ALIST Spotlight--Jennifer Schmidt, Beavercreek High School

Did you know we have a couple of fabulous Professional Development sessions presented by our outstanding ALIST partners coming up in December? Our first session is brought to us by ALIST teacher Jennifer Schmidt from Beavercreek High School. To find out more about this session visit here: Peer-Mediated Programs to Support Social Competence for Students with Autism.

To learn more about Jennifer and the awesome things she is doing at Beavercreek High School you're in the right place because today we are featuring Jennifer in our ALIST Spotlight!

Jennifer has developed the Social Communications Class and the Social Communications Club at BHS. According to Jennifer's website, Social Communications Class is designed to help students learn to appropriately interact. In this class students learn topics such as trust, non-verbal communication, body basics, whole body listening, and how to maintain successful relationships.

In Jennifer's classroom there is evidence of the community Jennifer strives to create among her students. This is an important part of building trusting relationships and provides real-world opportunities for students to utilize the social skills they have learned in class. 

Picture wall for students to display pictures of them pushing themselves outside their comfort zone. 

Social Communications Club outings

Personal goal setting for each student

Peer Buddy assignments

Student quote wall

Jennifer also pulls from a variety of curriculums and skills to develop a focus for which social skills to focus on in class. She uses several types of visual cues throughout her room to help students remember what they have learned and to introduce new concepts. 

Jennifer's daughter even contributes with a daily question each morning!

Visual cues are also used to help students remember assignments and to signal students of a schedule change.

To see more of the fun Jennifer and her students are having visit them on social media!

 

Around Town Round Up-- Transitions

Transitions are difficult for many students with autism. Therefore, we always emphasize with the teams we coach the importance of having transition supports that can help students better understand the expectations and can prime them for this difficult task. Today's Around Town Round Up will feature some of our favorite transition supports.

One of our go-to supports is the Visual Countdown. A visual countdown can help prepare the student cognitively and emotionally for the upcoming change or expectation. The Countdown is used as a visual aide for the student. As the adult anticipates an upcoming transition, the adult begins the countdown by placing a picture of the upcoming activity at the bottom of the countdown. As the transition time approaches, the adult removes the numbers, beginning with 5 and progressing on down until the transition picture is reached. The unique aspect of the visual countdown is that the adult maintains control of the timetable, whereas with a visual timer, the time elapses on its own from the fixed increments of mechanical movement in the timer. Thus, the visual countdown allows more control and flexibility for the adult facilitating the transition.  When using the Countdown, we suggest that teams use this tool to transition to preferred activities and non-preferred tasks.  If it is only used to transition to a non-preferred task then the student will develop a negative reaction to the tool.  

Large Class-wide Countdown
Jared Taylor
Simon Kenton Elementary, Springfield

Arrow Countdown
Leslie Mann
Smith MS, Vandalia-Butler

Countdowns velcro'd to door to cue staff to take when leaving classroom

Countdown on paint stirrer

Countdown on ruler
Robbie Whorton
Trotwood-Madison HS, Trotwood

Countdown spinner

The Visual Countdown is a great tool to help students with waiting. In addition to this support we have seen great use of a "waiting chair" to give students a visual and physical boundary of where they should be when waiting to leave the classroom or if they enter between class periods. 

Individual wait chairs with busy bins underneath for each student
Rachel Hatton
Normandy Elementary, Centerville

Tabitha Eaton
Main Elementary, Beavercreek

Top:
Kendall Koehler
Normandy Elementary, Centerville

Bottom:
Greene INC

Some students may not need the physical prompt of a chair but may still benefit from a visual support to help them know where to wait when lining up with the class for a transition. 

Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Our team Speech and Language Pathologist, Carol Dittoe, has also created a great support for students learning to wait. Carol's Wait Card support provides a visual and 4 simple strategies that students can be directly taught to help them with waiting. 

Regulation Rendezvous-- Heavy Work Jobs and Activities.

Many of our students with autism need proprioceptive input embedded throughout their school day to help them feel calm and regulated. One of our favorite ways to embed this input is through the use of proactively scheduled heavy work jobs and activities. Today's Regulation Rendezvous will focus on some of our favorites that we have seen.

Many of the heavy work jobs we see in schools are used during transitions. Students may deliver heavy materials to a designated location such as reams of paper or cartons of books. Other jobs include pushing or pulling a weighted cart from one location to another.

Example of weighted grocery cart
Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Example of Weighted Pusher
Robbie Whorton
Trotwood-Madison HS, Trotwood 

Tubs filled with recess equipment
Greenmont Elementary

Using a wheeled chair or scooterboard can also provide heavy work input as students propel themselves to their next location.

Scooterboard with back
Tabitha Eaton
Main Elementary, Beavercreek

Some heavy work activities can take place in a designated location. This is especially helpful in instances where students cannot transition independently and staff is not available for a transition job. 

We love this example from Colleen Williams at From the Inside Out and More. Detergent bottles are filled with rice and students can sequence them based on the numbers attached.  

https://fromtheinsideoutandmore.com/

In this example, students sort covered encyclopedias by color.

Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Some students enjoy completing functional tasks like crushing cans using this can-pactor.

Tracy Click
Dixie Elementary, New Lebanon

Students can also benefit from a heavy work warm up before completing an academic task. A weighted ball toss is a great way to warm up. Students can recite the alphabet or practice skip counting.

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Upcoming PD Session: Peer-Mediated Programs to Support Social Competence for Students with Autism

Peer-Mediated Programs to Support Social Competence for Students with Autism

When is it?

• December 8th from 9:00am-11:30am

Where is it?

• Miami Valley Regional Center 4801 Springfield Street, Dayton, OH 45431 in Room 300

Who should attend?

• Professionals working with students with autism including but not limited to intervention specialists, paraprofessionals, psychologists, counselors, general education teachers, and special education supervisors.

What should participants expect?

• Students with ASD present with unique needs that often are not fully addressed through the provision of traditional classroom accommodations.  Without proper support, these students can find high school lonely and frustrating.  Non-academic difficulties can also cause college students to leave or be dismissed from college due to difficulties with social skills, navigating the academic environment, living independently, etc.  This session, presented by Jennifer Schmidt (BHS) and Heather Rando (WSU) will discuss the coaching models that Beavercreek High School and Wright State University use to support students with ASD, as well as steps you can take to support this population. Learning outcomes of this session include: 

1. Identify and understand the unique needs students with ASD experience in high school and college.
2. Identify strategies that can be used in working with students with ASD, and next steps toward implementing an autism support program in your setting. 
3. Understand the coaching models developed at Beavercreek High School and at Wright State University, and how they are implemented.

How much does it cost to attend?

• The cost is FREE to all districts who have already signed up for Miami Valley Autism Coaching Team services for the 2017-2018 school year. 

How do I sign up?

• Contact our secretary Mary Fryman at mary.fryman@mcesc.org or (937) 236-9965 to register

Upcoming PD Session: Strategies for Teaching Emotional and Behavioral Self-Management

Strategies for Teaching Emotional and Behavioral 

Self-Management

When is it?

• December 8th from 12:30-3:00pm

Where is it?

• Miami Valley Regional Center 4801 Springfield Street, Dayton, OH 45431 in Room 300

Who should attend?

• Professionals working with students with social-emotional and behavioral needs including but not limited to intervention specialists, paraprofessionals, psychologists, counselors, general education teachers, and special education supervisors.

What should participants expect?

• The MAAP (Making Actions and Attitudes Positive) Team from Vandalia-Butler School District will be presenting their inclusion program. They will be discussing strategies about emotional and behavioral self-management for an elementary and middle school inclusion setting.  They plan to address the following strategies from Zones of Regulation, SuperFlex: A Superhero Social Thinking, Socially Skilled Kids, and The Kid Whisperer.  They will also share Evidenced Based Practices that apply to the MAAP Program.  Participants will be able to discuss situational concerns within their own discipline. Finally, we will offer hands-on time to practice and apply the strategies that were taught. 

How much does it cost to attend?

• The cost is FREE to all districts who have already signed up for Miami Valley Autism Coaching Team services for the 2017-2018 school year. 

How do I sign up?

• Contact our secretary Mary Fryman at mary.fryman@mcesc.org or (937) 236-9965 to register

Organization Station-- Collecting Data

When we are out in our districts, many teams are curious about how to collect data. We have seen a variety of different systems and find that different approaches work for different teams. In today's Organization Station, we will be focusing on different methods for collecting data to hopefully give our readers some ideas!

To hold data, many teams have clipboards for each student. They may have multiple pages of data for different areas or all of the student's goals may be listed on one page. This is a great system especially if the data needs to travel with the student to be tracked in various locations.

Example of Multiple Goals on One Sheet
Laura Brown
Perrin Woods Elementary, Springfield

Example of One Goal Per Sheet
Laurie Maravetz
Schaefer Middle School, Springfield 

Example of Scatter Plot Behavior Data
Lisa Bauer
Northmont Middle School, Northmont

Other teams use binders to hold all of the student's important information and data.

Rachel Hatton
Normandy Elementary, Centerville

Many binder systems also incorporate color-coding to make the system easily accessible to grab what is needed at first glance.

Jennifer Jette
Vandalia-Butler High School, Vandalia-Butler

Carrie Prickett
Jane Chance Elementary, Miamisburg

The Intervention Specialist on our team, Allison Officer, also used binders for each student. A quick overview of her binder system is below:

Cover

Communication Log for staff members to share notes and request additional data sheets

The front of each binder included any important documents for staff to reference as needed. The IEP at a Glance was a great tool for reminding staff what the goals and objectives for each student were to keep in mind when working on skills and taking data.

IEP at a Glance

If the student had additional important documents such as a medical or behavior plan those were included next:

Medical Plan and Behavior Plan Flowchart

Then, there was a section for each academic area covered on the IEP. Each section had a binder tab pocket for work samples. These work samples were sent home at the end of each quarter with the student's progress report. Behind each tab, were the progress monitoring sheets specific to each skill being monitored. 

On the back cover of each binder, Allison included a cheatsheet providing more information about the student in an informal way. This was a great resource for new staff members or substitutes. 

At the end of each quarter, work samples would be collected to go home and data sheets were collected for the data to be tallied. Allison stapled the completed data sheets to a cover page each quarter. These packets were saved as the students educational records. The cover sheet helped organize the progress report process and provided a place to record any information to share with classroom and related service staff members. 

Also keep in mind that data collection doesn't need to be complicated! Below we have featured some of our favorite simple sheets:

This teams data sheet is a copy of the student's sensory folder. Staff circles each icon if the student chooses that sensory support. The data is used to determine the student's sensory preferences.

Lisa Bauer
Northmont Middle School, Northmont

This team also collects data on how often a student attempts or refuses to engage in adult-directed tasks. This simple list system makes calculating percentages for each day easy!

Lisa Bauer
Northmont Middle School, Northmont

Here is another great example of an IEP at a Glance. We love this single page format and simple breakdown of objectives.

Brian Frimel