Special Education Case Study - Behavior Intervention Plan

Case Study One: Drew

            Drew is a seventh-grade girl who is very bright and has ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and social difficulty. She has an impulsivity to interfere with the teacher and other students, and blurt out her comments during class, and is unwelcomed by peers due to her inability to read social cues.

            The setting event for Drew’s disruptive behavior is the commons area before school and in the hallway between classes. Drew’s classmates ignore her. The Antecedent for the misbehavior is during class, when she is asked to attend to the teacher. The Problem behavior is that she blurts out and interrupts the teacher and other students. The function or consequence of her behavior is to seek attention from the teacher and her classmates, even though the attention given is negative (the teacher reproaches her and classmates look at and laugh at her).

            Based on the information about Drew and the intervention team’s list, I have developed a Behavior Intervention Plan. I will state my BIP in the following paragraphs.

            The setting event interventions for the BIP are: call Drew to come to class first; place her in front of the line for entering class; pair her with another student who can be her friend, and allow them to sit together in class; give her picture cues with animal or sport images as a behavior reminder (for example, “Be quiet!” “Listen!” “Raise your hand!”); always write class procedures in clear language on board.

            The antecedent interventions are as follows: Give her something to do at the beginning of the class, for example, distribute the worksheets or reading books to her classmates, or collect homework from the students, or help the teacher to arrange the class schedule for the day. Ask her to pay attention to what is being taught or said by others, make notes, and restate them afterwards. At times when she is about to blurt out, show attractive behavior cues with animal images. Use bell as a sound sue to remind the class and her not to blurt out.

            New skills that the BIP team will teach are as follows: Teach her to get attention/to answer questions by raising her hand; teach her to listen to the teacher and other students quietly; teach her to watch or observe the class, make notes, and then present her results to the class; teach her to ask the classmates “Can I join?”

            The consequence interventions are these: Praise if she behaves appropriately; allow her to hold animal toys if she does not interfere or disrupt in class; give her animal or sport stickers or pictures as a reward if she raises her hand to answer questions; allow her to use the computer to do class work or play games.

            Comparing my BIP and the one from HO 10-3, both have some common interventions in each stage of the plan. They both include peer help as a setting event intervention; they both include behavior cue reminders as an antecedent intervention; they both include teaching her to raise her hand to ask questions and to listen to others without interruption; they also both include a reward system.

However, I overlooked a few factors in my BIP plan. In the antecedent interventions, I did not think to plan a meditative activity at the beginning of the class, for example, journal writing or reviewing previous lessons in HO – 3. These are wonderful warm-up activities to calm students down and draw their attention to the current class. I have witnessed this technique successfully implemented in all classes at one special ed school. I also forgot about the existence of the intervention team. The plan prepared the IEP team suggests that Drew should have a meeting and a social skills counseling, which is great. In addition, since Drew is being recorded on video in class, this resource should be fully used as a monitoring tool, and even better, as her self-monitoring tool. Finally, in consequence intervention, I forgot about the importance of ignoring the negative attention-seeking behavior as the first step of the intervention. Also, I missed the “monitoring and modifying” intervention plan stage, which is crucial to the entire BIP plan.