PEPSI Project 1

PEPSI Project

Vanessa Ramirez

College of Southern Nevada

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Zooey Lunes is a 6-year-old Mexican-American girl. Zooey Lunes attends Morgan

Kincade Elementary School and she is in the first grade. She has Autism and uses hearing aids.

Even though she uses hearing aids, she will use them occasionally because at times they bug her

or her parents struggle with getting them on her. Zooey can still manage throughout the day

without them. Zooey lives with her mom, dad, and one-year-old brother. Her parent’s first

language is Spanish but they understand and speak English well. Zooey’s family’s

socioeconomic status is the middle class. Her both parents work in the hotel industry. Zooey gets

to and from school by bus transportation and she has no problem with separating from her

parents or when it is time to go home.

In her class she keeps to herself most of the time. She does well with following two-step

directions, but if it is more than two she will have a hard time comprehending and you have to

remind her of the third direction. At times she will go up to the students and take things without

asking; we just have to remind her to ask before taking something. She is very good at joining

students if she is interested in what they are doing and catches on quickly. Zooey does have a

hard time sharing. When it is time to give up what she is really invested in she will cry or refuse

to give it back. When Zooey is frustrated, most of the time she will not ask for help and just cry

until her teacher or any adult that is near her comes up to ask her what is wrong.

She loves letters, numbers, singing, reading, and anything that is academically based.

Zooey can read very well. She recites her ABCs without a problem and can count to 100. During

lunchtime, Zooey will need help to open her juice pouch or any container. She is good at asking

for help during this time with needing help with these things. Zooey gets heavily distracted at
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lunch. She is very curious about what the other kids are doing. Adults in the lunchroom have to

redirect her multiple times. During recess, Zooey likes to play by herself or with students she is

comfortable with. Zooey excels in everything she puts her mind to and with a little help from her

peers and teacher.

In the physical aspect, Zooey is right up there with her peers, but in other aspects she has

a hard time mastering. In the classroom, Zooey has a hard time sitting in her seat; much like

lunchtime. If she sees something that is interesting, she will get up and walk over to it.

According to Howe (1993) “At a time when the school is beginning to ask students to sit still,

listen, and do their seat work, the students are filled with energy which seems almost impossible

for them to contain.” (p. 227) So most kids her age are full of excitement and energy. She may

get up more compared to her peers, but it’s only because she is curious and loves to learn new

things. Zooey knows how to write out all her letters and numbers, but she is still learning how to

apply pressure from pencil to paper.

Zooey loves playing outside. She knows how to use the stairs, but goes down without

alternating both feet and puts both her feet on the same step. She knows to hold onto the rail to

help her from falling. When Zooey runs she will run in a direction without paying attention to

what’s in front of her and is not aware of her surroundings. Snowman and McCown (2015) state

that, “They [children] have excellent control of their bodies and develop considerable confidence

in their skills.” (p. 85) I can say without hesitation, Zooey does exceed those standards. She may

not be looking or paying attention, but she definitely knows where she is going.
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Zooey can skip, hop, jump, and walk along a straight line. When Zooey is playing catch

with her friends, she does not know to look in the direction that she is throwing the ball in.

Zooey will put the ball over her head and throw it. When it is her turn to catch she will forget to

put her hands out. Whoever she is playing with needs to remind her to get ready and put her

hands out.

When it comes to Zooey’s emotional characteristics she tends to have a hard time

controlling them. When she is upset or frustrated she does not know how to use her words to

express what she is feeling. The majority of the time this is caused by frustration out of not being

able to do something. Alzahrani stated in his paper (2019),

Children must develop many skills in their early years, including the ability to do the

following: communicate with adults, interact with peers in the classroom, form

relationships with others, express emotions, self-regulate, show empathy, be motivated,

and engage socially. (Alzahrani, 2019, p. 141)

Zooey will take out her frustrations by crying, giving up, or sometimes throwing the activity she

is working on. The teacher will remind her to use her words to ask for help. I feel like this is a

challenge that Zooey is going to have to work on every day, but has still made some positive

progress.

When we started with Zooey, she had a hard time figuring out what she was feeling. You

would ask her and she would just keep crying to the point where she would throw herself on the

floor and give up, as I stated before. The article Preschool Through Primary Grades: Using

Picture Books to Promote Social-Emotional Literacy (2016) states, “The ability to identify and
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name feelings is essential for children’s regulation of emotions, development of empathy, and

use

of appropriate prosocial behavior.” (Hyson, 2014, p.81) With Zooey we have taught her to say, “I

am frustrated” or “I am mad/upset” to express to us what she is feeling at that time. We have also

helped her define what it feels like to be happy, sad, or scared. She is now getting better with

letting us know.

With Zooey’s philosophical development, she has a habit of grabbing and taking things

from her peers sitting next to her. She will also take scissors or play doh toys, for example, out of

her peers’ hands without asking. When this happens, her teacher will make Zooey give back

what she took and ask her to use her words and ask if she could borrow it. According to

Snowman and McCown (2015), “Not until children are about seven or eight years of age do they

begin to realize that learning and memory stem from cognitive processes that are under their

conscious control.” (p. 87) At this time, Zooey does need a lot of reminding of what to do and

what not to do. Half of the time, her teacher has to remind her of when and how she needs to ask

for help. This also happens when Zooey is outside. Although it means that Zooey is not shy to

join in, she will just go up to a group of students on the playground and start to play with them.

This will cause some of her peers to get upset or steal a turn from one of them. This is one of the

things I do love about her because she makes it look so easy to make friends and I think she sets

a good example for other students, to not be afraid to make new friends.

With Zooey, she is very dependent on being on a schedule. She does not do well when it

is off or something is skipped. “High levels of structure and ritual calm, soothe the child
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(Ellsworth, 1999).” With Zooey this is very fitting. She has better days when her routines are on

point and we see that she does perform much better when there are no interruptions in the days.

Zooey’s social skills are not up to par with her peers. I had stated before that she will just

join other students without asking to play, she does not realize when she has done something

wrong to hurt her classmates, and she has a hard time expressing herself to her peers. While her

teacher has worked with her on how to do these things, Zooey has made little progress. Social

skills are naturally acquired to typical students, but in Zooey’s case it is a little bit more difficult.

Guivarch, Murdymootoo, Elissalde, Salle-Collemiche, Tardieu, Jouve, Poinso (2017) states,

People with ASD are at a particular disadvantage because they lack or do not yet have

certain prerequisites for social skills—such as imitation, joint attention, and the reading

of emotions—because of their central coherence deficiency, the deficit in theory of mind,

and the dysexecutive syndrome mentioned above. (Guivarch, Murdymootoo, Elissalde,

Salle-Collemiche, Tardieu, Jouve, Poinso, 2017, p. 3)

Since Zooey does have Autism, I can see that she does lack social skills that children are

supposed to acquire “normally”. When working with her we try to put her into a group to see

how long she would last and she interacted with her peers for about 3 minutes before she left to

go do her own thing. So she will join her peers in games out on the playground but will leave

abruptly. Her peers talk to her and try to include her in everything, but it is still hard for her to

maintain friendships. Snowman and McCown (2015) express that, “Children become somewhat

more selective in their choice of friends and are likely to have a more or less permanent best

friend.” (p. 85) With Zooey, she does not try to make permanent friendships. She does interact
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with all her peers and will work well with them during group work. She may not make long time

friends, but she is a social butterfly in her own way.

In the intellectual aspect, Zooey is not that far behind in comparison to typical

6-year-olds. Besides her being able to communicate with her peers when she wants to, she lacks

comprehension skills. Nguyen, Leytham, Whitby, Gelfer state in their article (2015) that, “First

graders are typically expected to describe various aspects of a story using details such as

characters and settings.” (p. 72) When the class is reading a book and the teacher asks students

about the characters and what they might be feeling, she struggles with that. It is hard for her to

sequence the story, if asked to. Nguyen, Leytham, Whitby, Gelfer also state in their article:

Reading Comprehension and Autism in the Primary General Education Classroom (2015),

“Students in the first grade, for example, are expected to be able to understand the characters’

feelings in a text and relate those feelings to their own.” (p. 72) I feel that because of her

disability it does not put her where she needs to be. Zooey can read with no problem and she

enjoys it, but at this point, she is unable to identify feelings of characters, sequence the story, or

summarize it.

Doing group work really does have a positive impact on Zooey. She hears and sees what

her classmates are doing. They are good models for her. In Everyday Experience and Intellectual

Development by Joseph Stevens, he states, “Moreover, children acquire and master important

cognitive abilities, social skills, as well as attitudes about people and situations when they work

alone or interact with peers” (p.70) This really does apply to Zooey because at times she may not
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understand the direction from her teacher, but coming from a peer it may make more sense to

her. I love that she has her peers around her to help her in the areas she needs it the most. At the

at the beginning of the year, Zooey was never able to come around her peers. She is slowly

warming up to them. Even if at times she does want to be by herself.

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For Zooey’s, the big issue she would need to work on is staying in her seat when it is

instructed. She needs to be given breaks more frequently, compared to the other students. I would

recommend her using a token board. Once Zooey earns all her 5 tokens she is able to take a

break. If Zooey knows that she needs to be sitting and doing her work will get her rewarded, it

will give her enough motivation to sit.

To help Zooey control her emotions and frustration, I recommend that her teacher and

peers, if able to, remind her to use her words and tell them what is wrong. When Zooey

remembers to ask for help or say that she is frustrated, it really deescalates the situation. Every

time we see her starting to work herself up, it is good to tell her, “Zooey, what do you need?” or

“Zooey, do you need help?”. She responds to this very well.

A lot of what Zooey struggles with can be fixed by reminding her to use her words. So

where she struggles with the philosophical part is knowing that we don’t just take without

asking. So again, I would recommend modeling what it looks like to ask for stuff politely in

order to have a turn. I would have her practice with another student asking for turns.

When it comes to her social skills there are some things she can work on. She is not

aware, sometimes, that there are other students around her. So with Zooey, I would work on

introducing her to her peers. Having her play with a different one every other day and working

on asking to play.
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Intellectually, Zooey needs help recognizing characters and plots from the book. I would

recommend printing out pictures of each character and when Zooey sees the character in the

book she can match each picture. This will help her identify the characters on her own.

Work Cited

Alzahrani, Mona. (2019). The Effect of Social-Emotional Competence on Children Academic

Achievement and Behavioral Development. International Education Studies, 12(12), 141-149.

Ellsworth, J. (1999). Sixth year teaching respect for self and others. Retrieved from
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/

Guivarch, J., Murdymootoo, V., Elissalde, S.-N., Salle-Collemiche, X., Tardieu, S., Jouve, E., &
Poinso, F. (2017). Impact of an implicit social skills training group in children with autism
spectrum disorder without intellectual disability: A before-and-after study. PloS One, 12(7),
e0181159. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/10.1371/journal.pone.0181159

Harper, L. (2016). Preschool Through Primary Grades: Using Picture Books to Promote
Social-Emotional Literacy. YC Young Children, 71(3), 80-86. Retrieved April 23, 2020, from
www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.3.80

Howe, F. C. (1993). The child in the elementary school. Child Study Journal, 23(4), 227.

Hyson, M. 2004. The Emotional Development of Young Children: Building an

Emotion-Centered Curriculum. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press

Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching (14th ed.). Australia:
Cengage learning.

Stevens, J. (1981). Everyday Experience and Intellectual Development. Young Children, 37(1),
66-71. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/42720986

Nguyen, N., Leytham, P., Whitby, P., & Gelfer, J. (2015). READING COMPREHENSION AND
AUTISM IN THE PRIMARY GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOM. The Reading
Teacher,69(1), 71-76. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24574716