Work Update

Despite all of the progress we were making, my student's behavior has started slipping further off the rails in the past couple of weeks.  He is still going to classes, although we are having to leave the room a lot more.  Across the board, he has started acting up more: using profanity, inappropriate conversations, getting angry, hitting the desk, kicking chairs, etc.

Some of his behavior is connected to his Tourette's, and I suspect his Autism as well (although to a lesser extent).  Some of his behavior is linked to the one time he was bullied by a student a couple of weeks ago (every other student in our program is treating him with compassion and trying to include him).  He now feels more students are either trying to bully him or want to bully him, although at this point, it is purely his perception (no actual bullying that I have noticed).

Some of this behavior is his reaction to watching so many other students misbehave, which is to be expected in a program for students with behavior disorders.  He not only feels it is disrespectful and annoying, but he is also frustrated at the fact that he has someone who is with him at all times telling him not to misbehave when he acts up, while none of the other students have someone.  I can understand his frustration there.  But he honestly thinks that other students do not get into trouble when they misbehave.  We at the program have to remind him that a) they do get into trouble, although we may not correct there behavior at every single moment of the day and b) these students have their own set of issues they are dealing with, so not to hold it against them.  

Up to this point, my student has taken classes largely with a group of students whose misbehavior is more severe than other students in the program, so that does not help him.  These other students that have classes with him also tend to have behaviors more related to conduct disorders, rather than similar disorders to what my student has (Autism, Mental Illness, Tourette's).  The program director has switched around his classes so that he will spend more time with student's whose behaviors are less reoccurring throughout the day.  While this move was necessary, I am slightly skeptical that he will do that much better, as he is still spending a great amount of time around students with ongoing behavior problems.  All I can do at this point is continue to work with him, and hope for the best.

On a positive note, my student has been spending a lot of time playing basketball with other students in the program, which he looks forward to doing everyday whenever we have free time.  He has difficulty with fine motor skills, so he has some trouble shooting and dribbling the ball.  But the other students that play with him have been very patient, and have done a great job at getting him the ball, letting him shoot, and not saying anything when he double-dribbles.