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There it was, the name, Maddie Rodriquez. This was the name that Sam Meyer, a first year teacher, had feelings of anxiety about as he read his class list. All he had heard about this child with Asperger's Syndrome was how difficult she was to manage in the regular classroom. Maddie had become "known" among the teachers last year as being a child who had difficulties in the areas of organization, note taking, homework and long term project completion and test taking. Sam was determined to make his first year the best he could, and he put his mind to helping Maddie get off to a great start!

The first month passed, and Sam was beginning to understand what the teachers meant when they shared concerns about Maddie. She was quiet and compliant over the first two weeks of school; however, when the workload became more challenging, Maddie began refusing to work. Sam did not want to wait to address these issues even though he wasn't sure what to do. He went to the weekly THOT (Teachers Helping Other Teachers) team meeting and brought Maddie up for discussion. Many of the team members were already familiar with Maddie from last year and had anticipated this discussion. They decided to do a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) to determine the cause of the behaviors and to come up with a plan to replace those negative behaviors with positive ones. An Implementation Plan was created as a way to monitor the team's progress toward meeting this goal by assigning tasks for each member and deadlines for completion. This was the overall "road map" for the plan and would be an ongoing part of the process.

		Click here to view the Creating an Implementation Plan Tool in the PBS section.
		Click here to view Maddie's Implementation Plan.

The team gave themselves two weeks to collect the needed data and set the next meeting date. Sam was excited to know that he had a whole team of people helping him and Maddie and that a plan was being implemented. He was looking forward to seeing the discoveries that the team would make as a result of the Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA). He was also looking forward to getting together to brainstorm ideas about what interventions would be most effective with Maddie.

Reflections:

1. What do you need to know about the diagnosis Asperger's Syndrome in order to effectively plan an intervention for this child? What/who are some of the resources you could use to find this information?
2. What resource could be used to assist in programming for this child?
3. What aspects of receptive language could impact how you program for this child? Expressive language?
4. How much time should a teacher expect to spend on intervention planning for a child? How much time have you spent on intervention planning?
5. Should there be a designated "leader" of the intervention team and who should that be?