Adults With Developmental Disabilities

I have my fifty year class reunion (seriously?!) coming up this fall and it got me to thinking about my old high school teachers. I went to a small school - there were fifty-two of us in my graduating class and it still holds the record as being the largest graduating class ever at my school. One of my teachers was Mr. Isbell. Mr. Isbell was a science teacher and football coach and like many students I was mildly afraid of him, but as it turns out, he was an inspiration to me when I became involved in the field of developmental disabilities... for a single science lesson he taught us back in about 1966 or so.

He set out a burning candle and told us to study it for a few minutes, then he told us to write down everything we had observed about the candle. Not being an A student, I struggled to come up with things - it was hot if you touched the flame, the wick burned down, the wax melted, I could hear music coming from the band room, I needed to open a new bag of feed for our sheep when I got home after school...uh... and... uh...

Of course, there were many things to observe - the candle apparently needed the wick for fuel, a small amount of smoke arose from the flame, the flame apparently needed air to continue burning because it went out if you put it in a beaker with a lid over it, the flame was affected by air movement, it wouldn't burn if it was turned upside down, the flame went out if you doused it with water, the color of the candle apparently didn't affect the flame... there were a lot of things that could be observed.

Skip ahead just about thirty years. I started working with adults with developmental disabilities, many of whom had behavioral issues including assaultive behaviors. What does a burning candle have to do with this?

One of the biggest lessons I learned in order to assist our clients was that I needed to sit and observe them. What did I really see? I mean, what did I REALLY see? Were the client's pants wet? Did they have a blister on their hand? Did they rub their eyes often? Did their skin look dry? Had they just taken any medication? Had they missed a dose of medication? Who was around during the behavioral episode? What was happening just before the incident? What happened right after? What did the client get out of his/her behavior?

It was the old candle lesson all over again. Fortunately, I had listened to Mr. Isbell. I quickly figured out that observation is a HUGE step in identifying reasons for behavior. It's the old A-B-C thing... Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence. And you can't figure out those things if you aren't paying attention. "Oh, he's just doing that for the attention." Well, maybe. What did you OBSERVE that led you to that conclusion?

In my day program, our staff had to write 'case notes' for unusual behaviors during the day. We used to get notes that said things like, "Bob hit Mary all day." That didn't work for me, so I remade our case note forms in an A-B-C format. What was going on just before the incident? "Bob sat next to Mary on the bus and she called him a name".What did you see the client do? "Bob struck Mary one time with an open hand using moderate force" (and yes, we had descriptors for what mild, moderate and severe force consisted of). And what happened right after? "I talked to Bob about appropriate reactions and asked him to sit next to me during the ride instead of next to Mary. There were no further incidents."

Ah, so Bob didn't hit Mary all day. And now we know that we need to talk to Bob and Mary about appropriate behavior including identifying our emotions, dealing with our emotions, self-relaxation techniques, getting along with others, and more.

And what a coincidence... these are all topics in the SNAP Curriculum.

So, my point is, think about your own observation skills and how they can assist you in dealing with your clients.

See you at the reunion!