Working this morning on Chronologicals
Good morning. This is me. And, I’m happy to say that I’m up and writing now by 4:15 am. I’ve been up for about 45 minutes – just trying to adjust to the morning. It took a while to load the systems, because they were automatically shut-off by Microsoft in the middle of the night. I hate when they do that. I think its wrong to control my computer without my permission. They know that I wouldn’t have bothered with it – so they did what I didn’t want – even though it may have been good for me … it also might have been to load their “secretive” programs, such as commercials and internal listening devices, etc. Hmpf!In the meantime, I’ve been looking over the Chronological Reports. I have one from a session I completed on Monday with Group II and I have another that is a cumulative from everything entered so far. The first is 4 pages, and the second is 12 pages. This could get to be fairly big. I’m trying to work ahead of myself a bit. I have one more session to record, but I’m finding that these things take a while. I’m pretty sure that I want to do 1 ½ hour sessions, but they still take time. I note so far that the DSPs are still self-conscious to having me in the room. It seems to be an extra stress. I had time and enthusiasm from Theresa to stay and go over the results, but I didn’t get that from Sue. I think I would like to do Kathy, and then Maria, and then Brandi on Friday. So far so good, but it takes a lot of time at least right now and I’m still not sure what the end results will mean.
I would like to think that the notes will become more intuitive after a while. For example if I see behaviors repeat, perhaps, I will be quicker on catching the antecedents of what are happening. I feel fairly comfortable with the distribution of notes being taken. I’m still counting on the DSPs to bring my attention to things that I may not be aware of. I would have never guessed that one client was being so “disobedient” and another client snuck the use of a calculator when doing an adding problem with measurement cups. Perhaps, it is natural not to be aware of everything at 100%.
Hmm, just went over them again … they seem to be going through at this beginning stage a lot of corrections. I just did a major overall of about 40 entries. They are almost all small tiny changes. I hate to call them mistakes, because only a few are typos, most is in the re-categorization of objects, such as saying (Blocks, large) instead of (Large blocks) – I saw that problem before, but it was too big and at the time I thought it too unwiley, but now it seems necessary before things get built out of shape. It’s still questionable as to labeling things by the object manipulated vs. what is being tested directly, but due to the general labeling of things by domain and program area, I think that is appropriate.
I was real pleased with what happened after the last days work – that was getting one set of sessions recorded. It was the longer of the two. I would like to put in the changes and the second set this morning. I realize I have other work to be doing too, but I see it as essential. Other stuff on the hot list right now is sorthing through my in-box and setting up a test for staff training in preparation for the state survey, I also have the goals and anuuals to complete and Qnotes for Candice – especially the one for Friday’s staffing. I still have meetings in-between and now these new reports.
I feel the reports pushing against me, because I’m trying to sort through – what am I going to do with all this knowledge? How am I going to use it productively? I didn’t pick it up the first time, but in Theresa’s group the behaviors were that much more noticeable. I would like to talk to Sr. about it, but I don’t want her to get over-excited. And, I don’t want to lose the DSPs good-will by taking everything into Sr.’s office. It’s hard to tell whether she would say something obviously constructive, or if she would blame the teachers – especially the weaker ones for not being able to control their rooms. The notes get grouped together by their lowest common denominator, so that it seems when someone, for example, is out of control – they are VERY out of control, but in truth it shows itself over the unwinding of an entire 1 ½ hours.
An example would be one client (Individual #1) who put her tooth brush in closet after 3 high prompts (slightly argumentative), did not respond to several DSP high prompts after a one hour lesson as to “What did you learn?” and was cranky when leaving after being highly prompted several times to leave including two intercom announcements. Another client (Individual #2) was also listed as having self-control issues such as being non-responsive in staying alert, having poor attention, being un-involved, picking at self, talking to peers, fiddling with personal items, playing with hair, etc. Or, there was a third example (Individual #3) who responded negatively by repeating after staff, guessing answers, not being accurate, laughing out of control, needing to be heavily coached, and giving learned responses rather than thinking through the question.
There were other positive things going on, but these in general stood out under the personal responsibility parts. I guess that would send me looking for again the common denominators. I placed Ind. #1 in a category of being resistant, and #2 & #3 as having self-control issues. I think it would be easiest then to address those issues. They are each “personal,” but I don’t think that means you can’t do something in a group. You could cut across the board and have sessions explicitly for following directions. I personally think that Ind. #1 was really trying to be helpful with her tooth brushing and had anticipated her turn by getting the brush and waiting at the door. But, for some reason the DSP thought it was a much more important issue that the brush stay in the closet and the Ind. not be waiting for her turn at the washroom. There was another problem of someone entering the bathroom before someone got out. In my mind I think of a small unobtrusive way of signaling that the washroom was in use.
I guess the generic way of doing it would be to knock, but then that wouldn’t take care of the part of waiting in turn. What comes to mind is developing a system of tags – they could be on little nails, but that would be damaging to the wall. So, then I was thinking of making little taped on pouches with their name on it. When you went into the bathroom, you could move your “card” to the second row of previously empty pouches. If you needed to go, but didn’t want to stand at the door, you could go up put your card marker in the second slot, on and on for anyone needing to use the washroom. If there got to be a pile-up – you might excuse people to the hall bathroom. When the person got out of the washroom, he would put his marker card back in its home slot. That way it would be up to the person on marker card #2 to use the washroom. She would move her card up to the “hot spot – the first space symbolizing she was actually in the washroom.
I think it would work, though it is rather labored. There would have to be a third line for people out in the hall – Maybe a female or male marker, but we would have to ask the policy to being out in the hall bathroom. No sense marking a space for it if it isn’t being used. Maybe you could decorate the cards toward seasonal events so that it didn’t look inappropriate on the wall. I don’t know I think we are at the point of needing to ask the staff what she is thinking. I would like to know what her washroom goals are. I certainly know that the individual who uses the washroom 6 times in 1 ½ hours has to be stopped. I think this would best be done by asking him point blank what he is doing in there … at this time he is being recorded as going in there, talking to himself, flushing the toilet, blowing nose, and not washing his hands. It seems there is a hoard of people not washing their hands and some that do are also washing their hair, and there are several people who are talking in there and that seems to be entertaining the group on the outside.
AHA! Using the washroom then isn’t such an easy simple thing to do. Takes planning and coordination. To be fair there are a lot of people coming in and out of there.
You can’t tell someone to not go, because you never know what there personal needs are. But, you could keep track of it and then tell the person’s Q. Maybe it should be asked of them if he has a physical problem that they might or should be aware of. It be a good idea to check patterns to see if it is happening at home and how it is happening. For sure though, the DSP isn’t aware how often it is happening.
She noted the behavior at what she thought was him going 3 times in a short period, but at the time, he had gone 5 times. That means that 40% of the time, she wasn’t aware of what he is doing. This isn’t a down against the instructor. There are a lot of things she’s trying to do while this person is getting up and down, such as “running a class!” That’s why its important to have an extra set of eyes in the room.
I think that has to be part of my role as a program director and staff trainer – too come to the DSP with suggestions on how to improve the individuals’ status across the board. Now that I’m thinking of it – I wonder. I’m checking the program to see if under the Notes section report – one could pull up something so that you could list remedies suggested. Maybe it would be the Q’s responsibility to to check on the ideas from the other Q’s. There has been such a stern line drawn between only dealing with your own clients that this is testing the waters.
Hmm, I was afraid of that – there is no way at this point that you can print the contents of the Notes section. That makes that part totally useless. Sheesh! Bad engineering … you can’t print out something you type in for instructions? I guess that means that leaves you with adding in by hand an intervention, or discussion of the event, but that is too much too track. I suppose you could do a formal one.
But, it’s going to be printed out each time. I suppose you could leave it in the Notes section, but then cut and paste it later. I don’t know I will have to think of that, but I do like the idea with showing evidence of working with problems, and it should be ok to do “under advisement from the other Q’s.”
BUT, for now it’s time to take a shower, so we can wake up Sweetie Pie. Better get going bbl!
Ok, shower is over … and Sweetie is up, through the washroom, and is making sandwiches. I have a few moments this morning, because we got dressed early and were up on time. I’m still thinking of the Report.
We could note:
Response – 2007/11/14 Chronological Notes 104 – 1 Personal – Personal Responsibility – behavior (Resistant) Antonella Villecorte - 2007/11/12
2) Talk to DSP – Theresa about general washroom etiquette and about suggestion to use seasonal card markers in library type envelope slips to mark who is in the bathroom and who is next up – include slips for use of hall bathroom if necessary – incorporate tooth brushing and waiting in line for going to the bathroom.
Response – 2007/11/14 Chronological Notes 104 – 1 Personal – Personal Responsibility – behavior (Resistant) Antonella Villecorte - 2007/11/12
1) Record Note to Q - Holly about being resistant and slightly argumentative given example of putting tooth brush in closet (3x), summary of lesson (high prompts), and mood when prompted to leave faster (high prompts).
Ok, ok … now we’re really over … got to go!
posted by Ann Marie @ 11/14/2007 06:54:00 AM
Comments: 0
