Annie Gbaford

Special Education 420

02/29/2021

Prereferral Activity: Ellie

In three sentences or less, what is the behavior of your concern?

Ellie refuses to participate in any assigned activities in the classroom, she either talks,

complains aloud, or shuts down altogether. Ellie refuses to try any of these activities because she

claims that they are too difficult and talks down to herself quite often during these moments.

Ellie avoids tasks that she deems to be too difficult whether that be in math, reading, writing, and

science she has to be positively reinforced in order to complete these activities.

What is the frequency and duration of this behavior?

This behavior is likely to take place in instances where Ellie is assigned an activity that

requires her to read aloud, and or write which happens on a daily basis. Ellie appears to be very

discouraged and lacking motivation when assigned work even in a group setting. Ellie either

talks through the entire task or she’ll just put her head down on the desk saying that “it’s just too

hard”. She does this in reading math and writing until a teacher intervenes and encourages her to

participate in the activity.

When/ Where is the behavior concern/ most likely to occur?

Ellie’s avoidance behavior is most likely to occur when she is presented with an activity

where she has to read aloud or write, she says she struggles with conveying the information she

has in her head into words on paper.

When/ where is this behavior concern/ least likely to occur?

This behavior is less likely to happen if Ellie were in an art class. Ellie is a good artist and

tends to be more motivated in class, so she participates in the activity.

Which underdeveloped skills do you think are underlying the behavior or concern?

Ellies reading and writing skills are well below grade level; she struggles with decoding

words and reading whole words. She also reads at a slower rate than her peers; she has a hard

time encoding in her writing and producing the correct vowel and consonants within her writing.

Which helpful interventions are currently in place to address the underdeveloped skills?

Ellies was put in after school small group tutoring sessions twice a week for 30 minutes

each.

Which interventions have been applied and weren’t helpful after consistent

implementation?

Ellies tutoring sessions haven't been very helpful for her; she has made very little progress

since being put into the tutoring session. After the 10 weeks of tutoring, they progressed tested

her and the data showed that this style of intervention isn’t working for her. She has only gained

a .5 wcpm per minute while the other students have gained 3 wcmp per minute.

What are the antecedents of the behavior/concern? (review ABC’s chart, if possible)

Whenever she is assigned a task where she is required to read and write.
Which interventions are in place to mitigate these antecedents?

The teacher redirects Ellie and encourages her to keep working.

What is the typical response/ result of the behavior/ concern?

When Ellie displays avoidance behavior in the classroom the teacher either tries to

encourage her to get back on task and ignores her.

What steps are next needed? Who is taking them?

- Ellie needs a paraprofessional educator who can give her explicit instruction and

motivation when the teacher can’t give her the extra attention that she needs (Teacher/

Administration).

- Create a checklist of tools that Ellie can use when she is feeling overwhelmed in the

classroom to help calm herself down and refocus herself (Paraprofessional/ Teacher).