We want to acknowledge Shonnet Brand, CLM Coach, Julie B. Neese-Whitaker, CLM Teacher, and all of their CLM Team Members for their wonderful work. To do so, we decided to share with you this copy of a Facebook post that Mrs. Lloyd, Garrett’s mom, posted on her page and shared with Julie. We thought you too might enjoy reading it!
“Yesterday I had Garrett’s annual IEP meeting. For those of you who don’t know, an IEP is given to every child with special needs; it is the blueprint of how they will be taught for that year. It includes personalized goals, which are created through collaboration between teachers and parents.
Many of you know that in his middle school years Garrett had a lot of struggles at school. He spent most of his time lying down on the floor, refusing to participate. Despite wonderful teachers and administration we saw worsening behavior, which last the majority of 2 years. We finally learned of an Autism consultant from Michigan and got some new insight. Changes were implemented including transferring him 6 months early to Stonewall Jackson high school. In this new class, the COMPETENT LEARNER MODEL was being used. CLM is a fascinating curriculum particularly designed for Autistic students by Vicci Tucci. (Google it) As part of his IEP yesterday, his teacher Julie Neese-Whittaker (who is an absolute gift from God) showed a video presentation that cataloged Garrett’s “negative behavior” in March of 2012 and the progress up to the current time. Wow! The negative behavior clip of him lying on the floor she set to the song, “Take this Job and Shove it!” Lol But it was just SUCH a blessing to see his improvement! Now he has had extremely few episodes of any kind of refusal, and when he does, they do not last long at all…less than 5 minutes as compared to sometimes 45 minutes 2 years ago.
She had a new video that showed him helping a classmate with a lesson, laughing, dancing, and participating …set to the song Happy, Happy, Happy. Almost made me cry. I heard so many comments along the line of, he just makes me smile; he is a bright spot in my day…
SOOOO very thankful!
If you have a special needs child on the Autism spectrum or work with kids, goggle Competent Learner Model. Also, check out the PECS system, which is a visual cue method of scheduling and overall communication.” -Sheila Lloyd
From left to right: Garrett, Julie Whitaker (CiT), Matthew, Liz Pruitt, Jeremy, Shonnet Brand and Christian
