Billy

Child’s Description

Billy a child, who is five years old, has been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP). He has possible delayed cognitive abilities, and he has little to no speech, except for the involuntary sounds he makes, he appears unable to form words. He is in a wheelchair also. This is how Billy arrived at his new foster home. He doesn't talk nor does he have a talking board. Billy doorecognize his name or any other simple directions. He does, however, respond to the tone of people’s voice. His fine motor skills are well developed. He has demonstrated that by tearing up a paper on his own. Billy doesn't show any interest in age-appropriate toys such as play dough, books or crayons. When allowed to do an activity on his own, Billy Just as soon wanders off to a corner and will remain there until told to do otherwise.

Behaviors being targeted

Since his arrival, Billy has been scratching everyone in his new foster home including the other children who live there. Sometimes the scratches are deep, and they can bring on other spontaneous negative behaviors. Billy also displays behaviors of aggression; verbal aggression (yelling and screaming), physical assault ( scratching, tantrums, and hitting) and opposition defiance (refusing to cooperate with requests). Billy’s behaviors are most evident when he has options as to what he is going to do, or the other children are approaching him during free time or when his foster parents try including him in a structured activity.

Strategies for treatment

Not only are the other children being harmed by Billy, but he is also hurting himself. Billy almost always gets his foster parents attention right after he does something he is not supposed to be doing. The adoptive parents think that Billy is doing things that he is not supposed to do for the sake of the attention he’s getting and his lack of communication skills.

Occupational and speech therapy should be offered to Billy as well as visual and verbal reinforcements when others approach him. Billy needs to be able to talk back to his peers and really understand that he can’t just be giving them a glance and a smile. The ‘talking board’ would definitely help with that. His foster parents must model the different kinds of communication are so he can differentiate between the positive interactions and the negative interaction and that he must choose which one he wants to have in his life. That attention could be a negative attention. The foster parents are learning an intensive home-based intervention using the foundations of American Sign Language or ASL.The home-based program will help teach the foster parents to better be able to communicate with Billy until he can communicate fluently with the ‘talking board ‘ that Billy will need to get by in this world. The communication program would include sections on self-help, communication, conscious social and motor skills. Then the foster parents would be asked to keep a record of Billy’s communication with ASL. and all of the changes that he will make. The ways in which, he will start to communicate will be huge in the beginning since billy has had no outlet for communication until now. That’s why the differences will be examined weekly at first. This would be a recommended continuation of services that will fade to monthly visits until the communication skills that are needed are in place. The goals for communication have to be met weekly. Non-communication should be addressed as well on a weekly basis to understand more of what happened more about the screaming in his sleep and try to help him to overcome whatever is so troublesome to his sleep.

Involvement of the legal system

There are programs to assist preschoolers, toddlers, and infants under the individuals with disabilities educational act (IDEA). They have reported a rise in the number of children who have been diagnosed with Autism ( Mandlawitz, 1998). There has been a lot of debate concerning an effective program for interventions. Families want the best results and strategies when it comes to properly treat their children. Service providers frequently find themselves in a difficult spot with families because they are not sure about their obligations, and because they lack both experience and resources to put a successful program together (Feinberg & Beyer, 1998).

Foster families receive support that is ongoing the child has a worker, and they have a worker also. The support includes school district services, medical professionals, mental health services, etc. Children in foster care are more likely to exhibit high levels of emotional and behavioral problems than other children.

Ethical Issues/Confidentiality

Confidentiality is one of the fundamental obligations of a therapist working from an interdisciplinary conceptual framework is obligated to the individual with an autism spectrum disorder and their family (Cox, 2012). A child who tests positive might be labeled falsely as to having autism and therefore shorten the evaluation (McMahon, Baty & Botkin, 2006). Clients have the right to effective treatment. Behavior analysts always should advocate and educate the client about the scientifically most effective procedures. Parents can have limited understanding and knowledge of research. There is a need to ensure the use of appropriate diagnostic measures and screening tools.