Case Study: It’s lunch time at your center. There are 25 children who all need something at one time. They are yelling “teacher, teacher, teacher,” and some of them are crying. The lights are on, and children’s music is playing on the radio. You go to a student, a boy, age 4, and set down his milk cup. He immediately begins crying and throws his milk across the room. He does this every day when you give him his milk. You have tried asking him “What do you want to drink?”, but he can never answer and so you just give him milk. You know milk his his favorite. Every day is pretty much the same and usually he ends up in time out. He usually falls asleep without ever having eaten lunch. What is the first step when looking at a behavior and how to help make changes? What are two thing you can do to make the room less stimulating at lunch time? How can you offer the drink choices in a way that does not overwhelm the young boy? What might the boy be trying to communicate to you by throwing his milk?
