The article was primarily written to aid in increasing positive interaction skills of students who had Tourette’s Syndrome coupled with other socio-emotional intricacies. The researchers have reviewed relevant sources to support their findings as to the case study reports about practitioner-led research about behavior management of pupils with TS.
The authors are indeed addressing a social problem as it illuminates a behavior pattern that affects positive adult or peer interactions. This behavior pattern leads to the loss of students’ classroom and learning time. Moreover, such students tend to be away from their peers probably because their peers reject them. Classroom time is also lost when such students have to be excluded from school at particular periods in the academic calendar. The study is also a social issue as the student taking part in the study happens to come from a minority ethnic Japanese who have just settled in the United States. It would be interesting to know whether this behavior pattern can only be traced to a particular community.
The authors indeed give details describing the current conditions and why they are needed. The authors underscore the need for using teacher-led intervention in combating Tourette’s Syndrome in school-going children. However, there is a proposition for the integration of aspects of functional behavioral assessment and peer support groups. This is supposed to increase the victims of TS interaction skills (Turton and Rayner 2007, p.335).
The research question is not explicitly stated in the case study, but as one reads through the report you get to know what the research question is all about. The question, though implicit, seeks to know whether teacher-led interventions integrated with functional behavioral assessment and peer support groups can be used in treating Tourette’s Syndrome.
Other than the traditional teacher-led intervention, the author introduces aspects of peers as a supportive intervention to supplement the efforts that were put by teachers and other staff in assisting students with Tourette’s Syndrome. The teacher-led intervention has been posited to enjoy a lot of support from the individualized education plan. The change in intervention is supposed to involve the teachers, other staff, the victim’s peers, and the student with Tourette’s Syndrome. The parents were also of course involved.
The author has effectively made use of tables to summarize the behavior pattern that the student under study exhibited. The data documented the number of fights he was involved in when he engaged in assault and class disruption, and occasions when he failed to comply with the teacher’s directives. The tables showed that the student had 68 referrals that resulted in his suspension. The victim also missed six school days and mixed half of the 20 school periods. The information that is tabulated exclusively addresses the research question that is concerned with interrogating whether the involvement of peers and teacher intervention can be used in treating Tourette’s Syndrome. The intervention resulted in a decrease in incidences of fights and assaults, hence a decline in referrals and write-ups by teachers. The research however notes that the intervention only works within a stipulated period.
The article is quite interesting as it calls upon the researchers to conduct follow-up studies before the intervention can be approved to be effective or not. It is interesting to note that the intervention was more effective than the one that was previously used with TS victims.
It is imperative that target-specific management is used as this intervention can be very labor-intensive. Moreover, because of problems related to generalization in such studies, it is important that relatability of data and results is used to justify further studies.
Reference List
Turton, A. and Rayner, S. (2007). Behavior intervention for a student with Tourette’s Syndrome: a case study. Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties, 12(4), 333–348.