Social Skills and Behavior Data

In my work with students, identifying areas of social skill deficit provides direction for my counseling services and guides my goals.  Gathering baseline data and progress monitoring allows me to measure progress. If you are like me, you have too much paperwork and not enough hours in the day to complete it.  Two tools that I have created assist me with identifying skills to focus on and monitoring progress.  The Social Behavior Questionnaire (mentioned in a previous post) is a questionnaire that I give to teachers whose students I am working with.  This provides me with some general information to focus on in my sessions with students.  My Excel Behavior program allows me to enter a number of pieces of data (check sheet info, observations and office referrals) and the program automatically generates graphs and a quick data report.  Please feel free to use these and share with others.

Thanks for checking them out!

 

Erics Excel Behavior Program BETA EXAMPLE

Elias Social Behavioral Questionaire

Social Skills Story

Hello school psych, counselor and teacher friends, I wonder if people would be willing to give me some feedback. I have a number of children’s stories that I am writing (social skills, coping skills, etc). Would any of you be willing to read one of my stories and let me know what you like or dislike about the content? If people find value in these, I will format them, do the artwork better and put them on my Teachers Pay Teachers page. Feel free to download, read and share, but please let me know what you like or dislike. Thanks! Once you download the PDF, click “rotate view” in your PDF viewer so you can read it in landscape format.

Ted The Feelings Zombie Story Beta Test

 

Ted the Feelings Zombie (C) (P) Eric Elias all rights reserved. This story in it’s current format may be shared and copied.

Behavior Assessments

A number of people have asked about conducting Functional Behavior Assessments and writing Behavior Plans.  I’ve attached a procedural manual that I wrote based on literature and web site reviews.  It contains ideas for data collection, assessment procedures, example forms, graphing samples and resources.  Creating the manual was a big undertaking, but helped me “own” the process  little more and consider additional ideas.  I urge all practitioners involved in this process to read and come up with a process that works best for you, your team of teachers and most of all your students and their families.

I’ve also uploaded a graphing example for creating graphs from some of the forms referenced in the document (using Excel). Once you create a graph, you can copy and paste it into a word document.

Elias Action Team BIP Manual

FBA Data Graph Samples

About Me

Eric Elias, MS Ed, ABSNP is a school psychologist with over 30 years of experience. He is Connecticut’s 2018 School Psychologist of the Year. Eric is a co-host of the successful podcast School Psyched. Mr. Elias has a number of articles published in journals, the NASP Communique, CT Association of School Psychologists’ Newsletter as well as through the American Federation of Teachers. He has also recently co-authored an article published in the Journal of Contemporary School Psychology. Eric continues to support research through projects specific to the practice of school psychology in collaboration with professors from several universities. He supports the practice of school psychology on a national level through his involvement on the NASP Communications Committee and presentations at the National Association of School Psychologists annual conferences. Eric is an active board member for the Connecticut Association of School Psychologists (CASP) and is the Newsletter editor for CASP as well. Eric has taught psychology as an adjunct and is currently on the advisory board for the School Psychology program at Southern Connecticut State University. Eric is passionate about social and emotional learning, social justice as well as evidence-based assessment, practice and intervention

Welcome

Welcome to Random Acts of Counseling.  As a School psychologist with 30 years of experience, I have explored the process of providing counseling and tiered behavior supports for much of my career.  In education today we are required to make data-based decisions. The art of teaching is now guided by the sciences of education and psychology. State agencies are requiring scientific documentation for the allocation of our limited time and resources.  Counseling services in school, while therapeutic in nature, are not always scientific, measurable or research-based.  This is what I call “Random Acts of Counseling.”  We may see the students on some kind of regular schedule or when they are upset or sent to the office and we read a few books or do lunch-bunch, crafts/activities that are therapeutic in nature, consult with parents and teachers.  In the end we hope that we are making a difference, but how do we actually measure outcomes, how do we know whether or not we are actually making a difference? Henry Ford once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” We know that behavior concerns can have a significant impact on classroom and school climate. These issues remain at the top of staff and parents’ priorities. We also know that the traditional approaches for student support and classroom/school discipline don’t always work for all kids. In this blog I will explore and share resources for using stream-lined data collection and support methods which will hopefully lead to effective, efficient, goal-directed and research-supported help for our students (so that our counseling supports are not random).