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?
Your list of strengths vs. teachable jobs may prove helpful in priming the student. Create a visual support (graphic organizer, list, etc.) that shows what the student will do in the job. You may want to provide a social narrative that ties these skills and the larger job to his motivation: money, job experience that helps him get a better job, external reinforcers that you set up as a result of completing the shift, etc.
Operating a copy machine may not be enticing to the student. You can provide a graphic organizer that illustrates multiple office job responsibilities so that the student sees this as an important skill that is related to office activities that are more motivating. He may need a social narrative to connect skills in operating a copy machine to other aspects of the work that are more motivating.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
How can you pull out key elements of the various assessments and graphically organize these elements to support the student’s self-evaluation of job skills?
Provide opportunities for self-assessment during and after the job experience. In this way you can support the student’s improved understanding of his job preferences as a result of experience. Priming is a form of negotiation that can reframe and sharpen a student’s assessment of self. Below are the self-assessment and instructor assessment tools that align with this intervention topic:
Clerical Interests – Administrative Duties
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
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?
You may have noticed that interspersal is a central focus in successful job matching. We intentionally encourage you to find a job with about 80% of job tasks within the ability of the student so that you are teaching only a small percentage. This is natural interspersal.
Before the student encounters a situation where he will need to perform this skill, how do you help the student prepare? How do you orient the student to the upcoming situation? How do you orient him to the materials he will use on the job?
With regard to the copy machine, priming the student by familiarizing him with the instructions, with the operation of the keypad, with paper trays, access to paper for refill, etc. can reduce prompting and confusion while in the job.
Ensure that the student has time to review the schedule, as well as any task list (to-do list) that he will use at work. Prior to working in the library, just seeing the scanner, the carts for books to be re-shelved, the barcodes in the books, the computer that he will use to access accounts, etc. can reduce the anxiety that stems from unfamiliarity.
From a soft skills perspective (see Job Keeping for specific topics), does he need to go to the site prior to working to get familiar with where his belongings will go, where he will take a break, when he will take a break, and where all the work materials are stored? Giving the student a chance to orient to the site and identify where everything goes can reduce anxiety and can prepare the student to more comfortably ‘jump into’ job responsibilities on his first day.