Chapter+5













Scenario: Jeff is a student in Miss Erney’s class who lacks the ability to get along with his peers. Jeff’s inappropriate behavior includes taking toys and food from his classmates’ hands. On the playground, students try to avoid Jeff so that he does not take their things. When Miss Erney talked with Jeff about his inappropriate behavior, he refused to take responsibility and blamed his classmates for the problems. Recently, Jeff has withdrawn from the class, and he frequently can be found walking alone on the playground and after school. Miss Erney wants to help Jeff become more socially mature.

1. Discuss the use of sociometric techniques to assess social skills and related problems. How can Miss Erney use information from a sociogram to help Jeff? Miss Erney can use the results from peer nominations, ratings, and assessment to see how the other students feel about Jeff's behaviors. From the responses she receives, Miss Erney can then find ways that Jeff can interact better with his classmates.

2. Discuss the use of social skills training to reduce Jeff’s inappropriate social behaviors. Include the use of direct instruction to increase Jeff’s interpersonal social skills. By training Jeff how to act in specific situations, he will then be able to carry these behaviors into every day life. The book states that interpersonal skills can be improved through direct instruction. The four ways to facilitate the acquisition of social skills are description, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Social curriculum is very important for students, especially those who have inappropriate social behaviors like Jeff. There are four main areas that Miss Erney needs to focus on when teaching social skills. They are conversation skills, friendship skills, skills for difficult situations, and problem-solving skills. However, for Jeff, the number one social skill that he needs to improve is his friendship skills. So Miss Erney should spend extra time in this area and make sure Jeff is understanding how he can improve his friendships at school.

3. Describe three social development activities that may help Jeff with his social problems. Predict some of the possible outcomes of each activity. Pairing Jeff with a student who is competent and socially mature is one social development activity. Jeff and the other student would have to be partners in a game at recess. Jeff and the other student must work together to not get tagged. The outcome of this activity would show Jeff teamwork and help improve communication skills. Another social development activity is having students write down their feelings at different happenings throughout the day. When the students come in from recess, they write a paragraph explaining how they feel. Students do this after each recess. Miss Erney can then read the journals and see how the emotional stress on the playground affects the students. She can also find ways to make the recess time for enjoyable for students, especially Jeff. One more social development activity is role-playing. To do this, Miss Erney could either have Jeff watch the role-play or have Jeff be the student who has his toys taken away. This activity would help Jeff realize and see the other side of the situation and would hopefully prevent him from taking anymore toys and food from his classmates.

4. Instructional games promote positive peer relations and enable the teacher to work on specific social behaviors. Create a game that Miss Erney can use to help promote Jeff’s social development. Social Emotions Game Directions: Student have a board and rules similar to that of the Socialization Game. The questions being asked have a situation on them. The students must then say how the situation would make them feel and how they could change the situation. Example: Joe took the ball from Mike who was playing kickball. It was Sarah's turn to kick. How do you think Sarah felt?

5. Discuss the use of life-space interviewing and reality therapy as two interventions to manage Jeff’s behavior and promote his emotional development. Life-space interviewing would help Jeff's behavior because he would have to listen to the other student's point of view in each incident that occurred and he was involved in. The process is step by step which makes it simple for teachers and students to use. This would prevent the other student and Jeff from becoming frustrated with the situation. Reality therapy would work great for Jeff to get his emotions out from inside of him. Sometimes, emotional stress builds up and builds up until students just snap. By talking about how Jeff feels, Miss Erney can help him become more emotionally stable. Another major key in reality therapy is that the student has to find a solution to their own problems. In the example from the book, the student punished himself. Since he was the one to make the decision on what his punishment is, he will be more likely to follow through and not try and get out of the punishment.

Reference: Teaching Students with Learning Problems, 8th Edition, Cecil D. Mercer; Ann R. Mercer; Paige C. Pullen (2011)