Heidie worked with a teacher in an elementary school located in a low socio-economic and ethnically diverse neighborhood. She worked in a multi-age second-fourth grade with students with serious emotional disorders in a self-contained special education service delivery model. Frequency of contact was twice a week.

Brief Description of Learner: "Albert" was a very bright student who had a strong level of curiosity that enabled him to learn new information quickly. He also had a temper.

Academic Behavior: In general, Albert's academic performance was at grade level. Albert's method of dealing with frustration was to stomp his feet and clinch his hands.

Monitoring System: I used informal observation; A-B-C charts; frequency count. When conducting the observation, I made sure that the days and times of observations were consistent.

Instructional System (antecedents and consequences of the academic behavior): Antecedents were any opportunity to participate in classroom activities and consequences were to continue participating.

Error Correction Procedure: One of the following consequences were implemented: Over-correction (Albert was asked to clench his fists while stomping for 5 minutes); Exclusion (Albert had to stand on the "star" in the center of the classroom for 5 to 10 minutes; Verbal Direction ("stop" or "knock it off"); and Round Robin discussion technique often many hours after the event had occurred.

Intervention System (any changes in antecedents and consequences or error correction procedure): Albert was encouraged and instructed to "take three deep breaths" every time he began to be frustrated. He helped to define "becoming frustrated" as those times when he clenched his fists and wanted "to hit something". In addition, positive teacher comments were introduced, like "Albert, you have been having such a good day! " and some reminders to breathe. He was observed to use his breathing technique at recess as well.

Summary: Albert's behavior in dealing with frustration more appropriately improved. It appeared that the number of times he clenched his fist/stomped his feet decreased from the baseline observation frequencies (approximately 2.6 per hour in the morning and approximately 1.9 on the average in the afternoons as tallied October 7, 9, 14, and 16).

Recommendations: I recommend that the breathing technique be continued. His teaching assistant has taken the role of reminding him to breath when he becomes frustrated, thus assuring continuation of a successful intervention. (Yea!)

Overall Reflection of Progress in Implementing Effective Teaching Practices and Instructional Management Systems: I think it went very well. I was able to design alternatives and choose one that fit the classroom management system in effect.