ECD 486 Case Study 1
A Study Of Some Observational
Phenomena Related To Problems With
Learning Or Performance In School
An Observational Study of Nora at Secondary School:
Interpreted in the Context of Phenomena related to
neurodevelopmental dysfunctions
Presented by: Mona Moustafa Aly
AIC
Masters of international Education
ECD 486 Case Study 2
Children as well as parents suffer a lot when Children grow up substandard
academically. Consequently these children come to question their worthiness and
their feeling of inferiority increases with them as they grow up and move from a
grade to the next; hiding deep inside them their concerns about their minds and
their sense of defectiveness and incompetence.
Children who are exposed to too much failure too early in life are vulnerable to a
variety of problems. when these problems go unrecognized and thus untreated,
such students are apt to behavioral and emotional difficulties that may be more
cruel than the learning problems that generated them such as:
 lost motivation
 anxiety
 Non compliance
 Antisocial acts
And no matter how different these children are from each other. they all share one
desire which is that all of them want to improve and succeed.
To understand a child's underachievement there are three layers of Academic
performance; Academic skills, Academic sub skills and neurodevelopmental
functions. when a student has a problem with a skill then there is a weak sub skill
and a neurodevelopmental function is deficient.
There can be many different reasons why a child exhibit a particular problem with
learning or performing in school. In some cases this may be a manifestation of one
or more neurodevelopmental dysfunctions which are delays or variations in the
way this child's brain is developing. In other cases it may be due to a lack of
experience or in adequate prior teaching. Yet regardless of what the cause is the
important thing is to understand, recognize and deal with that learning problem.
Any learning task that a child is asked to complete in school demands the
coordination of multiple behaviors, skills and brain functions. To help in managing
these problems, all the academically relevant neurodevelopmental functions are
divided into 8 categories called neurodevelopmental constructs
ECD 486 Case Study 3
Neuromotor
Function
Attention
Controls
Language
neurodevelopmental
constructs
Spatial
Ordering
Social
Cognition
Memory
Sequential
Ordering
Higher Order
Cognition
Nora is a Seventeen years old young girl. She is in the Egyptian General Certificate
of Secondary Education. A student of average height and weight with brown eyes.
She is the youngest Daughter in a family of 4, her mother Miriam is a legal
representative of a company and her father works in Saudi Arabia, they have been
married for 19 years. She has one brother Ramy a college student. They belong to
the middle class and they live in Cairo, Egypt. I know Nora as she is my cousin
and thus I had plenty of time to observe her school performance and learning over
time.
Nora is a well-liked girl at school; she loves school, her school mates and teachers
so much. She has plenty of friends at school.
Nora is a shy but outgoing, modest, spontaneous and well-brought-up young girl.
She has problems with time management, she also hates to fail or disappoint her
mother. she is an average student, not a mastermind and without doubt not a dumb
one, thus, Diagnosing her academic learning problems and trying to help her solve
them shall be a profitable research.
ECD 486 Case Study 4
Methods:
This study is held through examining the various neurodevelopmental functions of
Nora and discussing her answers for diagnosing her learning problems using the
Attentional Dysfunction inventory of traits, the Mathematics interview, the writing
interview, the reading review and the collaboration worksheet from the
Educational Care book, Then a demystification session where management
strategies are offered to Nora and her mom.
This case study sets out to construct a better understanding of the reasons for
Nora's exasperating and often fruitless struggles to keep pace and feel
effective.
Nora says that She loves school but she has some problems for example she starts
her school day active and alert but soon she feels tired and sleepy. Also she has a
true problem with word problems in mathematics although she sees herself good in
math especially algebra. She also complains from constant failing in explaining
something she has just understood to her friends in addition to her forever problem
with time management.
Principles of Assessment: A
phenomenological approach
The main aim of assessment is to create an exact profile of any child including his
strengths, weaknesses, affinities and life circumstances that will lead to an
individualized treatment.
After interviewing Nora and observing her for a long time, here are the answers to
the assessment questions:
A- Nora's Strengths within the 8 neurodevelopmental constructs are: Nora has
a very good memory, She also has very good visualizing skills. She is good in
spelling too. she is active, loves school and likes school life. Concerning her
weaknesses: First of all she has Attention problems that lead to problems in Math,
ECD 486 Case Study 5
writing and reading. Second, She has obvious weakness in language processing
and production especially second and foreign languages. Third, She has a problem
with concept formation as she doesn't read a lot, doesn't relate ideas together to
form a concept and build on it. Fourth, She isn't a creative students, she has
excessive bottom up attitude, Fifth, Her severest trouble lies in her organizational
skills which are so weak. Sixth, She lacks the motive as she isn't ambitious girl by
nature although she is a good student and if she focused she could be something.
All these strengths and weakness are fully illustrated and proved with examples
later in the case study, this is just a quick introduction to her case.
B- In spite of her troubles yet Nora is grade appropriate, her problems can be fixed
if treated well. She has some troubles in some sub academic skills but they are not
severe to the extent that makes Nora not appropriate to her grade and age. and even
if there is a kind of delay ( as illustrated in the Academic Sub-skills table in the
collaboration worksheet) it is a simple delay that is less than 1 year below her
level.
C- Nora reading skills is affected due to her Attentional problems as she can't
focus for a long time and consequently loses track of ideas, her writing and
mathematical skills too are affected by her Attentional problems and Language
problems, all of this is further illustrated below with specific examples.
D- Nora's as mentioned above has a very good memory, She also has very good
visualizing skills. She is good in spelling too. she is active, loves school. She is not
specifically talented in one area but she's fine in some of the school areas. Actually
and to be fair, I don't think that Nora's strengths are utilized or even strengthened
but I can't tell why is that so exactly.
E- There are no significant aspects on any bad behavior or social interactions or
feelings affect Nora's performance, on the contrary she loves school, she is loved
by her colleagues and has many friends in school.
F- There are no family, cultural or neighborhood conditions that affect Nora's
performance again on the contrary she belongs to a middle class family, her mother
and Father and good moderate people, she is loved and nourished by them. She
lives in a nice neighborhood and she has a big set of relatives who love her and
care for her.
G- Nora is a healthy young girl, she is not tall and not short, she is thin with long
black nice hair, she is beautiful and kind. she had never had any health problem.
ECD 486 Case Study 6
H- I guess that her teachers need to modify their ways with Nora for a better
performance, I can tell that she has potentials but not well used and strengthened.
The Collaboration Worksheet
Nora's Case
Observed Phenomena
AREAS
OBSERVED
PHENOMENA
SEVERITY
1
Weak Mental Energy
Control
2
3
◙
◙
Weak Processing Control
Attention
◙
Weak Production Control
Remembering
Problems with ShortTerm Memory
Insufficient Active
Working Memory
Incomplete
Consolidation in LongTerm Memory
Reduced Access to LongTerm Memory
☻
☻
☻
◙
SPECIFIC FORMS OF PHENOMENA
4
Nora has troubles falling and staying
asleep, also during the day she shows
various evidence of fatigue and sometimes
fidgety.
She gets easily distracted by irrelevant
sounds/ background noises, she also does
best with generalizing and has troubles
entering new material in memory. She has
troubles as well getting involved in school
subject matters, she daydreams sometimes
and doesn't concentrate for a long time but
her main problem is that she concentrates
well only on exciting stimuli
Nora fails to consider consequences
before doing or saying something, she
also starts school work without planning
enough, she sometimes has trouble in
transition from an activity to the next and
may act or talk inappropriately without
realizing, in addition to her troubles in
allocating, organizing and estimating time
needs and finally she doesn't love rewards.
Nora's answers shows she has no
problems with short term memory
She also proved that she doesn't suffer
with her active memory
No significant evidence on a trouble in
consolidating and filing data in memory
She takes long time to remember
especially math facts on tests, she solves
better using a calculator and thus do less
math in her head. also she gets confused
when she has to remember so many things
at once like spelling while writing
ECD 486 Case Study 7
Weak Language
Processing
Incomplete concept
Formation
Understanding
◙
☻
Weak Visual Processing
◙
Slow Data Processing
Small Chunk-Size
Capacity
☻
Excessive Top-Down or
Bottom-Up Processing
AREAS
OBSERVED
PHENOMENA
SEVERITY
1
Weak Language
Production
Disappointing Motor
Performance
Output
2
4
◙
She makes grammatical mistakes while
writing, she also tends to use easy words and
can't express her ideas well in class.
She is healthy and fit, no sign of
disappointing motor performance
She is a very unorganized person, she can't
manage her time, her materials, can't get her
◙ thoughts in the right order while writing, can't
set a timeline for her assignments and stick to
it.
She has trouble figuring out what to do first
when she tries to solve a math problem, she
◙ also gets stuck on doing a math problem one
way, she just can't think of new things to try to
solve the problem.
She has a reading problem as she loses track
◙ of ideas, she feels bored, she forgets what she
reads especially facts and dates.
Spelling isn't a problem for her, she has a
good memory thus, spelling doesn't bother her
while reading or writing.
She has writing problem like that her hand
◙
☻
Persistent Organizational
Failure
Slow Reading
Development
Inaccurate Spelling
Patterns
Impeded Written Patterns
SPECIFIC FORMS OF PHENOMENA
3
Problematic Problem
Solving
Skill
Acquisition
she has lots of trouble figuring out word
problems, also she has a tough time
◙
understanding vocabulary words that
come up especially in math classes
She finds ideas sometimes hard for her to
understand and she doesn't know enough
too to connect ideas and concepts
together.
She has no problem in picturing shapes,
dimensions and sizes of things in her mind
She sometimes gets mixed up the first
time a teacher explains something,
She said that she can manage large sum
of information without a problem
She isn't a creative person but she isn't
also excessive bottom up student, most of
◙
the time she memorizes without
understanding.
☻
ECD 486 Case Study 8
Underdeveloped
Mathematical Skills
Adaptation
◙
School-Related Sadness
☻
Bodily Preoccupations
☻
Noncompliant Behavior
☻
Lost Motivation
◙
gets tired when she writes a lot, grammatical
mistakes, sometimes has trouble in thinking up
topics, she has trouble too in writing about
her opinions, and as she is unorganized she
has a severe problem with organizing her
thoughts or writings.
She gets mixed up at the first explanation,
problems with word problems, she memorizes
rather than understand the rules, she prefers
using calculator to using her head, she makes
mistakes due to rushing in answering, really
inconsistent in math, can't decide what to do
first easily and when she is stuck she can't
think of another way to solve the problem, she
also doesn't test herself before math exams.
Math also makes her feel dumb, nervous and
uptight.
She likes her school, teachers and colleagues.
No problem related to school ever happened to
her.
Non of the conditions of the Bodily
Preoccupations happens to Nora.
She is very polite, calm and was never
disruptive at school.
Nora isn't a very enthusiastic student who has
a goal or a dream to follow. she learns as she
has to learn, she isn't well motivated. yet the
neurodevelopmental dysfunctions isn't the
reason behind this lost motivation.
*Key to severity rating:
1 = Not a problem ; 2 = A slight problem ; 3 = A moderate problem ; 4 = A sever problem
Strengths and Affinities:
Nora likes school, she is a healthy girl in good shape not too thin and not fat,
beautiful, polite and decent. She has never had any problems at school. We can
even say that she enjoys her school day. She has a strong memory and very good
visual abilities thus, she can picture the information with the eye of her mind
easily. Also as a result of her good memory she is so good in spelling and
memorizing rules and facts that is why she is very good at subjects like history,
social studies, science...etc. She is active and outgoing and she likes activity
classes such as music and drawing classes and of course PE classes.
ECD 486 Case Study 9
Elaboration and Additional Comments on the Observed Phenomena:
Nora has her strengths and also has weaknesses; She has obvious weaknesses in
her attention controls- not a severe problem- but sure it affects her other academic
skills. She is also weak in language processing and production namely in second
language acquisition especially in learning and dealing with new vocabulary. She
also has some trouble with Concept formation because she isn't interested in
educating herself, She doesn't bother to read newspapers or read important books
like many of teens of her age and this makes concepts hard to understand and
relate. She is as well not a creative person by nature she tends to the traditional
way where teachers do all the work. But her main weakness lies in her
organizational failure, she can't manage her time, or her materials, can't allocate
and estimate specific time and effort to finish her duties ...etc. She has troubles
with problem solving in math but it isn't a severe one. Her troubles in reading is a
direct result for her Attentional problems. What I really wish for her that she sets a
motive and a dream for herself to pursue.
Academic Sub-skills
SKILL
AREA
SUBSKILL
STATUS
1
Reading
Spelling
Writing
Decoding Accuracy
Decoding Speed
Recall of Facts
Comprehension
Summarization
Speed / Automatization
Accuracy in Isolation
Accuracy in Context
Pencil Grip
2
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
4
Nora may have problems with
reading but they are within
normal stage, or suits her grade
level. her reading problems
doesn't make her below her
grade level.
☻
Fluency/Ease of Output
Legibility
Mechanics during Writing
Mechanics in Isolation
Written Language
3
COMMENTS
☻
☻
☻
☻
Ideation
☻
Organization for Writing
Organization of Writing
☻
☻
Nora has no spelling problems
No clear signs of problems
Many grammatical mistakes,
and troubles using good, new
vocabulary.
No comments
No signs of delay in her
mechanics of writing
No clear signs of delay
She has troubles in thinking
up topics and to come up with
her original thoughts.
Nora certainly has a trouble
with all kinds of organization
ECD 486 Case Study 10
Mathematics Factual Recall
Speed of Factual Recall
Procedural Recall
☻
☻
☻
Procedural Speed
Word Problems
☻
☻
Mathematical Language
☻
Visualization
Symbolic Representation
Understanding Concepts
☻
☻
☻
As I mentioned above Nora
has a good memory so she
remembers the fact completely
and quickly.
Word problems are hard to
Nora due to vocabulary. she
also can't re explain what she
has just heard and saw from
the teacher, she prefers
studying a correctly solved
problem.
Very good visualizing abilities
No signs on problems
She has a tiny problem with
concepts forming,
understanding and elaborating.
*Status Ratings:
1 = Above grade level ; 2 = At grade level ; 3 = Less than one year below grade level ;
4 = More than one year below grade level.
Comments on academic content areas (e.g., history, science, foreign
language):
As I mentioned above in the strengths and weaknesses that Nora is weak in
language processing and production namely in second language acquisition
especially in learning and dealing with new vocabulary. she is so good in spelling
and memorizing rules and facts that is why she is very good at subjects like
history, social studies, science...etc. She is active and outgoing and she likes
activity classes such as music and drawing classes and of course PE classes.
Comments on academic interests:
again I mentioned above that she is active and in good health that's why she likes
activity classes such as cooking classes, drawing, music and PE classes.
Assessment and Management
Additional Consultation and/or Assessment
1. Her tutors at home see her a good student, if only she concentrated more and
focused on her weaknesses and tried to improve herself, she is going to be
something.
ECD 486 Case Study 11
2. Her English language teacher says that she doesn't bother to learn and
memorize new words, and her reading and writing skills are affected by that.
3. Her math teacher complains that she is good but she continuously do the
same careless mistakes.
Management Proposal
Demystification Plans:
After interviewing Nora and testing her, After talking to her mother and 2 of her
tutors, I sat with Nora and I told her that she has some problems that affect her
academic performance and these problems aren't severe( so that the girl doesn't
panic) but they need to be fixed in order to improve her performance. I explained
to her using her interviews and answers that she has Attentional problems,
organizational problems, concept formation troubles...etc. as mentioned above and
I told her that all of these can be fixed with some work at home and in school. I
also talked to the mother and explained the case to her and gave her a copy of the
instructions that she has to follow in order to help her daughter improve. I talked
to her teachers and discussed her troubles with them and I gave them the
management strategies they need to follow with Nora from now on.
Major Priorities for Management:
Nora is in the GCSE ( General Certificate of the Secondary education) Literary
section so her major Academic priorities now shall be to improve her skills and sub
skills in the subjects in which she will be examined such as Philosophy, history,
Geography, psychology...etc. So in managing Nora's problems we shall focus on
the neurodevelopmental functions that works on memorizing. these subjects are
mainly based on studying through memorizing dates, facts, places, theories ...etc.
thus, less focus will be given to her mathematical and science problems as they
won't directly affect her performance in this stage of her education.
Suggested Accommodation Strategies in School:
Accommodations are techniques that enable students to continue to acquire skills,
knowledge, and a sense of competency despite the presence of a problem. They
are essential and they don't cost any money but demands understanding, tolerance,
and flexibility on the part of administrators and teachers. The first strategy that can
be successful with Nora is Complexity reduction: meaning to give her fewer details
or complicated ideas to create or interpret like reading a simpler text or finding a
manageable topic to write about. The second strategy is Prioritization meaning to
ECD 486 Case Study 12
stress the important components of a task during a complex activity or a task like
telling her to concentrate on the grammar in writing a report and not to worry about
spelling or organization. A third strategy that can be very successful with Nora is
shifting of processing format that is to present the information in the way that Nora
masters and can deal with effectively like presenting historical incidents in the
shape of a story, or put the dates in a diagram. A fourth strategy is the use of
supports or aids that is to give Nora tools to help her concentrate for example like
the card on her desk to remind her to focus or finish her assignments or the
attention log...etc.
Suggested Forms of Direct Remediation in School:
for a successful remediation, we should intervene at the students' breakdown
points; for that we have to determine where the breakdowns occur during doing a
task, and this happens through close observations. Nora has to understand that she
has a problem with language processing which causes her delay in math problems
for example and in a demystification session all her problems and dysfunctions has
to be explained to her in a simple comforting way to feel that she is competent and
there is hope but she only needs to cooperate with teachers and parents to be
excellent. Also teachers have to be a part of the remedy to reach the stage where
the breakdown point becomes the end point, and tasks have to be designed to
solve the problems. Nora has to be taught to take it easy and don't panic when she
reaches her breakdown point while working especially in exams and quizzes.
Finally Remedies have to be individualized or tailored to fit Nora's problems
taking into consideration her strengths and weaknesses and an overall view of her
Neurodevelopmental dysfunctions.
Suggested Program for Management at Home:
As illustrated above Nora as some troubles in some of her neurodevelopmental
functions and here I will offer a program for management at home because parents
have significant role to play in helping their children overcome their troubles:
Concerning her Attentional problems:
1. Nora needs frequently scheduled breaks to restore her mental energy. thus, her
mom shall encourage her to stand up, walk around etc.
2. Nora should be encouraged by her parents to read or write about her areas of
interest.
ECD 486 Case Study 13
3. The mother can help her to start through organizing her materials for her,
getting her all she needs as pencils, calculator, dictionary..etc. so that she
doesn't have to cut her concentration and go to fetch something.
Concerning her language problems:
4. The mother can help Nora acquire new vocabulary using word games, daily
lessons, going beyond literal definitions to new meanings, linking new to old
words...etc.
5. Parents should encourage Nora to read every day and at a specific time,
different interesting passages, they also should encourage her to be aware of
the world news and problems so that new concepts don't panic her.
6. Since she has strong visualization, she may be encouraged to transform the
material in her textbooks into some form of visual representations.
Concerning her Incomplete concept formation:
7. parents shall encourage Nora to express the new concepts in her own words
and discuss that with her.
8. follow up and check that she isn't merely memorizing but understand the
concepts she is dealing with.
9. parents should show her that they too are still learning and ask her to teach
them the new concepts she learnt lately.
Concerning Excessive Top-Down or Bottom-Up Processing:
10.Parents should be aware of her tendency to be top- down or bottom- up in
processing. since Nora is a bottom-up student, she needs help in selecting
topics and coming up with original ideas, the parents can help her with
brainstorming and deriving her own opinions about issues.
11.Parents should involve her in activities that require her to create and innovate
and give her prizes for any innovation she presents.
Concerning her organizational failure:
12.parents shall organize the time and set timelines week by week for her to
follow.
ECD 486 Case Study 14
13.help her set a well-organized work space at home as free of distractions as
possible.
14.help in maintaining an assignment pad, organize her space in her presence and
discard unneeded materials.
Concerning problematic problem solving:
15.Parents should encourage stepwise approaches, and may look over the work
after each step.
16.Model good problem solving for her and join her in discussing what the best
solutions would be for a problem the mother for example is facing.
17.praise her for her problem solving accomplishments.
Concerning her impeded written patterns:
18. encourage her to have a diary or a journal in which she writes daily.
19. Avoid being too critical of her writing.
20. reward her significant writing effort no matter how simple it is.
Concerning her Lost motivation:
21. respect her abilities and intellect.
22.Balance between criticism and praise
23.Discuss with her why she isn't motivated, and share with her stories of success
and how simple it is to have a dream and how inspiring and exciting to pursue
that dream.
Use of Strengths and Affinities:
Strengths can be mobilized to compensate for weak areas. For example Nora is
good in visualizing so her teachers can :
1. Use Multiple representations: as using analogy or a visual demonstration to
explain complicated concepts.
2. Use hands on activities: Nora is active and sure likes hands on activities and
this way will be an excellent way for consolidating the information in her
memory as information will be impaired with the true experience.
ECD 486 Case Study 15
3. Affinity leverage: Teachers can use Nora's interests or significant prior
knowledge to help in strengthening another skill or function .
4. Strength leverage: They also can use her strong neurodevelopmental
constructs (as memory) to compensate a weak function or skill as language.
Provisions for Humiliation Protection:
As I mentioned throughout this case study Nora has problems but they are not
severe to the extent of being delays thus, her problems have to be explained to and
understood by her teachers so that they don't overreact and cause the girl to feel
inferior or dumb. (This shall happen in a Demystification session) Teachers
sometimes are the direct reason behind students bad performance in school as they
rush to conclude that a student is lazy or stupid or misbehaving only because he or
she didn't get the information at the first time, that's why teachers role is so vital in
the diagnostic teaching course. No for humiliating the weak students shall be the
slogan for each teacher and school. we have to understand their troubles and fix it
instead of adding to them low self esteem and feeling stupid and useless.
Additional Services and Treatments:
I guess that Egyptian schools have to provide a psychologist in every school as
well as a social service teacher. in addition to a department for demystification
sessions.
Monitoring and Follow-up Plans:
I have sat with Nora and her mother and I have explained to them Nora's troubles,
for the first time Nora realized that her troubles with some subjects aren't because
she is dumb or bad but they go back to other constructs in her brain and she
decided to follow the management plan set to her and monitor her own
performance to register the change. her mother too was happy that Nora's troubles
have been identified and there is a remedy to them, she promised to follow the
management plans for home and monitor Nora and her tutors to see that the plan is
working as set or not. I will monitor too to see that everyone is doing his role and
to what extent Nora's academic performance has improved.
ECD 486 Case Study 16
Appendix
ECD 486 Case Study 17
Attentional Dysfunction:
An Inventory of traits
Part A - Mental energy Control
{ - = A definite finding, +/- = a possible finding, + = Not a finding}
Parameter
Arousal/Alertness
Mental Effort
Trait
Has trouble falling or staying asleep
Shows evidence of fatigue(e.g., yawning,
stretching)during the day.
Is fidgety when needing to concentrate
Reveals highly inconsistent/ erratic patterns of
attention
Has trouble getting started with work
Has difficulty finishing work
Can work only with things that are particularly
interesting to her
Effort is unpredictable ;can work well at
sometimes but not others
◙
+/-
+
◙
◙
☻
☻
☻
☻
◙
Impact(s): Cognitive/ Academic: ...... Behavioral: ..... Social: .....
Part B - Processing Controls
Parameter
Saliency
determination
Processing
Depth and
Detail
Traits
Can't tell what's important when listening or studying
Seems to remember unimportant information better
than important facts or ideas.
Is easily distracted by irrelevant sounds/background
noises
Concentrates on visual stimuli that others would
ignore
Requires repetition of instructions
-
+/-
+
☻
◙
◙
☻
☻
Does best with" the big picture"; conceptualizing,
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 18
Mental
Activation
Focal
Maintenance
generalizing
Has trouble entering new material in memory
Seems passive in learning; doesn't relate new
information with what is already known
Is unusually creative/inventive/imaginative
Has trouble getting involved /engaged in school
subject matter
Has a mind that is too active, free associates,
daydreams too easily
◙
☻
☻
◙
◙
◙
Often doesn't concentrate long enough
☻
☻
☻
☻
Concentrates too long at times
Is not a good listener
Misses key Parts of directions/ explanations
Satisfaction
Control
Is hard to satisfy; seems to want things all the time
◙
Can concentrate well only on exciting stimuli
Is notably restless; craves excitement
☻
Impact(s): Cognitive/ Academic: ...... Behavioral: ..... Social: .....
Part C- Production Control
Parameter
Previewing
Facilitation
And Inhibition
Traits
Fails to look ahead and consider possible
consequences before doing or saying things
Does school work without planning or thinking
enough before starting it.
Has trouble accomplishing transitions from one
activity or task to next
Has trouble estimating or foreseeing solutions or
work outcomes in school
Does inappropriate things without realizing it
Does a lot of things the hard way
Has a way of doing the wrong things at the wrong
times
-
+/-
+
◙
◙
◙
☻
◙
☻
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 19
Says inappropriate things without realizing it
Tempo Control Seems to have trouble allocating, organizing
and/or estimating time needs
Often dawdles, is late, misses deadlines
Does many things too slowly
Is "hyperactive"
Self-Monitoring Loses track of what she or he is doing during a
And Selftask or activity
Correcting
Doesn't notice when others seem displeased
Doesn't realize when he or she has said or done
something wrong
Makes frequent careless work errors without
noticing
Reinforceability Doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes
Is not greatly affected by punishment
Doesn't use methods that have worked well
previously
Doesn't really respond properly to rewards
◙
◙
☻
☻
◙
Impact(s): Cognitive/ Academic: ...... Behavioral: ..... Social: .....
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
ECD 486 Case Study 20
Mathematics Interview
Key to Part one
0= Always true for me; 1= Mostly true for me; 2 = Sometimes true for me; 3= Not
true for me
STATEMENTS
COMPREHENSION
1- Some students say they get pretty mixed up the first time a
teacher explains something in math class
2- There are kids who can do plain math problems pretty
well, but they have lots of trouble figuring out word
problems
3- Some kids have a tough time understanding vocabulary
words that come up in math classes
4- There are students who find it very hard to explain
something they have learned pretty well in math
5- It is possible for someone to learn math more easily by
studying a correctly solved problem than by learning about
that kind of problem in class
6- Some people when they do math have a lot of trouble
picturing shapes, dimensions and sizes of things in their
minds
7- There are students who can do a lot of things the right way
in math, but they don't really understand what they are doing
8- It is possible to try to memorize things in math instead of
understanding them
9- Some students think they understand something during
class and then later realize they didn't really get it
10- For many students thinking is harder in math than it is in
other subjects
0
1
2
3
◙
◙
◙
◙
◙
☻
☻
◙
☻
☻
MEMORY
◙
11- It can take too long to remember math facts on a test
12- Some kids have trouble remembering how to do
things in math
13- It can be much faster and easier to do hard math
problems using a calculator
☻
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 21
14- There are students who forget what they are
doing in the middle of a math problem
15- Some kids do much less math in their heads than
other kids
16- A lot of students find that when they look at a
math problem, it just doesn't look familiar to them.
Every problem seems very different
17- Doing things in the right order is one of the
hardest parts in math
18- Some people have to stop and think about
everything in math; none of it seems to be fast and
automatic for them
19- In math it can be very hard for some people to
remember exact shapes when they hear the names
20- Some kids complain they understand how to do
things in class and then they forget how on an
assignment or a test
ATTENTION
21- It is possible to make too many careless mistakes in math
because of rushing through stuff
22- It can be very hard to keep concentrating during math
class
23- Some kids say they keep getting very tired when they do
math
24- A student might complain that there are too many little
details to think about in math
25- There are students who sometimes have trouble in math
because they don't really stop and think and plan enough
before they do a problem
26- It can be very hard to get started on math problems
27- There are students who have problems estimating; they
have no idea about what the answer will be before they start
a problem
28- Some students have minds that don't like subjects like
math because there's only one correct answer all the time
29- For some people it is extremely boring to check over
☻
◙
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
1
2
3
4
◙
◙
☻
☻
☻
☻
◙
☻
☻
ECD 486 Case Study 22
math work
30- Some kids are very inconsistent in math; they do really
well sometimes and very poorly other times
PROBLEM SOLVING/ORGANIZATION
31- There are students who have trouble figuring out what to
do first when they try to solve a math problem
32- When some kids get stuck on doing a math problem one
way, they just can't think of new things to try to solve the
problem
33- It can be hard to figure out what's important and what
isn't in a word problem
34- It can be very hard knowing what and how to study for a
math test
35- Some students never bother to test themselves when they
are studying math
◙
0
1
2
3
◙
◙
◙
◙
◙
ATTRIBUTIONS
36- Math makes certain people very uptight
37- Some kids mess up on tests because they get too nervous
38- Doing math makes some people feel dumb
39- There are students who believe they are so far behind in
math that they can never catch up
40- It is possible to feel very unlucky in math
◙
◙
◙
☻
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 23
The Writing Interview
Key to Part one
0= Always true for me; 1= Mostly true for me; 2 = Sometimes true for me; 3= Not
true for me
STATEMENTS
GRAHOMOTOR FUNCTION
1- kids sometimes complain that their hand gets very tired
when they have to write a lot
2- Some students have an unusual way of holding a pencil or
pen
3- there are kids who think they write too slowly on tests
and homework
4- Some People can print much better than they can use
cursive
5- Lots of students say forming letters is not as easy for
them as it is for other kids
EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE
6-There are students who find it hard to get their ideas into
words when they speak in school
7- Some kids make too many grammar mistakes when they
write
8- While they write, some students have to think too long
about how to say their ideas on paper
9- When some people write, they have trouble using good
vocabulary; they use a lot of easy words
10- Some Kids have trouble describing things well in a class
discussion
IDEATION
11- Some students find it very hard to think up topics or
decide what they want to write
12- There are kids who would hate to have to write a story
13- It can be very difficult to know what to write or include
in a report
14- A lot of kids say it's not easy for them to come up with
their own original ideas about things in school
15- Some People say it's really hard to write about their
0
1
2
3
◙
☻
☻
◙
☻
☻
◙
☻
◙
◙
◙
◙
☻
◙
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 24
opinions or what they think about things
MEMORY
16- It is confusing to remember so many things at once (like
spelling)while writing
17- Some kids have much neater handwriting when they
copy from the board than when they write a paragraph
18- When writing a report or story it's not always easy for
some kids to remember what they wanted to write
19- Some kids have said that they have much better ideas
when they speak than when they write
20- Problems with spelling makes writing especially hard
for some people
ORGANIZATION
21- It can be really hard to get started with a writing
assignment
22- When they write, some students have trouble getting
their thoughts down in the right order
23- Some students don't think much in advance about what
they are going o write; they just start writing
24- It is hard to know how long it will take to write a report
or a story
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
◙
☻
◙
ECD 486 Case Study 25
The Reading Review
while reading the Novel "Hard Times " this review was taken to check how well
Nora is in reading
PROBLEM
Mind wandered
Felt tired
Missed important details
Lost my place
Lost track of ideas
Wanted to move around/get up
Felt bored
Felt nervous
Couldn't decide what's important
Hard to remember what I read
Forgot facts needed to understand
Would have trouble summarizing
Too many new facts
Too many new ideas
Vocabulary too hard
Sentences too complicated
Paragraphs too complicated
Ideas hard to figure out
Didn't know enough to understand
Couldn't picture things
Trouble with diagrams/ maps
Had trouble reading some words
Read too slowly
1
2 3
◙
4
◙
☻
◙
◙
◙
◙
☻
☻
☻
☻
☻
◙
◙
☻
☻
☻
☻
◙
☻
◙
☻
☻
KIND OF PROBLEM
Attention
Attention
Attention
Attention
Attention / memory
Attention
Mood/Attention
Mood/Attention
Attention / background
Memory / Language
Memory
Reading/ memory /language
Chunk size/background
Chunk size/background
Language
language
Language/background
Concepts / language
Concepts/ background
Visual processing
Visual processing
Word decoding
Word decoding/language
Key to Part one
1= Always true for me; 2= Mostly true for me; 3 = Sometimes true for me; 4=
Not true for me