Objective #2:
To design and implement strategies for an 11 year old female client diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder to recognize and correctly identify eight safety related target words.
Activities/Resources:
· I will create a goal sheet of the same 8 target words to be used for each visit
· I will make flashcards of these eight words and pair them with pictures that relate to the word
· Each visit we will work on these 8 flash cards to become more familiar with these words and in the end she should be able to say these words without being prompted
Evidence:
• I will provide all of my data showing her progress until she achieves the goal 100% of the
time
Evidence Overview
The first piece of evidence I have listed is the set of my eight target safety words. These are the eight words that I had thought were important for a child to be able to recognize and articulate. The next piece of evidence that I have provided is a set of eight pictures which go with each of the eight flash cards. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are very visual so it is important to use pictures instead of just words. I used these pictures in the beginning to work on matching the pictures with the words. Towards the end, when she got more accustomed to the words I only used the pictures to show her the hand movements for certain words such as pull, push, and stop. I then included my data which shows the date of the treatment session and the progress made. By our last treatment session, my client completed the goal more than I would have ever thought. The process for accomplishing my goal can be found in my data. I have learned a great deal from this goal. I am in school studying Communicative Disorders in hopes of one day becoming a speech pathologist. I created my own speech goal, chose eight target words, and created a plan each day for achieving it. I worked one-on-one with my client in order to achieve a speech goal. By the end, her goal that I created for her was met. This had greatly impacted me because I never would have thought I would be able to achieve this. Especially in the beginning of our sessions, my client was extremely nonverbal and was not articulating any words. I would have never guessed by the end that she would be able to recognize and articulate eight completely new words just from a few sessions. My evidence is a testament to my skills and abilities. It shows that after limited sessions I was able to completely change the progress of my client, and by the end I was able to accomplish this speech goal. I was extremely impressed with all of the progress that we had made on this goal.
8 Target Safety Words
1. Poison 5. Pull
2. Walk 6. Bathroom
3. Exit 7. Stop
4. Push 8. Help
Accompanying the eight target safety word flashcards, I also used pictures related to these words so she had a better idea of the words as they would appear in real life situations.
Here are the pictures that accompanied my flashcards-
Bathroom:  | Exit:  |
Stop:  | Push:  |
Poison:  | Pull:  |
Walk:  | Help:  |
My Data:
Date: Progress made
11/2: This is the first day that I introduced my client to all of the flashcards. She was used to flashcards previously because flashcards are part of her treatment goals. However, due to the fact that she is almost nonverbal, it is very difficult for her to be able to recognize and articulate words. My client could not physically say any of the words. I introduced the pictures and asked her to match the words to the pictures. She correctly matched bathroom, stop, and exit. The rest she could not match.
11/9: I started by doing two flashcards at a time. I would ask her to look at the card as I would say the word. I would see if she could repeat the word back to me. I had to give her the first sound in order for her to correctly repeat it back to me.
-Help, Stop: She was able to correctly repeat
-Exit, Walk: She was able to correctly repeat
-Push, Pull: Was not able to correctly repeat because she would get confused since both words start with the same sound
-Bathroom, Poison: I was very surprised that she did both words perfectly.
-Next session I will increase it to three words in a set.
11/14: During this session, I put three index cards out at a time. I would point to each word and say it and have her repeat it back to me. After we did all three, I would point to each word individually and not say anything to see if she would respond back with the correct word. If she did not say anything, I would give her the first sound and see if she was able to correctly articulate the word.
-Help, Stop, Exit: She correctly said all three words without me providing the first sound!! I was extremely proud.
-Pull, Push, Walk: I realized that having two words that start with the same sound in a set were confusing so I switched the set to pull, walk, and bathroom. When I would point to the word and not say anything, she correctly said walk and bathroom. She would only say pull if I gave her the first sound.
-Poison, Bathroom, Push: I had to use bathroom again to make the set contain three words. Instead of saying poison, she would say pretty. I tried to have her imitate me and watch my lip movements as I said pretty. She always recognized and said the words bathroom and push even if I switched the cards around. However, poison she could not recognize alone and when I gave her the first sound she could still not articulate it correctly.
-Next session I will increase it to four words in a set.
11/16: My client did not want to work on flashcards today and refused to show any progress. When I took out the flashcards she got very upset and would not repeat any of the words. There are days that you will have a client and they will simply not want to do any tasks and there is nothing you can do about it. You have to be prepared for it to happen and work on it the next session.
11/30: During this session, I put four index cards out at a time.
-Help, Stop, Exit, Push: After I familiarized my client with the four words, I pointed to each word separately. She correctly recognized and articulated all four words on her own. She also paired the words with hand movements for push and stop.
-Pull, Walk, Poison, Bathroom: She also successfully recognized and articulated these four words. She accompanied saying the word pull with a hand movement.
-Since my client successfully did both sets of four flashcards, I cannot increase the number of index cards in a set since one set will end up being uneven. Therefore, I will now work on all eight of the flashcards in one set.
12/5: Our last session! During this session, I put out all eight index cards at one time. I familiarized her with the eight words by pointing to them and saying the words, reinforcing her to repeat. After that, I pointed to each word individually and waited for her to say the word. She correctly recognized bathroom right away as well as stop and help. When she would correctly say a word I would take that index card out of the group. After familiarizing her with the rest of the words one more time, I pointed to each word without saying anything and she correctly recognized the rest!
