Assignment One: Case Study & Advocacy Letter Shannon Crispe: S00171740

Child Name: Letitia D.O.B. Age: 4 yrs 11

02/12/2010 months
Parker
Special Characteristics: Letitia has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), a behaviour disorder characterized by a persistent
pattern of inattention, impulsive and hyperactive (ORegan, 2010). It is
prevalent in 8% of the child population (Shattell, Barrlett, & Rowe, 2008).

Program Support Group Members consulted in devising this plan:

Throughout Letitias time at Rose Kindergarten, we have worked

collaboratively with her parents. To elaborate, we often help the parents
foster her learning outside of the kindergarten, as well as the parents
helping us. Working collaboratively meant that we could help promote
family involvement in education at home (Mauntone, Lefler & Power,
2011).

We also with a specialists team that aid us in fostering Letitias learning.

They assist us in providing different ways in which we can do this. We
have worked in partnership together to provide each other with
information on Letitia and identifying her improvements within her own
learning.

Background/General information

Gender: Female

Cultural Background: Australian

Family Language: English

Family: Mother, Father, two sisters and two brothers.


Rose Kindergarten
Shannon Crispe
Educator Director
13 Princess Road Sassafras, Victoria, 3787
Phone: 0412 123 124 E-Mail: crispe.rose_kindergarten@hotmail.com
Web: www.rosekindergarten.com

Housing: Renting a three-bedroom house in the eastern suburbs of

victoria.

Health: Good. Letitias parents make sure that she attends check-ups
and specialist appointments on a regular basis.

Socioeconomic status: Low-Middle.

Neighbourhood: Letitia and her family live in a neighbourhood with

friendly and welcoming people. Their neighbours often help Letitias
mum around the house so that she can stay on top of things.

Extra curriculum: Letitia loves to dance and create routines that will
explicitly display an emotion she feels at that current time. Her mother
would often describe her as a girl, who doesnt know how to sit still.

NEURODEVELOPMENTAL CONSTRUCTS

Attention: Poor. Letitia has a short attention span and is unable to

concentrate for long periods of time.

Memory: Average. Poor executive or self-regulatory processes may

implicate Letitias memory performance (Castel, Lee, Humphreys &
Moore, 2011). To elaborate, she may not be able to decode information
to her fullest capacity.

Language: Good. Letitia can English speaking using sophisticated

language. She is often fluent within her speech but sometimes finds to
hard to comprehend others.

Spatial Ordering: Good. Letitia can distinguish between spatial

 Assignment One: Case Study & Advocacy Letter Shannon Crispe: S00171740

configurations, such as a triangle and square. Moreover, Letitia can

listen to the music and know which dance move she will do next.

Social cognition: Average. Letitia deficits in perception of emotional

prosody and faces in children and adults with ADHD (Uekermann,
Kraemer, Abdel-Hamid, Schimmelmann, Hebebrand, Daum, Wiltfang &
Kis, 2010). In addition, she has in insufficiencies in facial affect
recognition.

Higher-order cognition: Good. Letitia is able to critical think about a

book/picture, and provide reasons upon her ideas and opinion.

Holistic Curriculum:

Skills, strengths and competencies (areas to celebrate, with

assessment data)

Letitia constructs dance routines that are creative and unique. She
communicates well with her classmates in groups and in open-ended
play experiences. In addition, she can independently express her
opinions and thoughts with others in the classroom.

Challenges (areas to support, with assessment data)

Letitia has the inability to control her activity levels at times. She often
struggles to concentrate for long periods of times and will begin to
misbehave and distract others when she loses attention.

Learning Priorities (future learning goals and targets)

For future learning, I believe it is important that Letitia has individual

goals that she works towards. Monitoring these goals and administrating
rewards upon successful completion (Daley & Birchwood, 2009).
Focusing on place Letitia at the classroom will also help you monitor her
behaviour.

Rose Kindergarten
Shannon Crispe
Educator Director
13 Princess Road Sassafras, Victoria, 3787
Phone: 0412 123 124 E-Mail: crispe.rose_kindergarten@hotmail.com
Web: www.rosekindergarten.com

Date: 12/10/14

Elsa Jones (Foundation Teacher)

Orchid Primary School

45 Princess Road

Ferny Creek, Victoria, 3786

Re: The transition of Letitia Parker to Orchid Primary School

Dear Miss Elsa Jones: Foundation Class Teacher of Orchid Primary School,

My name is Shannon Crispe, and Im the director at Rose Kindergarten. I am

pleased to be writing to you in regards to Letitia Parker, who will be attending your
class at Orchid Primary School next year. As Letitias current teacher, I am writing to
you to follow through on her transition from kindergarten to foundation year. Over the
last two years, I have had the privilege of being Letitias educator at Rose
Kindergarten. Letitia is bright, confident girl, who unfortunately was diagnosed with
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She was diagnosed after appearing
to have low activity and concentration levels. She has a short attention span, easily
distracted and can be hyperactive during class time. Taking into account Letitias
additional needs, we still regard Letitia as a confident, capable and a strong learner.
Likewise, many theorists (Dewey, Erikson, Piaget, Vygotsky, Montessori & Biber)
guided us to perceive all children as resourceful, curious and capable (Fraser, as
cited in Gillman, 2009).

Letitia is an enthusiastic student who always brings something new to the classroom.
With regards to this, in our kindergarten, we have been steered by the Reggio Emilia
approach that all children are integral part of learning (Schroeder-Yu, 2008). Keeping
this in mind, our kindergarten approached Letitias parents and specialist in ways we
could encourage her learning. In partnership with each other, we established a set of
 Assignment One: Case Study & Advocacy Letter Shannon Crispe: S00171740

individual goals for Letitia. To illustrate, if Letitia can complete a small task without
becoming distracted, she would be rewarded with a sticker for her chart. I felt that is
it important to monitor these goals and administer rewards upon successful
completion (Daley & Birchwood, 2009). Having experienced this first hand, we
believed it became challenging for Letitia to concentrate in a classroom that was
filled with distracting stimulis. Therefore, we established a space in which Letitia
could go to, when she was feeling hyperactive. This would give Letitia time to calm
down and then allow her to join the group when she felt that she was ready. It is
concluded that working alongside Letitia, I was able to learn from her and she was
able to learn from me (Forman & Aruther-Kelly, 2014).

Much like any other child, Letitia shares many experiences and challenges within her
learning. Similarly, Letitia can contribute to a group discussion by expressing her
own opinions and ideas. In our kindergarten, we have been driven by the Victorian
curriculum (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2005) that every child is
entitled to a quality education and the opportunity to succeed with or without a
special need (p.6). To incorporate Letitias active behaviour into the classroom, an
approach we applied in the classroom was small group work activities. I found it
astonishing that having Letitia work in small groups or one-on-one time, meant the
educator could stay persistent with her, keeping eye contact with her and allowing
her to make meaningful learning experiences.

Within our centre, our duty as an educator is to scaffold the classroom activities so
that all children are able to build on their existing knowledge and skills to enhance
their learning (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and
Council of Australian Governments, 2009). Similarly, I have tried to incorporate
Letitias interest for dancing and music into the classroom. For instance, I found that
drawing on her interests meant that she could concentrate for longer periods of time.

Having the pleasure of teaching Letitia Parker over the last two years means that I
am confident that she is ready for school. In our kindergarten, we worked closely
with her and her family in ways that we could provide the best opportunity for her. I
feel that implementing some of these strategies that I have mentioned above would
be beneficial for Letitia transitions into primary school. I believe that Letitia is just as
capable and resilient as all other children. All children have the capacity to succeed,
regardless of their diverse circumstances and abilities (Forster, Davies, Skeat &

Rose Kindergarten
Shannon Crispe
Educator Director
13 Princess Road Sassafras, Victoria, 3787
Phone: 0412 123 124 E-Mail: crispe.rose_kindergarten@hotmail.com
Web: www.rosekindergarten.com

Luscombe, 2013). Children with a disability should share universal rights with all
people (Forster, et al., 2013).

Attached are two readings on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that I
have found very helpful on understanding more about the additional need and in
ways you can create inclusion for children with ADHD.

Managing ADHD in children: Are you doing enough? (Withrow, Hash &
Holten, 2011).
Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adolescents (Feldman
& Reiff, 2014).

If you have any questions or need more information, you may contact me at: 0412
123 124

Sincerely

Shannon Crispe

Director

Rose Kindergarten