Blog #9

Now a second semester senior, both my time in San Ramon Valley High and my internship are halfway over. Reflecting on my first blog, I have come so far in my knowledge and experience with behavior analysis. By the end of this semester, I want to have established a solid relationship with at least one client. Creating visual cue cards and scoring adaptive behavior scales has become easy and familiar to me, a goal I wanted to have mastered by the start of this semester. With an excess of new at home clients and programs in the company, I will have many more opportunities to get hands-on experience in the field!

At home programs can be far away or close by, either in the morning or during the day, making going to an at home program difficult to find time for. With my mentor's insanely busy schedule and my work and school schedule, finding a time where we both can go to an assessment has proven difficult. Luckily, I've gotten used to my mentor's busy schedule, now planning in advance when we can both attend at-home programs. Hopefully, this proves to be useful and I can get more time in the field. Also, after hiring a new office manager, I can easily text her and see if my help is needed in the office, expecting a quick response when my mentor is busy. Combining busy schedules proves to be the most difficult task in my iQuest, and planning meetings ahead of time is an easy fix. As my knowledge of behavior analysis and the practice has grown, my comfortableness around children has too. Prepared and experienced with the correct procedures to use, and when to use them, has eased my anxiety and boosted my confidence working with kids. Practice is the only way to truly excel and gain experience, so I can only hope having the chance to attend assessments and at-home programs continues to increase my knowledge and reach my goals!

End of First Semester! (Blog #8)

At the start of the year, I knew I would love iQuest, but I never knew how much. Working with my mentor, Jeanine, has broadened my knowledge about behavior analysis incredibly over the last four months. I've interned around 28 hours with Jeanine's business, Building Connections Behavioral Health Inc. Most of the work I've done has been split between office work and field work. I first learned how to score the Vineland, a book used to assess and scale behaviors. I have gone to Bollinger Canyon Elementary School twice, where I helped special education teachers with activites in the classroom and at recess. Children have always been slighty foreign to me, and entering a classroom without prior experience with kids, let alone austic children, was intimidating. Every teacher was very accepting, and never hesitated to help when I was noticably uncomfortable. Being in such an accepting environment made it easy for me to catch on quickly! During one session I was told to watch a girl named Kala, and before we went out for recess one teacher told me, "Make sure you watch her closely! She likes to sprint towards to parking lot,". Situations like this definitely made me nervous, but were simply routine for the other special education teachers.

In the office, I have sat in on meetings about proper restaint techniques when dealing with violent children, and was volunteered to have the restraints be practiced on me! I have also created numerous goal sheets and visual commands teachers use in the classroom. Sitting in on meetings between Jeanine and special education teachers has taught me the effort and patience needed to control the small, yet unpredictable classrooms. Visual cues and commands are often used in these classrooms, as many autistic children have difficulty effectively communicating. I love hearing teachers personally thank me for making token boards or visuals, saying how often they use them and how much the children enjoy them! Laminating and cutting small pieces of paper for hours, only for them to soon be chewed on, bent, and eventually destroyed, pays off when I see them being used in a classroom. 

I also attended a workshop on play therapy with Mary Ruth Cross. This workshop was something new and exciting, as I was unaware of play therapy's existence until Mrs. Sekara introduced me to Mary Ruth. Sadly, I could only attend half the workshop. Once again, the workshop was full of very knowledgable and accepting people! One thing I love about the world of psychology is anyone in the field of therapy is understanding, welcoming, and open. I have yet to meet one therapist or psychologist that did not leave me a little slice of their knowledge. The concepts and techniques behind play therapy I found intriguing, and a month later Mary Ruth gave me a tour of her office. The organization and layout of an office is especially important when dealing with play therapy, as you need  sufficient space for a play room. Basically, the therapist or mother plays with a child during a session, and that is it! The child directs the play in most cases, and the therapist reflects later on the patient's behaviors and actions. Connecting with our left brain breaks away from our right brain's linear pattern, making us less critical of ourselves and more playful. While at Mary Ruth's office, she asked to have a session with me, so of course I agreed. There was a sandbox in front of me, a room stocked with toys on every shelf, and when she told me to just play, I was stumped. I had a lot of questions and took a very long time to grab any toys off the shelf. Mary Ruth mentioned how children are always quick to grab whatever they want, corresponding to how more left-brained they are. The more right brained we home, the more critical we are of ourselves and our decisions, not letting our minds simply wander and be free. Although I haven't met again with Mary Ruth, the concepts she taught me stuck with me! 

As of lately, Building Connections Behavioral Heallth Inc. just picked up a new contract, which took 3 painstaking hours to edit by the way, and are getting referrals daily! I have gotten tons of practice scoring the Vineland due to all these new clients. Recently, many new clients have been around the Danville area, giving me the opportunity to go to home programs! The first home program I went to was in December with a girl named Cassidy. Primarily, I sat in on a meeting with Cassidy's mother and Jeanine, and made sure she was okay with me observing or being apart of Cassidy's sessions. The next week I met Cassidy. While Jeanine met with her mom, another behavior analyst and I played with Cassidy and helped with her homework. Simply playing with her was a little uncomfortable, because I've never been sure how to act around kids. Having another behavior analyst there boosted my confidence, and watching how she interacted with Cassidy started to ease my nervousness, as I learned from her. It is difficult to draw the line between treating this child as a child, and treating her as a child with certain problem behaviors that we are trying to modify. Although working with kids is outside of my comfort zone, I'm developing and gaining knowledge in a whole new field I would have otherwise avoided. With an abundance of new patients in the area, my experience working with children is only growing faster. The next semester should be full of unpredictable and novel opportunities, and I am incredibly excited to gain more practice in the field! 

Blog #6

Sample Vineland scoring

So far, most of my iQuest work has been with my mentor Jeanine, in her office or in a classroom. With Jeanine, I have gained such a large amount of knowledge already and continue to grow. I've learned how to safely restrain children when they're in danger of harming themselves or others, gained first-hand experience in classrooms helping teachers with games and lessons, and recently I learned how to analyze and score children based on the Vineland, a widely known psychology book. I've been recently working with my mentor, Jeanine, on trying to go visit a home program. Classrooms and very structured and controlled by the teachers, while home programs are more personal and usually more intense. I recently went to a workshop taught by Mary Ruth Cross on the techniques of play therapy. Having no prior knowledge with the therapy, I left the workshop with so much more information! 

 Both of my mentors have worked with children primarily, which was never something I was interested in. I have never been good with kids, and I usually feel uncomfortable around them.  With a very broad range of behavioral and mood disorders the children I work with have a much harder time expressing themselves and communicating, presenting me with an even bigger challenge of how to connect with them. Going into kindergarten classrooms and assisting the teachers with their activities has helped me learn how to react in such an unpredictable environment, familiarizing me with the world of autism.

Example of Token Economy Board!

 Both fields of therapy I have explored so far have been new to me. Although I don't plan on being a behavior analyst or play therapist, the experience I've gained from meeting professionals in these areas and watching them in their line of work is so valuable. Seeing how much work, at home as well as in the office, goes into helping these kids is very eye-opening. I have spent hours laminating and cutting out token boards for classrooms, and seeing how much teachers use and appreciate them makes all the work worth it. 

Blog #5

In researching famous, influential clinical and counseling psychologists on the web, Paul Elkman stood out among the others. Extremely certified, knowledgeable, and accurate, he is a cofounder of micro-expressions and studying them. Elkman also was professor at UCSF for many years, a local college. His focus is non-verbal behavior, something I've always been intrigued in. Being such a successful and prominent figure in psychology, Paul Elkman quickly captured my interest.Elkman obtained a Ph D in clinical psychology after a one-year internship at UCSF. In 1965, Elkman began researching nonverbal behavior, including hand movements, gestures, and facial expressions. In collaboration with W. Freisen, him and Elkman created the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) in 1978, otherwise known as the only tool that comprehensively measures facial expressions. He started studying depression patients and their facial expressions while lying, revealing micro facial expressions. He turned his findings over to the public after he retired, writing many books and articles. Elkman's childhood is harder to find, but he originally planned on being a psychotherapist yet changed his mind when his mother got a severe mental illness when he was sixteen.

Character Counts

Character Counts, a character education program, presents six important ethical values; Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. Although all six are important ethical values, I view responsibility as being the most vital characteristic  to acquire. Responsible people are constantly labeled as the "fun-ruiners" of the group, reminding others of the consequences and pushing people to take fault for their actions. The phrase "take responsibility" has gained a negative connotation in society, sounding more like a painful task rather than an inborn characteristic. Responsible people are those who constantly plan ahead to stay organized, do their best to maintain self-control in stressful or uncomfortable situations, and those who thoughts always precede their actions. Taking responsibility for your own thoughts, words, and actions is one of the most important skills to master, and one of the hardest. Owning up to one's faults and mistakes is near impossible without a good amount of self-discipline, another component of the responsible person.  

The importance of responsibility is especially evident in the field of psychology. Every practicing therapist must  know their personal responsibility, and its limitations. A therapist is responsible for every piece of advice given and path they direct a patient towards, but they are not responsible for the actions of their client. Some patients will blame a therapist if something is going wrong, trying to evade their own personal responsibility. Giving advice others, deciding which techniques to use with a patient, and exercising self-control in stressful situations all requires a great amount of careful thought and planning. A person lacking responsibility would not be able to balance all these tasks, unable to be an effective psychologist. 

By the end of January ...

By the end of the first semester, January 23, I want to be able to assess emotional disturbed and autistic children. Learning how to use a psychological assessment will come in handy regardless of which field of psychology I decide to pursue. All psychologists must learn how to accurately assess patients and decide how to pursue treatment. Providing a correct assessment is crucial in order to give effective treatment and improve the life of patients. Correctly assessing kids with learning and behavioral difficulties can improve functionality in the classroom. Many autistic children have difficulties verbally communicating, making their behaviors key insights into how their brain works with their disability. Correctly assessing patients also helps attribute whether their behaviors are a reflection of their disability, or a result from it. By the middle of October, I want to be familiar with the assessment tool my mentor uses to assess her patients. By the end of October, my hope is I will be familiar with the assessment tool and start to learn how to apply it in the classroom. By the middle of November, I want to be comfortable with the content in the assessment handbook and know what to look for when assessing patients. I want to recognize behavioral abnormalities and be able to scale patients in the handbook by December 1st. Hopefully, I will be confident in scaling and assessing patients myself when January rolls around. Recognizing and scaling behavioral abnormalities, as well as being familiar with the assessment handbook Jeanine uses, are achievable goals as long as I stay persistent!

Ms. X..?

I’ve been trying to answer the question, “If you could have one superpower, which one would it be?” since I was a kid. I’ve considered being invisible, controlling time, and even being able to make food appear whenever I want… but controlling minds would be the best. Not for evil purposes, more like Charles Xavier in the x-men series.

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He was called Dr. X, maybe I could be Ms. X? “Lady Who Controls Minds” was the other superhero name I came up with, and it doesn't really have a nice ring to it. 

Obviously, mind control would be the greatest superpower to have, hands down. I would never have to wonder what others are truly thinking, no one could ever lie to me, and true intentions would always be clear. Senior year and college would be a breeze. I would never have drama with friends, because I wouldn't associate with people whose thoughts and words lacked congruence. If I  could gain insight into my math instructor’s mind during a lesson, decoding the foreign language of AP Statistics would be much more simple. Not to mention I could be the greatest psychologist ever. A psychologist capable of reading minds is a deadly combination, but one who can control minds is unimaginable. I could cure almost any patient, easily turning negative thoughts into positive ones, and help anyone with mental disabilities gain social acceptance. Gaining insight into mentally disabled and diseased minds could provide information to many gray areas of psychology, potentially helping thousands. If only I could really control minds.