STUDENT CASE

STUDY
Bryanna VanBaren
EDI 310-10
 ◦ Academic Strengths/Needs:
Participant Information ◦ Jimmy does a great job reading his book and
completing his comprehension worksheet. He is
at a level J and reads with medium fluency and
good comprehension.
◦ Jimmy is an 8-year-old African American male in ◦ He is at grade level with all his academics.
2nd grade.
◦ IEP
◦ Home Life: ◦ Jimmy does have an IEP. His IEP does not
◦ He lives at home with his adoptive mother and include academic goals, but it does include
father. Socio-Emotional goals.
◦ Jimmy only speaks English. ◦ Jimmy does have an Emotional Impairment
classification
◦ Interests/Hobbies:
◦ Jimmy enjoys playing sports/games during specials ◦ I selected this student because I noticed his
time. aggressive behaviors throughout the semester.
◦ He likes sharing his ideas with others I was interested to observe his behaviors and
◦ He is a good helper in the classroom and likes to do the different strategies we could put in place
the chores. for this student.
Classroom Context
Resource Room Schedule:
◦ Reading: with Jimmy
◦ Math: Kindergartners
◦ Reading: 1st and 3rd graders
◦ Writing: K-3 Group, with
Jimmy
◦ Prep/Break
◦ Lunch 3rd graders /
Sensory break
◦ Push-in with 3rd grade
◦ Lunch
◦ Social studies
◦ Push-in 2nd grade
◦ ◦ The student is usually at his desk (circled in red) and the back table working with the teacher.
Push-in 1st graders
◦ End of day routine
Classroom Expectations:
o Looking eyes
o Listening ears
o Quiet mouth
o Helping hands
o Walking feet
◦ This class has been in-person all semester.
◦ In our Special Education Resource Room, we teach 8 other students who have an IEP at different times
throughout the day.
◦ They each are included in General Education classrooms, and they come to our room at their selected
times.
◦ This schedule has since changed, but I’m focusing on the schedule that he has had for most of the semester.
◦ For the times he is not in our room he is in his 2nd grade classroom, or in the other resource room.
◦ His schedule now is all in our resource room except for specials time, and in the other resource room.
 Behavior and
Strategy #1
◦ Behavior Observed:
◦ Over the course of the semester, I have observed Jimmy
being physically aggressive to staff and other students.
There have been severe instances where students/staff have
gotten injured because of this student’s physical aggression.
He has punched the Special Education teacher in the face,
fractured a student's arm, and caused a student to get a
bloody jaw. He will often chase after other students with a
mischievous smile on his face. This is when we know
something bad might happen.
Strategies Being Implemented:
Zones of Regulation:
◦ This will help deescalate Jimmy after an aggressive
behavior occurs. This shows him where he is currently
on the Zone scale. His chart shows him strategies to
use at each zone to get back down to the Green.
Social Stories:
◦ We will be implementing social stories with Jimmy
to show him how others feel when his behavior
occurs. This will also model for him the appropriate
behaviors that he can use instead of becoming
physically aggressive. We need him begin to
empathize with the other students as well, and not
focus solely on himself.
 Analysis and Reflection #1
◦ When we have implemented the Zones of Regulation, we have not noticed much of a change in his aggressive behaviors so
far. This strategy is usually implemented after something has already happened in the classroom. It is always difficult to get
him to answer when we ask him what zone he is in, and what he could do to get closer to the green zone. There are times when
we refer to the zones, without him having an aggressive behavior, but not as frequently as I would like. I recommend that we
use these zones at specific times throughout the school day, so it can become more of a routine for the student, and easier for
him to answer. I believe that this will be more effective once we have had more time with it and when it has become part of
his schedule.
◦ We have not yet been able to implement the Social Stories. My mentor teacher is working on writing them, because they need
to be specific to Jimmy and his behaviors. These will show the student that being aggressive and violent to others is not a
correct way to handle anger/stress. Jimmy will be shown how other people are affected by the harmful behaviors that he
shows. He will benefit from these stories because I don’t think he knows how his behaviors are affecting the other students.
While he is aggressing towards others, he usually has a smile on his face, which shows that he partly does it for attention or
for the reaction of the other students. Social stories will be a huge help and will show him how his behavior makes other
people feel.

Behavior and
Strategy #2
◦ Over the course of the semester, I have witnessed
instances where the student has started swearing
repeatedly while doing work or even when he is just
sitting down. Just recently, this has started up more
than it has in the past. He mostly started saying
“sh*t” repeatedly without stopping. With this word
he might throw it in front of the sentences
randomly. He also says the F-word, the C-word,
among other curse words. This behavior has been
becoming more frequent throughout the semester.
Strategies Being Implemented:
Ignoring the behavior:
◦ The first strategy I recommended we implement was
ignoring this behavior. I could see that he was doing
this to gain attention, even though it was negative
attention. He would say the words that my mentor
teacher already told him not to use, and I believe this
was done on purpose to get attention. As a result, we
should not give attention to the unwanted behavior.
Giving a Replacement Behavior:
◦ I recommend that we start to give the student a
replacement behavior instead of saying the curses. I
think the replacement behavior could be asking the
student a question that they must answer with their
mouths which then stops or interrupts the swearing.
Or we could have Jimmy tell us a story or anything
that can redirect from the swearing.
 Analysis and Reflection #2
◦ Recently we have been ignoring the swearing behavior happening in the classroom. Before, when we addressed it, the
student would lie and say he didn’t say those words, and then would continue saying them. We have not had this ignoring
implemented for enough time to see the progress. At times when we have done this it has lessened the intensity of the
swearing, and he did not swear for as long a time. We do know that the swearing is an attention-seeking behavior, because at
times when he is not getting the attention from it, Jimmy tries to call other students by name and swears to get their reactions.
He also does this with staff. We are hoping the outcome of ignoring this behavior is that Jimmy will stop seeking attention by
saying the curse words. However, we are worried how this will affect other students, and we do not know if this will be
effective around other students. We do not want students to think that those are appropriate words to use in the classroom.
◦ We have given replacement behaviors a few different times before, however the times that we have done this he still says a
swear word randomly in his response. For example, we ask about what he did for something, and he says “sh*t” and then his
response. We believe that this is some sort of a tick when he says “sh*t” repeatedly. This strategy has been working well and
serves to interrupt his repeated swearing. Although he still says one swear word in the response, it is still better than him
saying the words repeatedly. I believe that both ignoring the behavior and giving a replacement behavior is so important when
used together, because the replacement behavior is not giving the attention to the swearing. Overall, this strategy has been
working well to distract from the swearing.

Conclusions:
Don’t reinforce attention-seeking
behaviors:
We could see from most of Jimmy’s behaviors
that he was trying to gain the attention from staff
or peers, whether good or bad. This shows us
that we can not reinforce those attention-seeking
behaviors by reacting to them.
Show student how their actions affect
others:
It is important to show students how they are
making others feel by their actions. At times we
should force students to put their feet in other
peoples’ shoes. This might help lesson the
behaviors and get the student thinking more
about their actions.
Protect other students
Throughout this semester, we have had to protect the other
students from Jimmy. He has gone after them and at those
times we evacuated all other students from the room.
While we need to implement all these strategies with
Jimmy, we need to always protect our other students.
Through this case study, I was able to learn more about
myself as a special education teacher because most of
our job is to produce strategies to help student’s
behaviors. Jimmy especially showed me the different
kinds of behaviors that might happen in my future
classroom, and strategies that might assist with these
behaviors. I learned that classroom management is so
important when helping students, because without the
structure that it brings, Jimmy would have had many
more behaviors than he already did.
 Recommendations:

1. Add in Jimmy’s schedule a place to assess how he is feeling on his Zones of

Regulation chart. This should take place before each transition to the next subject.

2. Make sure to reinforce the good behaviors that Jimmy demonstrates. As well as
giving as many choices as we can to him, so give him a little more control throughout
his school day.

3. Give Jimmy some therapy puddy when staff notices he is becoming stressed or
angry. This might help elevate the need to go after other students or staff aggressively.
Link to Learner Profile and Analysis
◦ https://d.docs.live.net/734306ca853ceff7/Documents/EDI%20310%20(ONLINE)/VanBaren_EDI%20310_Option%201_Lear
ner%20Profile%20and%20Analysis_F21.docx
◦ Or
◦ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1reUtKnWV0mKJtVlacM74IFYEUVJe8J-jqa5lHl4uLsg/edit?usp=sharing
◦ I will also attach it on BlackBoard for the correct formatting.