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ADHD, 3.04 (V) Structure of the DRC

3.04 (V) Structure of the DRC

In part two we're going to talk about how to construct a daily report card. The first thing to do is to review the child's current behavior. This can be done through the collection of some behavioral rating scales or checklists. It might be done through an observation of the child's behavior. There can also be an interview with the child's teacher to find out what their major concerns are with regard to student weakness or areas of impairment. As well as identifying places where things are going well and where the student has some strengths. The daily report card should focus on key domains of functioning for kids. That is going to include peer relationships, academic productivity, and then rule-following in the classroom and outside of the classroom. And probably the focus will be on these areas of impairment. Because in the long run, improvement in those things are going to be what's really going to be important in grading whether or not this child is functioning well in school. When we think about how many behaviors to target, sometimes teachers can have a laundry list of things they want to work on. But Rome wasn't built in a day. It's important to think about three to five key behaviors that the teacher would like to see some improvement on. As the child progresses and does better, we'll talk about modifying the daily report card. We can take off some targets and add new ones. But we really want to make sure that the child can focus on a few things and do well with those before we overload them with lots of demands. Each target behavior needs to be operationally defined. So we have to carefully list exactly what that behavior involves. It can't be something like follow school rules, because there many school rules, both inside and outside of the classroom. Well defined following school rules target might be that the child needs no more than one reminder for leaving his area in line transitioning between classes. That's specific so that the child and the teacher knows exactly what's expected with that target behavior. Usually a behavioral target will need to have a criteria included. So if we just said stay in line, a child might feel like they made it. A teacher might feel like they didn't. But if we said, state an assigned area with no more than two reminders to return to the area, that way the child can keep track of how many reminders they've received. The teacher can keep track of how many reminders they've provided. And when it comes time to circle a yes or a no or give the child a smiley face for meeting the goal or leaving a blank if they didn't meet the goal, both the child and the teacher know that the goal is met or not met because there's an objective criteria to refer to. Usually a teacher will think about a 20% reduction in the criteria. So on average, if the child is getting out of line five times per day, they might set a goal of needing no more than four reminders for getting out of line. Over time, we would reduce the criterion to become a little more restrictive. It might go down to three, and then it might go down to one, and then eventually it might say it needs no reminders to get out of line. But that would happen over a period of time once the child had demonstrated some success in meeting the more lenient targets. There's an example of a daily report card that might be helpful to look at. As you can see, there's some targets that go across the school day and content areas. There might also be some behaviors targeted outside the classroom like reports of discipline problems in lunch or specials classes. The important thing about the daily report card is that it clearly identifies what the goals are for the child each day. There's clear criteria in place that let the teacher and the student know whether or not the goal was met or not. And then this becomes the roadmap that's going to help parents and the child know whether or not privileges were earned at the end of each day at home. And we'll talk about that in just a moment.


3.04 (V) Structure of the DRC

In part two we're going to talk about how to construct a daily report card. The first thing to do is to review the child's current behavior. This can be done through the collection of some behavioral rating scales or checklists. It might be done through an observation of the child's behavior. There can also be an interview with the child's teacher to find out what their major concerns are with regard to student weakness or areas of impairment. As well as identifying places where things are going well and where the student has some strengths. The daily report card should focus on key domains of functioning for kids. That is going to include peer relationships, academic productivity, and then rule-following in the classroom and outside of the classroom. And probably the focus will be on these areas of impairment. Because in the long run, improvement in those things are going to be what's really going to be important in grading whether or not this child is functioning well in school. When we think about how many behaviors to target, sometimes teachers can have a laundry list of things they want to work on. But Rome wasn't built in a day. It's important to think about three to five key behaviors that the teacher would like to see some improvement on. As the child progresses and does better, we'll talk about modifying the daily report card. We can take off some targets and add new ones. But we really want to make sure that the child can focus on a few things and do well with those before we overload them with lots of demands. Each target behavior needs to be operationally defined. So we have to carefully list exactly what that behavior involves. It can't be something like follow school rules, because there many school rules, both inside and outside of the classroom. Well defined following school rules target might be that the child needs no more than one reminder for leaving his area in line transitioning between classes. That's specific so that the child and the teacher knows exactly what's expected with that target behavior. Usually a behavioral target will need to have a criteria included. So if we just said stay in line, a child might feel like they made it. A teacher might feel like they didn't. But if we said, state an assigned area with no more than two reminders to return to the area, that way the child can keep track of how many reminders they've received. The teacher can keep track of how many reminders they've provided. And when it comes time to circle a yes or a no or give the child a smiley face for meeting the goal or leaving a blank if they didn't meet the goal, both the child and the teacher know that the goal is met or not met because there's an objective criteria to refer to. Usually a teacher will think about a 20% reduction in the criteria. So on average, if the child is getting out of line five times per day, they might set a goal of needing no more than four reminders for getting out of line. Over time, we would reduce the criterion to become a little more restrictive. It might go down to three, and then it might go down to one, and then eventually it might say it needs no reminders to get out of line. But that would happen over a period of time once the child had demonstrated some success in meeting the more lenient targets. There's an example of a daily report card that might be helpful to look at. As you can see, there's some targets that go across the school day and content areas. There might also be some behaviors targeted outside the classroom like reports of discipline problems in lunch or specials classes. The important thing about the daily report card is that it clearly identifies what the goals are for the child each day. There's clear criteria in place that let the teacher and the student know whether or not the goal was met or not. And then this becomes the roadmap that's going to help parents and the child know whether or not privileges were earned at the end of each day at home. And we'll talk about that in just a moment.