How can you connect this new skill to the student’s priorities? How can you assure ownership by making the development of this skill the student’s goal rather than just your goal for the student?
There are many reasons for learning this skill, both professionally and personally. Based on the student’s interests, help attach the skill to the most appreciated concept. For a student who is highly motivated to be a good worker and resists missing school or work despite any illness, help him understand the importance of self-care and how it can lead to being a better employee. Alternatively, for a student who struggles to prioritize work or school above the leisure activities that then cause him to be absent from or late to school or work, help him to see how access to those leisure activities may hinge on the friendships he develops at school/work, and the money he obtains by working.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
Can you make it visually clear to the student who is resistant to change that his assumption is only one way of looking at things? Can your use of visual supports and self-assessments help get agreement that there is a problem, get agreement on the solution, and create the motivation for change?
The student may not understand the importance of this skill. You can help clarify why notifying a supervisor during an absence is important by illustrating perspectives through social narratives. For example, a thought comic can be used to show what a supervisor may think about an employee who is absent without notice or commonly requests time off. Graphic organizers might be used to concretely show two different outcomes that result from two different responses: Calling in to notify the supervisor of an absence = keep job; Not calling in to notify the supervisor = get fired.
Priming is a form of negotiation that can reframe and sharpen a student’s assessment of self. Below are the self-assessment tools that align with this intervention topic:
"Organization and Self Direction - Dependability and Responsibility 1"
Interspersal is a proven technique involving the presentation of familiar, higher success tasks with the new, more challenging task. When it is appropriate, are you varying the activities to maintain the student’s confidence and focus?
For example, if you are targeting the sub-skill of making phone calls to report illness to the “supervisor” in role-play scenarios, be sure that you intersperse performance trials with opportunities for the student to observe others engaged in these role-plays (without having to perform).
Before the student encounters a situation where he will need to perform this skill, how do you help the student prepare? How do you activate prior knowledge?
Since calling in sick is never an expected occurrence, practice opportunities and repetition will be very important for the student to successfully execute the skill when needed. Providing clear instruction is obviously necessary, but you will also need to incorporate tools to which the student can independently refer when needing to call-in. One of the most challenging steps for this instruction may be helping the student understand how and when to initiate a self-assessment to determine if calling-in is necessary.
One idea is to have the student’s morning schedule begin with “Today I feel _______.” The student may write-in “great” or “terrible,” or he could use a visual tool to help clarify how he feels. So, if the student uses a 1-5 scale to measure how he feels, rules should be taught which provide guidance based on this numerical value. Be sure each value is concretely defined (e.g. 5=severe headache, or diarrhea, or vomiting, etc.). If the student feels a “Level 1-4,” then he goes to work; if he feels “Level 5,” then perhaps he should initiate the call-in sequence. This sequence may be a reminder card kept by the schedule that lists the steps for calling-in. Or, the card may provide an algorithm to help decide if he needs to really call-in. As you can see, there is a lot of student-initiation required for this skill to truly be executed successfully, so you must consider all less-than-obvious factors when designing the unique plan of approach.