[Romania, first session May 4-6, 2020] Support for the homework

Welcome to the Romanian team!
The new topic of the forum “Support for the homework” is designed to provide the teachers an individualized support to define, together, the next steps for implementing the case study inside the Behave application.
This with the aim to arrive in Belgium for the next and last training course well equipped and trained.
In particular, this path will be supervised and monitored by me and my colleague Federica Compagno, because both of us are psychologists specialized in cognitive-behavioural therapy and consequently in charge to support you during the important phases of data collection (selection of the more suitable measure to adopt) and definition of the intervention plan that will be carried out with the support of the BEHAVE application.
During this first step we ask you to:
Identify ONE student (case) that in your shared opinion needs intervention - as soon as possible - because his/her behaviour is highly frequent, intense and has had a long duration in the last months.
Describe using this topic, in an operational way the case, following the structure of the case data suggested in the Behave app:

Student id
Sex
Year of birth
Behaviour to be observed
Description
Place
Setting

The DEADLINE to complete this first step is March 10, 2020

Keep in touch!
Antonella Chifari

Student id: V.
Sex: male
Year of birth: 2011
Behaviour to be observed: Behaviour / anger control

Description:
V. is a very nice child, very loving and smart student, happy and friendly, uncompetitive, without any interest in doing something that could harm someone.
But, beyond all of that, he has some personal problems in managing his behavior in the school. In classroom he is continuously moving on the chair, playing with his writing instruments. He is chewing the pencils frequently, is playing with his pen like he has a gun, sits on the chair inappropriate with his feet on, is singings when he is writing or doing math exercise. He has also problems in managing anger. In some situations when something gets him out of control he starts to cry, to scream, and it is very difficult to calm him for a long period. He remains blocked in the situation that made him to be angry, is not able to think of something else than the moment that made him to be angry. He usually gets angry for nothing. For example, if he thinks that a math exercise is solving like he did and I tell him that it is wrong, he starts telling me that I am wrong, not him, and if I continue to try to convince him that is wrong he starts to cry and scream.

Place: School
Setting: The moment is not very clear. He has some blockage moments in unexpected moments and places in the classroom, in the courtyard, so on.

Hello,
below we write some feedback on the work done.
Numerous behaviors were identified (he moves on the chair, plays with his writing instruments, chews pencils, plays with the pen as if he had a gun, sits in the chair inappropriately, sings). Probably not all hinder learning in the same way. It would be better to select one or maximum two behaviours, so to be able to select the best and suitable measurement. Furthermore, probably these behaviors do not have the same function and, if you remember, the interventions are not programmed on the basis of topography of the behavior but on their function. For example, chewing the pencil probably doesn't have the same function of the singing behaviour. With regards to anger management problems, it could be useful to start with a functional analysis. Considering what you state, we suggest you to focus your attention on the anger management. It would be useful that every time he gets angry, you measure the duration of crying and screaming and, above all, do a functional analysis every time, for identifying what triggers the problem behavior and what reactions mantein it during the time.
All this is a necessary condition for understanding how to intervene. Functional analysis means doing ABCs of behavior, it would be important to have at least 4 ABCs and 4 duration measures.

For any dubts contact us
best wishes,
Antonella and Federica

Hello! Hope everything is O.K. with you all.
I understand what I have to do. I will try to write what I remember about every time when V. is getting angry and make the ABC based only on what I really know because we are not at school...
I will send you the ABC as soon as I will write them.
Best thoughts from Romania!
We are praying for all!