Haley Wilde

EDPS 688
March 2017
Consultation Summary One
Background Information
The following problem solving consultation was conducted with Mrs. Smith*. Mrs. Smith is a
general education classroom math teacher at ABC Middle School. In response to an email
announcement about the availability of consultation made by the schools special education
coordinator, Mrs. Smith contacted the school psychology student clinician in order to seek help
for a male student in one of her math classes. The student for whom Mrs. Smith was seeking help
with was Jim*, a 12-year-old, sixth grade, Caucasian male. The consultation coincided with the
behavioral intervention for which Jim also received through the school psychology student
clinician. Jim was considered for a behavioral intervention due to his difficulty with
forgetfulness, responsibility, and preparedness in his sixth grade math class. Jim did not have an
individualized education plan, but had a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
that the teacher and school were aware of and had on record. The parent and teacher reported Jim
was taking prescription medication for his ADHD, but had been undergoing type and dosage
adjustments the last two months. Mrs. Smith expressed concern about Jims decreasing math
grade. The problem solving consultation was conducted in tandem with the behavioral
intervention for Jim. Informed consent was received from Jims mother before the consultation
sessions and intervention began. Mrs. Smith provided assent to the consultation process.
Consultation sessions began on February 24th at 7:30am. Follow up sessions were intended to
take place every other week until Jims behavioral intervention plan was determined to be
effective and stable.

*De-Identified
Consultation Purpose/Reason for Referral
Mrs. Smith expressed concern about Jims grades. She reported Jims problem behaviors
were not being prepared for class, forgetting to bring materials to class, and not turning in
homework. Mrs. Smith reported Jim would occasionally lose focus, however, also mentioned he
was one of the better behaved students in class. Mrs. Smith reported that while Jim displayed a
number of problem behaviors, her primary concern was his lack of responsibility and
preparedness. She essentially desired to help him be more responsible and increase the rate of
which he turned in his homework.
Mrs. Smith reported that she was notified Jim had his medication changed in the last
several months and that it had helped his alertness during class, but had not necessarily helped
with being prepared. She also reported that Jims mother had come in to talk to her before about
how Jim could improve his math grade. Mrs. Smith reported Jims mother wanted him to
communicate his own concerns about math class and converse with the teacher about how he
could do better. Mrs. Smith reported that she, Jim, and his mother talked about him needing to be
more prepared for class. Their discussion resulted in Jim bringing in a large box of pencils to
leave in the teachers classroom so that he had them there in case he forgot to bring one to class.
While this had somewhat solved Jims problem of not being prepared with a writing utensil, Mrs.
Smith reported he continued to forget his homework and receive poor grades because of it. With
all of this in consideration, Mrs. Smith thought an intervention would be appropriate to help Jim
with his preparedness for class, specifically for turning in his homework to improve his grade.
Overall, the purpose of this consultation was to design and implement a behavioral intervention
that would help Jim be prepared for Mrs. Smiths class and with his homework submission rates.

Consultation Goals
The goal of this consultation was to create an intervention plan for Jim that would be
implemented and improve his performance in Mrs. Smiths math class. Overall, the established
goal was to increase Jims preparedness for class and increase his rate of turning in his
homework. The goal was to be met through the problem-solving/behavioral consultation model
in which Mrs. Smith and the school psychology student clinician would collaborate to design and
implement the plan for Jim in Mrs. Smiths math class. A problem-solving theoretical model was
selected for this consultation due to the situations focus on the students behavior, rather than the
teachers. It should be noted that the teacher was pregnant at the time of the consultation and the
emphasis of the consultation was on improving the students behavior in the most feasible way
possible, while still consulting with the teacher. While the student clinician would be responsible
for designing and implementing the intervention, Mrs. Smith would be responsible for helping
with implementation, reinforcement, and providing the student clinician with Jims homework
grades regularly.

Consultation Meetings
The initial consultation interview also served as the initial interview for Jims behavioral
intervention. Questions that were asked and discussed included: describing the student,
describing the students target problem behavior, when the behavior most typically occurs, when
the behavior does not occur, the duration of the behavior, frequency of the behavior, whether or
not the behavior is associated with certain tasks or activities, when the behavior is worst, what
kind of consequences are secondary to the behavior, why Mrs. Smith thinks the behavior occurs,
any past attempts or solutions for improving the behavior, strengths identified for the student,
and finally, what goals might be feasible and set for the consultation and intervention. Through
these questions and elaborations that followed, the school psychology student clinician and Mrs.
Smith completed a comprehensive and productive initial interview.

Mrs. Smith described her goals for the consultation was to improve her Jims responsibility and
increase his overall preparedness for class. She wanted to see him bring a pencil and his
materials to class every day, bring his homework to class and/or submit it properly online when it
was due, as well as remember to record what his homework for the next class was before leaving
math class. Mrs. Smith discussed the fact that Jim had a diagnosis of Attention Deficit-
Hyperactivity Disorder and that she had been in contact with Jims mother throughout the school
year. Mrs. Smiths discussions with Jims mother typically revolved around his grades, difficulty
with remembering materials, difficulty with turning in homework, and what he could do to
improve his performance in math. Mrs. Smith said their discussion resulted in Jim bringing in a
large box of pencils to leave in the classroom so that he had them there in case he forgot to bring
one to class. While this had somewhat solved Jims problem of not being prepared with a pencil
for class, Mrs. Smith reported he continued to forget his homework and receive poor grades
because of it. Mrs. Smith also said Jim was an obedient student and never gave her difficulty
with disruptiveness, listening, or following directions. While he occasionally required redirection
and lacked responsibility for materials and homework, he was a well-behaved student in the
classroom. Mrs. Smith described Jims behavior as tolerable, but could use the help if it was
being offered. Through the initial interview, and behavioral intervention interview, a problem-
solving model was used to come up with an intervention to increase the rate of which Jim was
prepared for class with his homework. Collaboratively, the school psychology student clinician
and Mrs. Smith decided on the use of a visual cue in the form of a checklist chart would be the
best strategy to implement for Jim. Mrs. Smith provided the student clinician with Jims
homework grades from power school from the past month (four weeks) to serve as baseline data.

Following the decision to use a checklist for Jim, the school psychology clinician and Mrs. Smith
met again for a mid-phase consultation meeting the following week to discuss the use of the
checklist and discuss implementation. It was decided that Jim would receive one checklist to
hang in his locker and one to keep in his binder on a weekly basis and would receive a new set of
checklists with each week. The checklist would ask Jim if he has his materials including his
pencil, iPad, and notebook. It also would ask him if he has his homework done and ready to be
turned in. The last portion of the checklist would ask Jim if he had written down the math
homework assignment for that evening before leaving to go home. Jim was instructed to mark
the chart with yes and no where it is appropriate, according to his preparedness and
remembering to record his homework. The school psychology clinician would be responsible for
providing Jim with new checklists at the start of each week and obtaining power school grades
from Mrs. Smith for progress monitoring. Mrs. Smith would be responsible for checking Jims
checklist use, providing praise, and allowing Jim to have his small reward at the end of the week
with proper use of the checklist. Mrs. Smith agreed to check on Jims checklist use twice per
week, once at the start of the week and once at the end of the week. Praise was to be provided for
his use of the checklist, preparedness for class, and homework submission. It was discussed that
when Jim uses the checklist efficiently and submitted his work, he would be provided with a
small reward of his choice at the end of his math class on Fridays. It was decided that the small
reward would most likely be gum or an iPad privilege. A treatment integrity checklist was
discussed and provided to Mrs. Smith to use when checking Jims checklist and homework
submission in order to decide if he would receive his reinforcement at the end of the week.

The school psychology student clinician and Mrs. Smith met to discuss the implementation of
the checklist and Jims response to the intervention. Mrs. Smith reported she thought Jim had
turned in more homework than usual and reported that she allowed him extra time on his iPad
the previous two Fridays. Mrs. Smith reported she forgot to use the treatment integrity checklist
when checking Jims checklist and homework. The used checklists were not collected from Jim,
so data on Jims use of the yes and no columns of each checklist was not recorded. This was
discussed and for feasibility, it was decided that the intervention would move forward with data
collection focusing on Jims homework submission rates, rather than checking of the yes and no
columns. The school psychology clinician and Mrs. Smith discussed using a new treatment
integrity checklist for her to use that would account for the checking of his grades every week
and whether or not the incentive was provided at the end of the week. Mrs. Smith also provided
Jims updated homework grades from the power school system for the last two weeks, which
demonstrated that he had turned in more than fifty percent of his homework consecutively since
the implementation of the intervention.

The next meeting was also deemed as the termination consultation session, however, the
intervention would continue on for the next several weeks. Mrs. Smith agreed to meet with the
school psychology student clinician as needed as the intervention continued. Mrs. Smith reported
that she did not think Jim was using one of the checklists intended for his binder, which was later
confirmed by the school psychology clinician upon meeting with the student. Mrs. Smith
expressed some frustration with the difficulty of remembering to use the treatment integrity
checklist in tandem with the power school grades in order to provide Jim with a reward at the
end of the week if he earned it. There appeared to be stress related to ISTEP testing and the
business of teaching in general; additionally, Mrs. Smith was pregnant. The student clinician
thanked her for her time, patience, and cooperation, and that it was greatly appreciated. The
school psychology student clinician and Mrs. Smith talked about the disorganized nature of using
too many checklists, and how the intervention could use to be better simplified to help Jim
remember his homework and materials, but require less paper and procedural steps. Since this
was determined to be the termination session, it was decided that the school psychology clinician
would take over the duties that Mrs. Smith fulfilled as it continued, but as mentioned previously,
Mrs. Smith agreed to meet to discuss Jims progress as needed. Mrs. Smith also agreed to
continue to provide Jims updated homework grades for the purpose of progress monitoring.

Consultation Evaluation
Overall, this problem-solving modeled consultation was challenging, for both the school
psychology student clinician and the teacher consultee. Although the intervention was still being
implemented at the time of the current consultation write up, the consultation/intervention
demonstrated effectiveness upon implementation, but that improvement regressed in the
following weeks. As the data shows, Jims percentage of homework submitted per week
increased substantially during the first week of the intervention. While there were a slew of
issues to be addressed by the consultant and consultee, including the checklist itself, treatment
integrity checklists, and difficulty with organization, it is unclear why Jims progress regressed in
the weeks following initial implementation. Despite the regression and termination of
consultation, the student clinician will take all of the data collected into account as the
intervention continues. The ineffectiveness demonstrated thus far will help to guide the student
clinician in seeing that the intervention is modified to fit the needs of the student.

Although the intervention itself was not the most cohesive and organized to implement for the
student clinician and Mrs. Smith, it was undeniable that the rapport established between the
consultant and consultee was good. Mrs. Smith was dealing with the stress of pregnancy and a
busy month of state testing, and this was acknowledged and respected by the student clinician
every meeting. I would identify rapport as the strength for this consultation, and implementation
organization as a weakness. The roles for the student clinician and Mrs. Smith were discussed
and established, but not properly executed throughout the consultation process. Overall, this
created some disorganization and confusion, which may have had a negative influence on the
effectiveness of the consultation. As mentioned previously, these considerations will all be noted
and utilized in the continuation of the behavioral intervention. Despite the fact that the problem-
solving consultation was not entirely successful in regards to the intervention implementation,
the collaborative nature and establishment of a good professional relationship with a teacher
were successful.

Baseline Data & Progress Monitoring

The graphed data includes Jims percentage of homework submitted per week. The first four
weeks demonstrate the four weeks prior to beginning consultation and the intervention
implementation. The following weeks demonstrate the percentage of homework submitted by
Jim per week, with the exception of spring break, which no data was recorded for. It is apparent
that the initial implementation resulted in an increase in percentage, but then regressed for the
weeks following.
Checklist Original Version

My Math
Checklist
M T W TH F
BEFORE CLASS Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N

Do I have a pencil?

Do I have my iPad?

Do I have my
binder/notebook?

Do I have my
homework to turn in?

AFTER CLASS M T W TH F
Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N

Did I write down what

my homework is for
tonight?