I will work with the student with OCD by making an IEP plan with the most beneficial accommodations for their learning skills.  First, we will put together a plan that will help them feel more comfortable and help identify what the triggers are that make their behaviors compulsive.  The accommodations could be noise level, locations for test taking, allocations for hand washing and certain times to be able to come speak to me. These accommodations will need to be in a written plan signed by their parents, their teacher, and myself.  I could best serve the student by providing the parents with information about OCD and set up conferences between the parents and professional counselors if needed.  My main goal for my role as their school counselor is to help provide the accommodations for the student with the disorder to be able to learn the skills to deal with their disorder and maintain a calm environment for them in school.  I will maintain connections with outside health professionals, therefore after the discussion of the observed behaviors at the conference between the parents and myself, I will then suggest an outside health professional if they have not already had one in mind.  As a team between the parents, teacher and myself, we will collaborate ideas as a team to understand the behaviors of OCD and discuss the appropriate accommodations needed for the child to feel safe and comfortable in their school environment.

 

·      Bipolar I is characterized by one or more manic episodes: intense, severe shifts in energy and activity levels that require immediate care (Kress, Paylo, & Sedall, 2016).

·      Bipolar II is characterized by a pattern of depressive and hypomanic episodes, where less severe shifts of mood and activity levels are present especially with regard to hypomanic symptoms (Kress, Paylo, & Sedall, 2016).

·      Cyclothymia is characterized by patterns of hypomanic and depressive symptoms, but the individual does not meet the criteria for having full episodes of hypomania/mania or depression (Kress, Paylo, & Sedall, 2016).

·       Extreme mood swings

·       Argumentative

·       Shows an excessive amount of anger and reacts by throwing temper tantrums

·       Anxiety

·       Hyperactivity

·       Has down periods

·       Trouble falling asleep

·       Has trouble keeping friends because of being bossy, selfish or destructive

·       Self-critical

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that can develop from a young age, showing signs and symptoms around ten years of age and progresses as the patient becomes older.  This disorder is a well-known mental illness that can affect not only the patient, but close individuals around the patient.  Bipolar disorder causes extreme mood swings where a patient can be extremely euphoric for several days or weeks and then suddenly goes into extreme depression or vice versa.  The mood swings occur because of a drastic change in a patient’s energy and mood level, due to neurotransmitters in the brain. Inconsistency in the patient’s mood level causes irritability and confusion causing mental unstableness and decrease in concentration.  This causes them to become irritable with themselves and others surrounding them.  In order to diagnose bipolar disorder, a professional will abserve and document the frequent amount of times there is a drastic change in a person’s mood and energy level.  In order to decide which is the best type of treatment depends on the levels which is addressed below.

Resources:  https://sites.ed.gov/idea/building-the-legacy-idea-2004/#bs_first_tab80 
 

             https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/special-education-basics/conditions-covered-under-idea

When a teacher, counselor or family member interacts with a child that has been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, there should be strategies for when a child becomes defiant towards a person with authority. Before strategies can be made, parents and teachers need to be knowledgeable about the behaviors of the disorder from a school psychologist and counselor, which would be myself.  Oppositional Defiant Disorder is known as ODD and is when a child or teenager has a frequent and a persistent pattern of anger, irritability, arguing, defiance or vindictiveness toward you and other authority figures (Mayo Clinic, 2018). Examples of triggers that can cause defiant reactions are rules being enforced, having to dress a certain way or even the food given to them that they did not want to eat for lunch that day at school.  There are certain frequent behavior patterns that occur in a setting such as outrage and being defiant towards others, causing them to struggle with their social skills among family members, classmates and individuals with authority around them.  One to sixteen percent of all school-age children and adolescents have ODD (Fritz, 2012).  The steps for success for these children diagnosed with ODD is being able to identify the signs, symptoms, applying the correct strategies and properly training adults the strategies to use for children who have ODD.  The importance in the strategies is how to calmly handle situations when they become intense.

Resources:  

                  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/oppositional-defiant-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20375831