Read–Reflect–Discuss
Helping Manuel Adjust
When Mrs. Jackson learned that a child with special needs would be placed in her Head Start classroom, she was not concerned. Manuel was described as a “four-year-old child with Down syndrome, recently placed in foster care.” Mrs. Jackson had worked with two other children who had Down syndrome and found them to be delightful. They were easygoing and affectionate.
After Manuel’s first week in her classroom, however, Mrs. Jackson began to worry. Manuel was unexpectedly active and aggressive. His only word was “No!” which he used often as he pushed away any child who came within reach. His favorite activities seemed to be playing in water—wherever he could find it, especially in the toilet!—and dumping things out of containers.
Mrs. Jackson contacted the Head Start special needs coordinator for her program and asked for some assistance. After observing Manuel in the classroom and at home, Mrs. Jackson, the special needs coordinator, and the foster mother arranged a meeting to talk about possible interventions. The foster mother indicated that Manuel had only been with her for a month; his biological mother had recently been incarcerated for selling drugs, and no other family members were available to care for Manuel.
Several changes were identified that Mrs. Jackson could fairly easily incorporate into her classroom. Because she realized Manuel was dealing with many unexpected changes in his life, her first goal was to increase the predictability of the daily schedule. She tried to be a bit more consistent about the sequence of the major activities of the day, and she was careful to signal clearly the end of one activity and the transition to a new activity. She also assigned the assistant who seemed to have the best relationship with Manuel to be his primary caregiver. These adaptations created a safer environment for Manuel and seemed to reduce his overall levels of anxiety and aggression.
Another strategy incorporated his high-preference activities of water play and dumping. When Mrs. Jackson read Manuel’s file, she realized that his developmental level was below that of a two-year-old and that the activities that motivated him were not so atypical when viewed in that light. She began to use the water table more often in the classroom and outside activities. She tried to think of center activities that could incorporate water in more appropriate ways, such as food coloring, soap and water, and water and cornstarch. Mrs. Jackson also asked an older child to help Manuel learn to play dump truck. This involved loading a large dump truck with Legos, pushing the truck a little ways, then dumping the plastic building blocks into a container. A volunteer helped encourage the peer helper to repeat this activity over and over until Manuel began to be able to do it himself—loading and driving the truck to the container, not just dumping its contents. Initially Manuel would only do the dumping. By beginning at this level, the volunteer and the peer were able to scaffold the activity until Manuel could do it independently.
These strategies provided more opportunities for Manuel to focus on the same activities in which the other children were participating. Because he was highly motivated by the activities, he gradually became less bothered by other children in his space. Within a month he was no longer aggressive with the other children and seemed well settled into the daily routine. Staff then began focusing on his needs in the area of language development. Mrs. Jackson reminded them to emphasize and label key words, especially the words for things that interested him most, and repeat the words in short sentences or phrases. Manuel began immediately to try to imitate the key words and gradually began using the words spontaneously, especially to request a favorite food or toy.
Read–Reflect–Discuss Questions
What aspects in Manuel’s life created challenges for his adjustment to the Head Start center?
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