Formal Case Study

By Emily Lanie
Background Information
 Background Information

I got all of the background information for this student from his school file. Grant is a 9

year 9 month old boy, his birthday is June 11th. He was born to his parents in Utah and both of

them are immigrants from Brazil. His dad works three jobs to support the family and his mother

is a stay at home mom. His parents speak primarily Portuguese with a small portion of English.

Grant is fluent in both languages, he speaks English at school. He has a little brother who is 4

years old and starting kindergarten in the next year. His brother has no indications of behavior

or learning disabilities. Grant has been in early intervention programs his whole life starting

with a psychologist and going to different preschool programs. He eventually ended up at Quail

Hollow, where he is 4th grade today.

He had minor complications at birth, having to have a vacuum assisted birth. He was in

the NICU for two days, receiving treatment for jaundice and he was released at the same time

as his mom. He has not been in the hospital since. Kyle did not begin to use words until he was

24 months old and did not use 2-3 word phrases well into his 2nd year of life.

Psychiatric History

When he was 2 years old he started seeing a psychologist for some

behavior/development problems in the home. His psychologist diagnosed him with ADHD.

Grant was then put in programs at the Childrens Center in downtown Salt Lake where he was

diagnosed with Autism. Though some people disagreed with his diagnosis, it was formally given

in his preschool program at Butler.

 School History

Kyle attended a therapeutic preschool program at the Childrens Center starting in June

of 2010 until January of 2011. He was discharged due to lack of progression in the program. He

was re-admitted in August 2011, but his parents pulled him out in October of that year. He was

then placed in a program at the University of Utah called U can Learn. In 2012 he started

preschool at Quail Hollow Elementary school and still attends school here, he is currently in 4 th

grade.
Achievement
Grant has been given many tests since the age of 2 to help diagnose him and to help figure

what area he needs help in the classroom. Grant was given the Woodcock-Johnson

Achievement test recently, because he has hit a wall with his learning. He hasnt been making

progress in any subject over his fourth grade year. My mentor teacher decided to give him the

Woodcock-Johnson again to see where he was falling on the norm chart, so they could possibly

find a specific area or couple areas that are holding him back. When his results came back he

was actually in the average range for almost every subject, besides applied problems.

Letter-Word Identification 97
Passage Comprehension 81
Word Attack 97
Reading Vocabulary 98
Writing Samples 94
Writing Fluency 108
Quantitative Concepts 83
Calculation 98
Math Fluency 99
Applied Problems 77

As you can see from his test results he is scoring in the average range for everything but

passage comprehension, quantitative concepts, and applied problems. This made figuring out

why he is struggling in school even harder to figure out. He isnt performing like this in the

classroom, he is a C+ average student. When I saw these scores I thought that it might be a

behavior problem and when I talked to Lowell and Shamby they answered that question for me.
Benchmark Tests
Student Report: Grant
Class: 4th Grade
Subject: Language Arts/Reading Comprehension
R:F.S.S.3 a

Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology

(e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context

R:L.S.3

Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the

text (e.g., a characters thoughts, words, or actions).

3rd grade CBM for Language (School generated test)

Benchmark 1 Benchmark 2 Benchmark 3

Vocabulary 37% 50% 63%
Comprehension 100% 100% 100%
Grammar 63% 91% 91%
Total 66% 75% 80%
Behavior/Observation
 Behavior/Observation

Over the past month and a half of observing in Mrs. Edems classroom I noticed that

there was a very high mix of student behaviors in the classroom. There were a students who

were constantly moving and talking and other students who would come in sit down and do

their work with only some talking. Grant started to stand out to me, because some days he

would come in and be very quiet and just focus on his work. Other days he would come in and

wouldnt stop talking, either answering questions or trying to talk to his peers.

One thing that was constant for most days was the fact that Grant tended to be very

defiant when it came to following directions or simply listening to what his teacher was saying

at the time. I found this interesting and decided I wanted to pay a little extra attention to why

he was defiant in the classroom. I knew he had autism and that could factor into why he was

defiant to directions, but I wanted to try and understand the antecedent of his defiant

behavior.

The following week I was there with Grant I started to pick up on the fact that he

seemed to always be preoccupied by what his peers were doing. Whenever he was given a

direction or was supposed to listen to the teacher talk he was always looking at where his peers

were in the assignment or what they were doing while the teacher addressed them. He was so

intrigued by his peers he couldnt focus on Mrs. Edems directions and when he was asked to

start working on the assignment he kept looking at his peers, once he saw all three of t hem

working he finally started. He would constantly check where the other three students were on

their worksheet though.

 This was a constant behavior Ive noticed every week I have been there, one time it was

on a CBM and as soon as he saw the rest of the students were finished with their test he

hurried and scribbled in a bunch of answers that werent correct. There will be somedays where

he will answer any question if the other students dont know the answer, even though he

doesnt know the answer either. Sometimes it seems like he doesnt hear the question at all

and just wants to answer so the rest of the group will listen to him. It comes across that he just

wants to fit in or in his mind be normal.

Another behavior that I have observed over the last few weeks with Grant is that once

something is in his mind it is really hard to change that thought. One day we were playing a

math game on the Ipad that was a competition between students. Each student was given a

multiplication or division problem one after another and who every finished them first won the

game. When Grant was playing he kept switching the signs up, there was one problem, 8x8,

which he spent 4 minutes on because he was convinced it was a division problem. I told him

that it was multiplication and another student did too, but he wouldnt stop answering 1. He

was so stuck and he wouldnt listen to anyone. Finally, all three of the other students told Grant

it was multiplication and he changed his answer to 64.

After talking about it with Mrs. Edem we both suspected that his antecedent to his

defiant behavior was the fact that he just wants to fit in with the other students. We both

thought that he has picked up the idea that because of his autism he isnt normal like the

other students and thats all he wants. I strongly believe after all of my observations that he

really just wants to feel like he is the same as every student, even though there is no normal.

Another antecedent could also be that once he believes something it is stuck that way in his
mind and it can be really hard for him to change that belief. That is something though that is

part of his autism and he will have to learn more skills to help him cope with the idea of

changing concepts.
 Formal Report
Name: Grant S. Date of Birth: 6/11/07
Grade: 4.9 Age: 9.10
Teacher: Mrs. Edem School: Quail Hollow
Date of Evaluation: February 21, 2017

Reason for Evaluation:

Grant was referred to special education, because of his diagnosis of autism. He started
in the special education class in kindergarten. Grant was recently re -evaluated because he had
hit a wall in the classroom and was no longer making any academic progress. A re-evaluation
was order to be done before his IEP goal meeting in March, so his goals could be revised and
adjusted for better academic progress.

Testing:

Grant was given the Woodcock-Johnson III achievement test. Grant was given this test
to see where he was falling on the bell-curve and if it was below his last scores on the test or
around the same area as the previous scores. Grant was given the Woodcock-Johnson III in Mrs.
Edems white room, where it was quiet and he felt the most comfortable.

Achievement Abilities:
When Grants scores came back everyone was shocked by them, compared to his age
range he was scored in the average range for almost every category. Writing Fluency was
scored at 108, being his strongest area. While Applied Proble ms was scored at 77, being his
weakest area. In quantitative concepts and passage comprehension he was in the low 80 range,
putting him below average in those three test areas. In letter-word identification (97), word
attack (97), reading vocabulary (98), writing samples (94), calculation (98), and math fluency
(99) were all in the high nineties.

Name of Subtest Score

Letter-Word Identification 97
Passage Comprehension 81
Word Attack 97
Reading Vocabulary 98
Writing Samples 94
Writing Fluency 108
Quantitative Concepts 83
Calculation 98
 Math Fluency 99
Applied Problems 77

Compared to the norm-reference for his grade Grant is performing in the average range.
The weakness in the applied problems subtest wasnt as much of a surprise, because t hat has
always been one of his lowest areas due to his autism. The other scores told us to look in a
different direction for what is causing his lack of progress in the classroom and declining grades.
Diagnostic Tests:

Grant did not take any diagnostic test for his re-evaluation, he was only given the
Woodcock-Johnson III and a couple Benchmark tests.

Benchmark Tests:
Grant was given a language and comprehension benchmark that was generated by his
speech pathologist, Mrs. Campbell. He was given the test in Mrs. Campbell gave him the test in
her office where is felt very comfortable. He had three different sessions with her over the span
of the last two months, too get a baseline data for his upcoming IEP meeting. There were three
categories in the test that included vocabulary, comprehension, and grammar. Below I listed
the results:

Benchmark 1 Benchmark 2 Benchmark 3

Vocabulary 37% 50% 63%
Comprehension 100% 100% 100%
Grammar 63% 91% 91%
Total 66% 75% 80%

He progressed over the three trials, but you can see his vocabulary is his weakest area. He
excels at a comprehension and his grammar is starting to show great progress.
Recommendations:
After looking at all the data that was collected for Kyles re-evaluation it was determined
that he needed different accommodations and goals. They determined they needed to focus on
his applied problems and vocabulary. The team decided to keep him in resource for math and
reading instruction and also speech therapy. They also wanted to take a more detailed look into
his behavior. They noticed that Grant performed much better when he was alone and not
around his peers.
It was recommended that Mrs. Edem will do behavior observations in his general
education class and in the special education classroom during small group instruction. They did
complete two small observations before the IEP meeting and believe Grant is focused on his
peers and their reactions to him. They want to complete more observations to get a better
understanding of his behavior.
 On top of the observations of his behavior, they made changed some of his IEP goals.
Instead of focusing on reading fluency the team switched the goals to mathematical applied
problems and reading passage comprehension. Even though his benchmark comprehension
scores were all 100%, he still scored below average on the Woodcock-Johnson III.