE 5040
10 February 2020
Case Study 2: Trey

Trey is a young boy, approximately eight years old, who has been diagnosed with Down
Syndrome. Through observation, it has become clear that Trey has one main area of need that
requires additional support: communication. Communication is a broad category; however, Trey
has shown a need for support with both receptive and expressive communication. By supporting
this broad area of need, Trey will be able to access and interact with more curriculum -- therefore
-- building his skills in literacy.

A few key observations of Trey that stuck out were his response to modeling and his
delay in reaction time. In multiple videos, Trey was given oral instruction for multiple tasks,
such as pointing to words and repeating words aloud. On nearly every occasion, Trey would not
follow the instructions until an adult explicitly modeled the task for him. One example was when
Trey’s mother asked him to point to the words on a page one-at-a-time. Trey did not follow this
direction until his mother modeled that action for him. Additionally, there is often a delay
between Trey’s response to instruction after a direction is given. One instance of this occured
when an adult asked him, again, to point to the words as he read. His reaction to the direction
occurred after a five second delay. Another instance was after he was asked to read the word
“green,” and he did not give a response for seven seconds after the initial direction was given.
Trey’s delays in reactions to direction and his consistent positive response to modeling indicates
that he may have trouble processing oral directions, which goes back to his broad area of need in
receptive communication. To address this need, Trey could benefit from visual prompts
specifically for direction, potentially with only one step directions instead of two or more step
directions. Visual prompts could be used across settings to help Trey better receive directions
from his teachers and peers, but visual prompts could be especially useful during literacy time to
help trey understand what to look for in text, how to identify parts of text, and transition between
various activities related to literacy. To assess this curricular support, a teacher or parent would
want to see Trey performing whatever action is on the prompt across settings.

Other key observations made of Trey were connected to his expressive language. It
became apparent that Trey would become frustrated when others simply did not understand him.
An example was when his mother was trying to get Trey to point to the lowercase letter “a.”
Based on his ability to identify most other lowercase letters, I do not think Trey could not
identify this letter; rather, I think Trey was frustrated he had to continue identifying letters and
unable to express his frustration, so he kept shaking his head “no.” This could have been
resolved if Trey could clearly express his wants and needs with others, which is why I would
recommend implementing a core vocabulary board as a curricular support. To assess this
curricular support, a teacher or parent would look to see if Trey was pointing to at least one word
at-a-time on his core board to express any wants or needs during literacy time. The core board
could also be used to better engage Trey with texts and motivate him to read.