After Joey completed his mail job Tuesday morning and had gone to specials, it was time to work. Kim, the occupational therapist, had developed a sensory diet for Joey, which included doing some kind of physical activity before sitting down to work. A visual schedule of sensory choices was made for Joey's workstation. Throughout the morning, Joey was allowed to choose one activity, such as swinging on the platform swing, scooting around the room on the scooter, throwing a ball, bouncing on the mini tramp and rolling on the therapy ball, before each work session. These activities helped Joey transition from break to a work session by fulfilling some of his sensory needs.

After reading and math were completed, it was time for speech. The team decided to introduce the Power Card story "Woody's Feelings" when Joey was not demonstrating his problem behaviors.

Becky and Joey read the story and went over the Power Card instructions on what to do when you get mad. This card was added to Joey's clipboard so it would be available to him at all times. This story was to be read everyday during this time period until Joey knew it by heart. He enjoyed the pictures of his favorite Toy Story characters, so Joey liked this activity. Becky also introduced an emotion card to help Joey communicate how he felt.

Joey had been working on labeling emotions on pictures, but he had not been able to label his own emotions. They practiced mad, sad, and happy by making the different faces until they were both laughing so hard at each other's silly faces that they had to quit.

At Becky's next speech session on Thursday, she introduced visual scripts to help Joey communicate his wants and needs.

		Click here to see Joey's power card story.
		Click here to see Joey's emotion card.

She also introduced the break icon and explained that if Joey was becoming mad during his work session he could ask for a break. By teaching this concept, the team could eventually teach the concept of "one more" after Joey had learned appropriately to ask for a break.

Though Joey was still having some whining episodes, the interventions seemed to keep Joey from escalating. Then along came Friday. Joey was already upset before he came to school that morning because he wanted to go to Blockbuster when he got up. He had not slept well the night before, so when mom said "no", it set him off. Joey began screaming in the car and would not get out of the car when he got to school. Laura called Cindy on the way to school to warn her. When Cindy and Kathy went out to Joey's car, they brought the Blockbuster schedule and Joey's penny board with the platform swing icon in the "I'm working for ______"-slot. When they opened the car door, Joey was still screaming. They showed him the schedule and repeated "First School-then Blockbuster". When Joey stopped screaming to look at the schedule, they gave him two pennies and showed him he could work for the chance to swing (one of his highly preferred activities). As Joey got out of the car (he was now whining) they gave him another two pennies. As he walked down the sidewalk, the whining subsided and he was rewarded another two pennies. This continued with a penny given for any positive behavior until he earned his ten pennies and swing (as soon as he entered his classroom). This intervention had worked so far, but the team knew that Joey was unstable and could blow at any minute.