Tooth Brushing Informal Assessment
Tooth Brushing Informal Assessment
Skill: The skills to be investigated are the students ability to brush her teeth.
What is known: AC is a student who is following a curriculum that will target more life-skill needs than academic goals. She is very accustomed to people doing things for her and requires prompting to complete tasks independently, such as getting in and out of her wheelchair. The student has limited mobility in her arms and hands and requires adapted utensils and assistance in many things requiring fine motor skills.
Area: Grooming What? What is the students experience with brushing her own teeth? Answer: The student began instruction on tooth brushing and face wiping with her aide last year in the first grade. These are goals in her current IEP, so they are things that were targeted last year. Her mother would really like for AC to become more independent in her self-care skills. How does the student feel about beginning to do grooming skills independently? To determine her level of motivation in becoming more independent does she want to do things on her own, or does she want people to do things for her? Ask special education teacher/aide from previous year Why? So I can get a sense of what the student can already do, if she has begun learning these skills, or if she has never tried. Source Ask special education teacher, aide from previous year.
Answer: AC has a strong desire to become independent and do what her peers are doing. She has a twin sister who is not receiving special education services and her parents say that she really wants to be able to do what her sister does.
Area: Grooming What? What steps in brushing her teeth can AC complete correctly? Which steps does she require prompting or assistance on? Procedures: 1. 2. 3. 4. Why? To determine which steps the student does and does not know how to complete in tooth-brushing. To narrow down the target of instruction. Source Assess each step of a task analysis until results seem stable.
Create a task analysis (see below) of all of the steps of the act of brushing ones teeth. Gather toothbrush and toothpaste for student, bring her into the restroom Say to student brush your teeth. Allow student to begin the steps of brushing her teeth independently. - If the student does so correctly, mark + next to the step on the task analysis, and allow her to continue on to the next step. - If the student does not respond or completes a step incorrectly or out of order, mark P for prompt and assist student with the step. Then allow the student to move on to the next step independently. 5. Continue this process until each step of the task analysis is completed.
Task Analysis for Brushing Teeth: 1. Open Bag. 2. Take out toothbrush. 3. Put bag back on lap. 4. Remove toothbrush lid. 5. Put lid on sink. 6. Hold toothbrush under faucet (water will turn on automatically). 7. Wet bristles on toothbrush. 8. Place toothbrush on sink. 9. Pick up bag. 10. Remove toothpaste from bag. 11. Place bag back on lap. 12. Screw top off toothpaste. 13. Place lid on sink. 14. Squeeze toothpaste onto toothbrush bristles. 15. Put lid back on toothpaste. 16. Return toothpaste to bag. 17. Pick up toothbrush. 18. Move toothbrush bristles up and down on all areas of teeth. 19. Spit in sink. 20. Hold toothbrush under faucet. 21. Rinse bristles in the water.
22. Move toothbrush bristles up and down on all areas of teeth. 23. Spit in sink. 24. Hold toothbrush under faucet. 25. Rinse bristles in water. 26. Get paper towel. 27. Dry bristles on towel. 28. Throw towel in garbage. 29. Put lid on toothbrush. 30. Return toothbrush to bag. Results: See attached data chart.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 11-Sep 12-Sep 13-Sep 16-Sep 17-Sep 19-Sep Percentage of Steps Requiring Prompts Percentage of Steps Completed Correctly
Answer: AC required prompting to complete the majority of the steps of the task analysis. She consistently took her toothbrush from her bag independently and also consistently rinsed her toothbrush following brushing without prompting. All other steps required prompting and handover hand assistance. Summary: AC is a 2nd grade student with multiple disabilities placed in a cross-categorical second grade class. According to her teachers, her mother would really like for her to become more independent in her personal care and grooming. She currently is using diapers and her mother does all of her grooming needs for her, but neither mother nor daughter would like for it
to continue. The results of assessing the student using a task analysis show that she could benefit from instruction on most of the steps of the process of brushing her teeth. There are two steps that she knows and does rather consistently, and other steps that she begins; yet they are only out of order (such as beginning to brush her teeth before putting toothpaste on the brush). From these results, it appears teaching AC to brush her teeth systematically through the use of a task analysis will be most effective to break down the process step-by-step.
Suggested Objective: When instructed to brush her teeth in the school bathroom and handed a bag with her toothbrush and toothpaste, AC will correctly complete 80% of the steps of the task analysis on six consecutive trials. (The task analysis written above in the assessment).
Rationale: Teaching AC to perform basic tasks such as personal care skills will be very important for her later in life. In order for her to possibly live independently further in life, she needs to know how to take care of herself and do tasks such as brushing her teeth, combing her hair, and washing her face. These are basic skills that every individual should be able to do for him or herself so that they can live without being dependent on another individual. All three of these tasks are also goals on her IEP, which makes learning these skills a priority for AC.