Switching In The Classroom

Tom is technically in the third grade. He was held back his first year of elementary school, but made progress after receiving DTT. He has annual IEP’s at his current school, The Help Group- Sunrise School. The Sunrise school specializes in promoting communicative, behavioral, social, academic, motor, adaptive and independent living skills. Tom excels at crafting activities, especially tactile activities (button play, zippers etc.) as well as the special technology program where iPads are used everyday in the classroom. Including programs such as, augmentative communication devices and computer software into the curriculum to provide additional modalities for learning and communication. His teacher, Mrs. Mary, has been working with him for about 3 …show more content…
However, the frequency of switching the lights only increased as time went on; especially, in the classroom where he was not monitored or attended to due to a higher child to teacher ratio (1:5). Through observations it was noted that when Tom was not receiving more one-on-one attention he became increasingly active and reactive to his surroundings. He would begin to flick his finger in front of his eye and begin saying “want switchlik”. After a few times of saying with accompanied by the motion of flicking the switch with his fingers in front of his face he would get up and go over to the light switch. Once he would do this, a teacher would rush over to him, turning the light back on and attempt to redirect him to his seat. As a response, he would become increasingly irritated and go right into a tantrum exhibiting escape behaviors and sometimes even self-harming behaviors (e.g., hitting himself); however, this would only occur in very severe circumstances. It was later noted that when these more intense situations would occur, Tom had experienced interrupted sleep or his nighttime routine was