Motor and Self Help Skills

How do we get good at something? We practice, practice and practice some more. If we want a child to do well at writing, run well or simply develop gross/fine motor skills; we must allow them to practice daily. Teachers should develop activities that help their students develop motor and self help skills. For instance, my focus child, J.J. needs assistance with developing his self help skills in Toileting. I can implement activiites that allow him to practice pouring, filling, and dumping toys and water in the sensory table. Also he can participate in a game of naming body parts. He can use the Mr. Potatoe Head to identify the parts of the body and/or sing and dance to the song Head Shoulder, Knees and Toes.
Plenty of physical activitiy is important to a child's gross motor development. J.J. will be allowed to run, jump, hop and skip daily. He will be encouraged to climb up and down the slides on the playground and utilize the balance beams. We will play a game of kick ball and soccer.
There are various activities teachers can implement in the classroom to assist students with developing motor and self help skills. For example, teachers can have a center set up for students to play with play dough or cut straps of paper. These simple activities help to build fine motor skills. J.J. will be encouraged to play in the dramatic play center and dress the puppets and dolls. He will get practice with buttoning and unbottoning shirts. This is a self help skill that he needs assistance with.  There are various ways teachers can implement activities to assist students with motor and self help skills.

Social Story

 The behavior that will be the focus of my social story is aggression and transitions. J.J. has difficulty with a change in the classroom routines and teacher redirection.  He displays aggression when he is upset or when he is redirected to do an activity he doesn't want to do.The story will show J.J. different ways to handle changes in  his daily routine. The story will also focus on ways he can approach his peers and adults and various ways to express his needs and wants without aggression.

Embedding Goals and Objectives into activities

 IEP's are developed to meet the child's need and to enable the child to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum. Activities should target specific objectives from the IEP to addresss during the lesson/unit. Teachers should write precise and delineated goals for what he/she want the student to be able to accomplish after each activity/lesson is completed. Also making note of what specific level (% accuracy) the student will perform a given task in order for the activity/lesson to be considered satisfactorially accomplished. Finally, the student's progress should be recorded into some form of data collection record.

Importance of Intervention Plans and collection of progress

An intervention plan is a specific activity or set of related activities intended to bring about reduction in a particular target. The intervention has a distinct process and outcomes objectives as well as a protocol outlining the steps for implementation. Interventions are important because they serve as a reference point for the specific goal. It provides explicit criteria for the student and is agreed upon by the teacher, IEP team and family members. Interventions offer a systematic means of providing feedback for improvement.
The collection of progress can be done in numerous ways. Some teachers use simple anecdotal/observation notes. Others may choose to implement a progress monitoring form. This form is a valuable tool when monitoring the students' progress on a specified goal or objective. The teacher is able to monitor the students daily progress by inputing the information into the form. Daily data analysis can help a teacher decide what needs to be focused on during a given day. Weekly or monthly data analysis allows educators to step back and see whether the educational strategies they are implementing allow the student to make adequate progress towards his or her IEP goals. If the student is not making adequate progress, the data can be used to provide a guidance about how a particular intervention(teaching strategy/learning activity) may be changed.