Case Study 1-Activity 1 (Tommy's Target Behavior)

Case Study 1 – Tommy (Elementary/Middle School)

Background Information
Tommy is an 10 year-old boy who enjoys baseball, swimming, and baking. He does not like art
activities or large crowds. Tommy has a good sense of humor but he can be irritable. He is
fearful around new people and may become quiet and more reserved in those situations. His
parents and teachers talk him through exposure to new people. Tommy is highly verbal and
speaks in sentences. Tommy is above grade level in reading. He enjoys reading, and his favorite
book is the Percy Jackson Lightning Thief. According to Tommy, he dislikes writing. Most of
his writing is simple sentences with a great deal of grammatical errors and little detail. He also
struggles with math, in which he is approximately 2 grade levels below. He has recently learned
how to pitch left handed. Tommy has a medical diagnosis of childhood-onset bipolar disorder
and an educational classification of severe emotional and behavioral disorder. He takes
medication for bipolar disorder on a daily basis. He is currently on a new medication. Tommy
has a new baby brother who is 5 months old.

Target Behavior
Tommy has been increasingly disruptive the past few months. He has verbal outbursts and
pushes classroom materials onto the floor after being given an academic task during quiet work
time. His verbal outbursts include yelling that he is not doing the assignment, telling a student to
shut up, using profanity, and calling student’s names. His teachers do feel that they spend about
an hour per day dealing with the behavior, and they usually respond to Tommy’s behavior by
scolding him or by initiating an office referral.

School Classroom Environment

Tommy attends a regular K-5 public elementary school. Tommy is new to the school. Tommy
is in the 5th grade. There are 19 students in his homeroom classroom. Tommy has 2 segments in
a resource SPED class with 5 other students. Tommy also has 1 co-teaching segment for math.
His teacher is very organized and structured. She is loving and understanding with regards to
Tommy’s needs.

Previous Interventions
Tommy has attended your school for two months now. Initially, he seemed to acclimate to the
the new school well. However, things have gotten more difficult for him lately. Tommy’s teacher
set up some rewards for him to earn if he does not engage in the disruptive behavior. His
behavior has not improved and it has been difficult for his team to identify “why” he is engaging
in the behavior. There is not consensus among his team that the rewards are the appropriate
intervention for his disruptive behavior. His team agreed that they should conduct an FBA and
develop a BIP.
TARGET BEHAVIOR Student:

Target Behavior One:

Describe what the student is physically doing that is interfering with his or her learning or the learning of others? Be Specific.
Tommy commonly has verbal outbursts and yells in class. He will call students names and yell out curse words
in class. He also desnt do his class work.
Give an example of the target behavior and desired behavior.
The desired behavior would be no verbal outbursts in class. The target behavior is his verbal outbursts in class,
such as calling students names and yelling curse words

Is the target behavior measurable? How would you measure the behavior?
Usuallly tommy has his outbursts when there is classwork assigend or is given a task in class.

Use the information above to define Target Behavior One. Be concise and specific so anyone could recognize the target
behavior when observing the student.
This would be defined as a student yelling or shouting out explertives, also saying he wont do classwork or
simple tasks. Also the yelling curse words and calling students names. This doesn't correlate with student who
blurt things out in class referring to questions or the material.

Target Behavior Two:

Describe what the student is physically doing that is interfering with his or her learning or the learning of others? Be Specific.
He will throw his classwork on the floor when given to him to show he doesnt want to do them. Also
doesnt do what is asked of him
Give an example of the target behavior and desired behavior.
An example woiuld be when he throws his math book on the floor having an outburst that distracts the whole
class

Is the target behavior measurable? How would you measure the behavior?
the behavior happens when classwork is given to him or he is asked to do something in class. So It is
measuable and you can measure by seeing how many times he does it when given work or a task

Use the information above to define Target Behavior Two. Be concise and specific so anyone could recognize the target
behavior when observing the student.
The behavior is tommy throwing his work on the floor out of frustration demonstrating that he doesnt want to
complete the task.This behavior consists him throwing materials and causing a scene in class and distracting the
entire class getting them off topic. This behavior isnt like he bumped the material off his desk he is doing it
intentionally.
Target Behavior Three:
Describe what the student is physically doing that is interfering with his or her learning or the learning of others? Be Specific.

Give an example of the target behavior and desired behavior.

Is the target behavior measurable? How would you measure the behavior?

Use the information above to define Target Behavior Three. Be concise and specific so anyone could recognize the target
behavior when observing the student.