Jackson Lighting Case Study

Jackson Lighting is a fifth grade student at Green Tea Elementary. He became a student in Ms. Carita’s self-contained program at the end of third grade when he moved to the area. Jackson was mainstreamed in fourth grade for morning meeting, science and specials. He had many behavioral difficulties in regards to work completion, physical and verbal aggression and targeting others. Due to these choices, he was not mainstreamed full day. However, due to his above grade level academic abilities, the team decided to mainstream full day on day one of fifth grade. This decision was also made with the hope that if Jackson was mainstreamed with his typical peers, his negative behaviors would be more sporadic.
Jackson’s behavioral struggles began within the first two weeks of school. He often claimed that he was bored, would refuse tasks, had two verbal outbursts, one physical and required a staff present ninety percent of the time (the other ten percent a staff was not available). In
Ms. Carita worked with Jackson and the duo created a flip-chart of the zones. This chart included each zone, the emotions felt, and Jackson wrote strategies he could use. The chart was brought to the mainstream class and, when Jackson moved from zone to zone, a strategy was employed. This solution did not consistently work and, difficulties regarding work continued.
Ms. Carita and Mr. Jones met again and he reiterated his belief that, Jackson did not have the stamina to complete tasks. He stressed that although he enjoyed having Jackson, a durable solution would need to be found. Ms. Carita continued her work with Jackson and, it was determined that he would have a work break every ten minutes. This would look like, work for ten minutes then a seven break using an iPad or alpha smart (he enjoys typing stories) would occur. Jackson bought into the plan and, with the use of a motivator (a vibrating timer), began implementation