Special Education Case Study - Writing IEP

Case Study: Travis

Name: Travis Shores

Date of Birth: 8/9/1984

Age: 18-2

Current Grade Level: College freshman

Instruments:    Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition

Conners’ Continuous Performance Test

                        Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview

Summary

Based on three instrumental assessment scores, Travis is currently functioning within the average range of intellectual ability, with weakness in verbal skills, which reflects on vocabulary, spelling, oral language, reading comprehension and some aspects on writing (basic writing skills, punctuation and writing fluency), and serious difficulty in attention span and free from distractions in class and in assessments.

The assessment scores on Conners’ Continuous Performance Test show that Travis has attention deficit. He has difficulty sustaining attention on some tasks, demonstrates weakness in short-term auditory memory as well as long-term retention of factual information, which may have caused his difficulty in listening in class, finishing tasks, test taking, time management, study habit, and the reason of his dropping his foreign language course (Spanish).

However, Travis performs well in comprehension reasoning in two instrumental assessments. In Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment, his scales score on Matrix Reasoning is 14 and 12 on Comprehension, both of which are quite beyond the average scaled score 10. His Picture Completion scaled scores 12 is beyond average, which demonstrates some strengths in his visual perceptual organization of nonverbal stimuli. The difference between his Verbal IQ scores 95 and Performance IQ 110 indicates that he is able to use nonverbal strategies rather than verbal strategies for most problem solving. This may explain the reason he does well with his economics class.

Test Interpretations

According to Travis’s test scores in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment, he is currently functioning within the average range of intellectual ability (Full-scale IQ: 96 out of the standard mean of 100). He performs with poor skills on vocabulary (scores 9), arithmetic (scores 8), digit span (scores 8), information (scores 8), and picture arrangement (scores 9); and performs with strengths on similarities, picture comprehension, block design, and matrix reasoning. This is consistent with other two assessment instrument results, which show that he is weak in language skills and speed of processing information, altogether causing his inability of retaining his attention and grasping information during a short period of time. However, he shows strengths in reasoning and overall comprehension. His higher scores on picture completion shows that he has strengths in comprehend visual and nonverbal stimuli. Also, the score discrepancy between his verbal IQ (95) and performance IQ (110) can indicate he is strong in nonverbal O discrepancy IQ, and therefore the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment result may not represent his true intelligence.

According to Travis’ assessment result from Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (which is designed to test a person’s attention), he has attention deficit when performing some tasks. On the instrument, the more measures found to be within the atypical range, the greater the likelihood that attention problem exists. Among twelve measures that he was assessed, he showed abnormality (scores were not within the average range) on half of them, which include number of omissions, hit rate standard error, attentiveness, risk taking, and hit rate block change. While his performances scores were within normal range on half of measures, the other half poor performance scores indicate that he may have difficulty sustaining attention to some tasks (as large number of omission errors indicates) and highly inconsistent in responding and an impulsive responding pattern (as the large number of standard errors indicates).

Travis’ assessment scores on Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview (which is designed to assess a person’s English proficiency on oral, reading and writing) also support the conclusion we have drawn from Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment result: he is weak in verbal language skills. His subtest standard scores on verbal analogues is 81, which is much below his college freshman level (only equaled to a 6^th grade’s level); his punctuation scored 71 and his proofing scored 70, which are only the equivalent of a 5^th grader; his usage of language gets 86 which is an equivalent of an 8^th grader. On cluster scores, his basic writing skills are only 77, an equivalent of a 7^th grader; his oral language scores 88, an equivalent of a 9^ththth grader), his writing sample scores as high as 136, much higher than his peers’ average, an equivalent of 16.9^th grader; his broad written language (scores 107) and written expression (scores 110) are both superior (an equivalent of 1 16^th grader) compared to his peers. His reading skills are poor or modest (basic reading scores 93, an equivalent of a 10^th grader, broad reading scores 99, an equivalent of a 12^th grader. His other language skills are also under his grade level: picture vocabulary scores 85, oral vocabulary scores 86, dictation scores 90, writing fluency scores 9.5, all of which are only on a 9 grader’s level. In addition, he test results also are consistent with other two instruments’ results that he is strong in comprehension and nonverbal skills in some ways: he is strong in listening comprehension (scores 103, beyond his grade level – an equivalent of a 14 grader).

Overall, Travis’ performance on Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview demonstrates that he is weak in verbal language, and strong in nonverbal skills. He is poor at spelling, oral speaking, punctuation, vocabulary, and fluency. He needs to strengthen his reading, and improve some aspects of his writing skills.

The Present Levels of Performance for Travis

1. cognitive abilities

The current assessment data indicate that Travis is functioning in the average range of intelligence. Travis’ strengths are in the area of performance or nonverbal skills.

2. reading

1)      basic reading skills

Various formal assessments indicate that Travis is performing poorly or modestly in reading decoding – especially in vocabulary recognition and phonemic awareness. His reading skills are at the 10^th to 12^th grade level.

2)      Comprehension

verbal comprehension is poor. Passage comprehension is on 10^th grade level.

3)      Fluency

Both reading and writing fluency is below the grade average.

3. spelling

Travis’ spelling skills are poor. They are only at 10^th grade level. He has letter-word identification difficulty.

4. written language

Overall writing skills are superior compared with peers, which is at 16^th grade level.

5. listening

Nonverbal comprehension is strong. His listening comprehension is on 14^th grade level, above his grade level.

6. oral

Oral language skills are the weakest part of his language skills. They are only at 9^th grade level.

                       

Recommendation

1. Travis may benefit from additional educational support in the area of reading and language arts. For example, he may join a particular literacy or reading program and get help on spelling, vocabulary and reading. 

2. New material should be presented for him to reach the following language goals:

• make phonological and phonemic awareness
• increase short-term memory of sounds (e.g. sound repetition tasks)
• master sound processing skills
• help speech development
• improve sentence syntax skills
• help find the connections between the phonological aspect and meanings of language
• master verbal expressive skills
• improve reading comprehension skills

3. Travis will benefit from direct instruction techniques on spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension, grammar, and oral speaking.

4. It will be helpful to teach Travis self-monitoring, self-management and self-discipline techniques, and encourage him immediately and frequently for any improvement he has made.

5. It may be helpful to place Travis in the front seat.

6. Travis may benefit from small group cooperative learning. In doing so, he will have chances to interact with peers and practice the targeted language skills and more engaged in the student-centered learning activities, with less chances of being distracted, as it happens often in a teacher-centered instruction session. He may also easily seek help from group members.

7. Teacher may conduct a functional assessment, and then change the antecedents that are likely to cause the distractions. Teacher may also directly help Travis sustain his attention with verbal and visual prompts for attention and change of activities, shorter period of instructions, less material, frequent breaks, and reinforcement of previously learned content knowledge.

Goals

Annual Goal for Verbal Skills and Behavior (oral, reading, writing and attention span sustaining)

Travis will expand his higher level vocabulary by 300 to 400, master the spelling of these words; he will be able to read and answer comprehension questions for an in depth article from New York Times with an accuracy of 85 percent at the assessment at the mid-term of the school year.

In all courses he is taking, he will also be able to sustain his attention for most of the class duration, largely remain undistracted in classes, concentrate on the lecture and retain information, and finish his task. By the end of the mid-term, he should be performing above average on all courses and earn grades C or above. In the second half semester, he will return to his Spanish lesson, finish the course, and pass it at the end of the year.

Short-term Objective

At the end of the 6-week period, Travis will be able to decode 90 percent of 50 higher-level words chosen from New York Times correctly, and read a research article chosen from New York Times with 60 percent of fluency at the end of the 6-week period with the chunking and decoding skills he has recently learned. He will make obvious progress in participating in class discussions, expressing himself in public.

He will be able to move along with most of his courses, without severe frustrations about get passing scores on most of the assessments and quizzes, he will ask help from the teacher when distracted or have difficulty; will have much less complaints about the distraction in class and time management problem.