Jami Shlensky Phase 3 Managing the Learning Environment Reflection

"Blurts" over Time

60 50 40 30 20 "Blurts" over Time 10 0 10/11 Math 10/16 Math 10/21 Math 10/28 Math 10/31 Math 11/14 Math 9/12 Math (Baseline) 9/16 Math (Baseline) 11/19 Math

10/14 ELA

10/29 ELA

11/12 ELA

9/25 ELA

10/1 ELA

10/4 ELA

10/9 ELA

11/1 ELA

9/30 Math

10/3 Math

10/8 Math

11/5 Math

11/6 ELA

10/17 ELA

10/22 ELA

11/8 Math

In order to reduce the amount of times that a student engaged in verbal outbursts in a given period of class, I implemented a self-monitoring system that allowed the student to work towards a reward after ten instances of meeting criterion for the number of blurts he engaged in. Overall, the program was extremely successful. The blurts during baseline ranged between 31 and 54 in a class period. After the system was implemented the amount of verbal outbursts that the student exhibited dropped tremendously. However, they soon rose again and then declined at a fairly steady rate to where they are now.

11/15 ELA

In order to create this decline I lowered the criterion by ten blurts every time a reinforcer was given after ten class sessions below that given number. Eventually we were down to a criterion of 3 blurts per class session and I had to change the criterion for reinforcement delivery after 3 blurts in a day, which is two class sessions. MG responded and continues to respond extremely well to this intervention. He is self aware of when he is talking out and can control his desire to speak out of turn. I believe that Ms desire to work towards a reward contributed to the dramatic success of this intervention. The student enjoys making progress and feeling successful. As a result he worked hard to control his blurts. One limitation to this intervention is that when the verbal outbursts were extremely prevalent it was distracting to have MG mark his blurt chart. In the future this could be mitigated by the teacher marking the blurts; however this would eliminate the selfmonitoring. One other limitation was that M got slightly affected by receiving a blurt and would get upset when told to mark one. He would then argue about marking his chart. In order to mitigate the issue in the future I should incorporate some sort of contingency if the student refuses to mark the blurt. An example would be that upon refusal the student must receive and extra blurt. Overall the intervention was extraordinarily successful and helped the student manage his own behavior! He is very happy and gave a personal anecdote about how his control makes him feel proud as a student!