Well, we had the team meeting I posted about last week. I was pretty happy with how well it came together, especially when the gym teacher replied to the email and said that she was interested in attending the meeting or in somehow getting some assistance working with Michael.
The autism consultant, who is available to Michael’s team on a limited basis since her services are contracted, was able to observe the class yesterday and give some suggestions to the teacher about how to handle the difficulties that arose. As the team discussed things today, we also realized how much his anxiety about performing well affects his behavior and how this is more obvious in gym because so many new activities are being introduced.
One of the suggestions to help lower his anxiety was previewing the activities, but the schedule is so tight that they don’t know how that can be done. So for now, we are going to have the teacher communicate with me ahead of time regarding the activities for the following week, and I will make sure that Michael has at least some familiarity with it. (If it proves to be helpful, I will push for it to be done at school.)
A couple of other issues were discussed, such as helping the TSS (behavioral aide) have more confidence in the scope of her role instead of hanging back until Michael acts out or the teacher asks for help and encouraging the rest of the team to provide much higher levels of positive reinforcement.
For the latter, we are basically mounting a “thumbs up” campaign to make Michael see all the good things about himself and his behavior in school. It may sound silly, but we are asking each teacher to give him at least three thumbs up or positive comments in each half hour period. This way, it is easy for the teachers to remember and also gives a consistent message to him.
How many thumbs up can you give today?
Trish can be found writing here at 5MFSN every Friday in addition to hosting Try This Tuesday. You can also find Trish blogging at Another Piece of the Puzzle and Autism Interrupted.