Work Update: End of the Semester

I still have technically a few more days before my winter break begins, but my main paraprofessional duty has been completed until 2012.  The student I am assigned to has finished his finals, and has begun his winter break early.  This week, I will finish up my last few days at work with my supervising teacher by helping to babysit the remaining students we have, and helping her get grades caught up and her classroom ready for second semester.  For all intense and purposes, the first semester has come to a close for me.

The last time I talked about my student, he had begun to make immense progress in his behavior and going to class, but he was starting to slip.  His inappropriate behavior, as well as his anger and aggressiveness got even worse proceeding that post.  He ended up having a melt-down one day during class, and ended up getting suspended.  Partially, his behavior worsened because of his disabilities, but he was also becoming frustrated with many of the students he was surrounded by.  We ended up changing his schedule to make sure he was in classes with more well-mannered students (relatively speaking) who were more likely influence his behavior in a positive manner.  I knew the effects of this change would not fully alter his negative behaviors (and they haven't), but they have helped decrease them. 

With the way the first few weeks of class were going, I was amazed if I would ever get him to go to even 3 or 4 classes.  In addition, he was taking long naps everyday that could last up to two hours, and it was pretty much guaranteed he would go off on a tangent of profanity and confrontation with me and other adults that sometimes lasted up to an additional two hours.  With a little work (as well as a change in medication by his parents and doctors), he is now going to all of his classes now, at least partially participates in classes, and almost never sleeps anymore.  As I mentioned, he still has times where he becomes angry and profane, but it is a lot less frequent.

Before he finished up his finals, I sat down and had a conversation with him.  I made it clear that I am so proud of all the progress he has made since he first entered our program.  But I also made it clear that my expectations for him have drastically gone up, and my willingness to give him negative consequences would increase when negative behaviors take place.  I explained that we would be doing him a disservice as educators by not doing this because we are trying to prepare him to deal with the real world.  If his boss comes up at work, for instance, and tells him he needs to be doing something, and he cusses his boss out, that is obviously not going to end well.  My student seemed to understand where I was coming from, and respected what was being said.  For me, working with this student it is always challenging, and almost never boring.  But it has been a pleasure to have been given this assignment, and I cannot wait to see what second semester has in store for me.

Work Update

Great news since the last time I wrote about work. The student I am working with has made a few adjustments in his medication, which in turn has changed the way he behaves as school.  He is now going to all of his classes, and on an everyday.  In addition, he is getting all of his work done (with very few modifications), and he doesn't take naps anymore.  He also seems to be fitting in well in all his classes.  He participates in an appropriate manner, and most of his peers seems to be treating him with respect and trying to incorporate him into the lessons.   We did have one incident where he was being bullied, but this was promptly dealt with, and hasn't reoccurred since.  He still goes home and deals with his own issues of misbehavior there, but even that has greatly improved from where he was.

We have, however, started running into one major problem regarding peer interactions.  Since my student has began to really find his comfort level in his classes, he is trying harder than ever to fit in with some of the "cool kids".  This includes mimicking the inappropriate language and topics of conversation that he hears.  Such misbehavior is normal in just about any secondary education setting, but it is especially prevalent in programs for students with behavior disorders.  When we confront him about this behavior, his response is that he feels other students are allowed to get away with it, so why shouldn't he?  We try to explain to him that those other students do not get away with it, even though we might not go up to them and tell them to stop it immediately the way we do to him.
 
I suppose mimicking such behavior wouldn't be such a big deal if the student I was working with could stop himself like other students.  But one of the disabilities he has are Torrette-like-symptoms, and one he starts speaking inappropriately, it is hard for him to stop.  This has become a very frustrating problem for everyone involved (especially him).  We are starting to look for other students in the program that he can be around that will set a better example for him (easier said than done given the type of students in the program).

Despite this setback, he is doing a lot better than he was when he first entered our program.  He is a wonderful kid, and I am so proud of him!