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Krysten Carroll:
Hi everyone. My name is Krysten Carroll and I am in the master's program for autism spectrum disorder. I am currently taking SPED 800, which is a communication course. I have just had such a great time with this class. It's something that I have learned so much from, and I am excited to start working more with the resources that I have been given throughout this course. And throughout the learning that I have gotten from the professors that I have worked with have been absolutely amazing. And have taught me so much, and so much useful information that I can put into my day to day routine with my students. I am a first grade ICT teacher, so I am working in a special ed and general education class, fully remote. I've been working with students with communication disorders, and students who struggle with communication due to their disability. Working in this class has been so helpful in learning different strategies, and different processes and interventions, that I can use. Not only with my students that I'm working on for projects within the class, but for students who I'm working with every single day.

And any student that's struggling with a communication issue, or who is having a hard time expressing something, or showing how they're feeling. Whether it's verbally or non-verbally. I have worked with both sets of students. This course has just taught me so much. The professors have been incredibly helpful. They are so understanding and they are so willing to work with you throughout these projects. To give you so much insight and feedback when you're working on these projects, and teaching you different ins and outs of how to use these strategies. And how to use these interventions in order to help create a successful environment for your student. Something that really stuck out to me about this course was the final project, the project we were working on throughout the entire course, actually. It was our communication project. We had to choose a student who we wanted to work with, and who we wanted to pick an intervention for. And pick a process that we wanted to kind of implement throughout the day with the student, and take data and see how the student reacted to it.

I was working with a student in first grade, who I started using a reinforcement strategy and intervention. I at first was a bit nervous because I know that my student works well towards rewards, but I was thinking that the student might catch on pretty quickly that they were working towards something that I was trying to teach them. That they were going to realize that this was just a teaching process, and that they were getting these rewards because I was trying to change a behavior. My student really struggled to express how they were feeling, and they struggled to express needing help in an appropriate manner. A lot of the time it would become something that was yelling or crying, and really frustration was just taking over the student. I was nervous that at first they would catch on to that being part of the reason why I was doing the rewards.

Even when they did start to realize that it was teaching new behaviors, and teaching them how to ask for help in an appropriate manner. And how to express themselves appropriately, they were so proud of themselves for learning and understanding, that there is a different way to communicate your feelings and to communicate your frustrations, rather than just breaking down. This was something that the student is still working on, but has gained so much knowledge and has wanted to hold themselves accountable for. Meanwhile, these are only students that are in first grade. Working with visuals and working with checklists in order to help the student see, "When I am confused, I should do this." Or, "When I am, I'm struggling to ask for help, this is how I can ask." We would model those strategies and we would work with those students, and showing him how to use a different strategy rather than just shutting down. Because, he was more than capable of expressing how he was feeling in an appropriate way.

Going through this project and seeing the growth from the beginning of working with my student, and trying different processes and interventions. And ending up working with reinforcement and using different checklists to help keep the student accountable, was such a great reward. The student was so proud of himself, and he was starting to realize how he can help himself throughout the day. How it doesn't have to be a big struggle in order to ask for help. This was something that this class gave to me, and I think is just incredibly helpful and useful. Something that I will start to use now with all of my students is, just different strategies and interventions in order to help my students.