I guess I'm a little cynical about behavioral people, as least they are used in the district at which I work. We hardly ever seem them, the behavior plans we get are pretty unworkable as a rule, and when we try to get help tweaking a plan: crickets. I felt so bad for the young, enthusiastic , new (no Special Education people seems to stick around more than a year) young lady working with my grandson. When we gathered to read her report, it was so hard not to groan out loud and say "have you been listening to us, the teacher, the school psychiatric, etc?!" We all had the same reaction. It was the standard sticker chart (without taking things away), give lots of high fives, blah blah blah. Not something the teacher could keep going with 25 other kids to worry about. And it did nothing to address the impulsiveness, provide movement breaks. It was of what we've all been doing for two years and that works with most kids, but not kids like this. I bought the Explosive Child and Lost at School care package for the school and requested the social skills group leader (an MFCC) and the behavioral specialist read it so we wouldn't get more of the same. We all are onto the ABC model, tracking data with little clipboards, frequency counts, etc.
The only aides I've worked with are the ones in my district at work that are with the students with moderate/severe differences, and they are specialized, trained, make extra money, and there is very little turnover. They are really great, but we are talking about a huge district in Silicon Valley as compared to a small district that won't even pony up the money to pay a principal for my grandson's school of 400 students. It's like Lord of the Flies on the playground. Many parents send family members to follow their students around so that no one gets hurt. I just have to hope that we get lucky, because my husband is a little over doing unpaid yard duty watching our difficult child get singled out, tattled about, watch other kids doing far worse things to each other and getting away with it. It's maddening.
I guess we should be glad that difficult child is just so upfront with his stuff and not devious and sneaky like so many of the other little boys up there. It's partly the fact that the boys that tend to travel in packs, taunt, etc., are non-English speakers so they are probably dealing with their own frustrations. That being said, they are 40% of the school, so I doubt they are feeling the isolation that my grandson is. Trying to remain positive...
