On case conferences:

It is the end-of-term case conference, aka Meet The Parents weeks again.

It is this time of the year when our attire have to be more presentable. So no more wrinkled pants and t-shirt, and give me some of those stiff collar shirt and a coat. I got to wear a name-tag and sit inside the meeting room for half an hour each time reporting on the progress and projected goals for the students i see for therapy. This is the other aspect of my work which is very important. This is because i don't have much chances to meet up with the parents for some of my students as they only turn up for these case conferences twice a year. It is easier to share with parents who have been accompanying their child to school as they would usually sit in for the therapy sessions and knows what is it i am doing with their child. These weekly interactions and informal sharing during therapy sessions would also make the formal case conference more a formality than a necessity.

It is quite different for parents who are working and have not had a chance to sit in during one of my therapy sessions. I have to explain everything in a simpler form and often i have to bring along my "equipments" (e.g. My board makers, my "First-then" strip, my choice menu) to illustrate what is it i am doing during therapy. And often part of my responsibility during the case conference would be to answer any queries or difficulties in the child's behaviour that the parents need help in. This really requires one to think quickly on their feet. It sounds daunting at first, but gradually i realized, because i see these children weekly, i usually have quite a good grasp of their behaviour repetoire and the range of difficult behaviour that they might exhibit (e.g. throwing, banging their head etc). Hence, part of my therapy would have been to help modulate and regulate such behaviours already. So, what i need to do is really to make the strategies that i have been using in the class room more feasible for the parents to do at home (bearing in mind that they are busy or that someone else might be the caregiver).

More often than not, the strategies are not difficult to translate from the school environment to the home environment. But i need to empharize the main thing which is CONSISTENCY. No matter what consequence we give to a child for his behaviour, it must be consistent in order for the child to learn and associate. Seem like a simple behaviour modification strategy but it is very difficult to achieve in real life. One possible reason is that parents could be busy and do not have time to give consistent consequence or that parents differ in views of consequence to give or perhaps the parents forgot to give the agreed consequence. Still, most parents do try whenever they can help it. And usually i do see significant improvements after sharing with parents who are motivated to do something at home. For those who are either too busy or could not do something at home for whatever reasons, i think the aim of the case conference would have been achieved, if they would at least have taken a greater interest in the child's progress.