EDLC 623 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Field Experience Observation ABC Chart _2024.pdf

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Environment plays a huge role in the behaviors exhibited by a student with special needs. Altering

the student's environment in the slightest can cause the student to exhibit behaviors that are out of

the norm for the student. To minimize these behaviors, it is important to be able to make certain

accommodations based on the student's needs. Keeping in mind that there needs to be a balance

when eliminating obstacles as the student needs to be prepared to face certain challenges in life.

The following Field Experience Observation gives evidence to this claim.

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Behaviors Observed

classroom at a high school. The classroom consisted of 8 high school aged students whose ages

ranged from 9th grade to 21 yrs. of age, 1 teacher, and 4 instructional aides. The academic level

of all but two students are on a PreK to Kindergarten level. The other two students’ levels are

split in that one has an academic level of a 2nd grader, and the other student has no academic

level. This student is nonverbal, confined to a wheelchair, and is fed with a bottle that contains

pureed food. This student has zero academic goals.

The student I observed will be known as CP for this assignment. CP has a PreK academic

level. CP’s behavior, from my observation, aligns a lot with a student that is in PreK of a

traditional classroom; being silly, wanting to leave their seat, not listening when teacher talks,

etc. I began my observation after the students finished breakfast. As the class finished up part of

everyone to be seated. Not really being disruptive, however clearly trying to escape from having

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to begin morning work. The teacher asks CP specifically to take a seat and begin working. CP

smiles and starts to do a little dance that is very entertaining, but disruptive to everyone else that

is working. A third time the teacher goes over to CP, gently takes CP by the elbow and leads CP

to their designated seat. Seated for about 5 minutes, CP makes no attempt at beginning morning

work. CP looks around the room to see what everyone else is doing, not being disruptive but

clearly avoiding and ignoring assigned work. At this point the teacher asks an instructional aide

to sit beside CP, working almost in a guided practice setting. When the instructional aide starts

asking CP questions, that are morning work related, CP tries to talk about anything but what the

aide has asked. The aide answers CP the first couple of times but is very persistent and this

allows them to finish a few questions without interruption. However, every few minutes CP

interjects or cuts the aide off by asking random questions such as, “What is for lunch today?”

Second Episode

was about 15 minutes of down time before the class was to go to the gym. Since CP stayed

Chromebook during downtime. However, when the teacher asked for everyone to put away their

Chromebook and other materials CP ignored her and kept watching cartoons. The teacher asked

CP specifically to take off their headphones and put away the device and other materials. This

“consequence” was very similar to that in episode one where the teacher had to specifically call

on CP to follow the instruction given by the teacher. The rest of the class started to line up to go

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to the gym for their daily elective class. CP became defiant and began to complain under their

breath about having to do what the teacher says. Once the teacher threatened to take away CP’s

gym time the defiant behavior changed to being silly, like the behavior in episode one when CP

danced to get attention from the class. CP’s silly behavior was not corrected until he became

loud outside of the classroom. Once told not to continue being silly and loud while walking in

the hall CP stopped and walked down the hall quietly.

Analyzation

Chapter three of our text is about Behavior Theories. “The Disturbing Environment”

section is made up of three subsections; “Conditions Within Classrooms,” “Dissonance Between

Environments”, and “Poorness of Fit Between the Behavior and the Environment”. Each

subsection hits on different ways the environment affects students’ behavior. Beginning with

the teacher of the classroom accommodates the needs of the students in a way that helps in

minimizing challenging behaviors.

Next subsection “Dissonance Between Environments” I feel hits the nail on the head

when explaining the reasoning as to why CP is in a self-contained class. Placing a student in a

self-contained class usually begins in elementary school then the student is transitioned into a

traditional setting under inclusion. However, the behaviors exhibited by CP during my

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observation would be very disruptive to other students and CP’s academic level is not adequate

for a traditional classroom setting (Maag, 2018). Plus, CP has Other Health Impairments that

would not be suitable for inclusion in a traditional classroom. The self-contained class allows for

accommodations to best serve CP’s needs to allow for an education mostly targeting social skills,

life skills, survival math and reading (Maag, 2018).

“Poorness of Fit Between the Behavior and the Environment”, I feel, best describes the

reasoning behind CP’s behavior. This subsection states, “Students have their own sets of skills,

attitudes, perceptions, and values. These qualities combine to produce characteristic ways of

dealing with others, reacting to conflicts, and responding to environmental forces” (Maag, 2018).

Me being in their classroom changed the environment for CP, causing him to exhibit behavior

consequences for behavior. The teacher told me that the defiant behavior exhibited in class

during my observation was not the norm behavior for CP and that is the reason his defiant

behavior was only corrected/addressed and threatened with taking away gym time. The teacher

knew that by threatening to take away something CP enjoys would change CP’s behavior, but

they rarely must follow through with the threat as CP changes behavior quickly when knowing

something fun is going to be taken away. The teacher also mentioned that CP has epileptic

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episodes and that is another reason that the behavior is addressed in a way that isn’t stressful to

CP’s body or overwhelming for CP to process. However, the teacher's thoughts aligned perfectly

with the text in that CP shouldn’t have all obstacles removed from the environment as life can be

stressful and at some point, CP maybe faced with a situation that is difficult and that CP needed

to be able to process that things can and will change. That really stuck with me. I realize the

importance of understanding that each student is different, and their consequences may need to

be different based on the student’s personality, the environment or setting, and the special needs/

accommodations of the student.

ABC Chart

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