Brianna Shular: Improving Interpersonal Communication

Brianna Shular has been a student at Pelham Academy since 11/28/2016. Prior to her arrival, Brianna struggled with appropriate interactions with peers, emotional dysregulation and frequently AWOLing from home and programs. She demonstrated poor impulse control, verbal expression, problem solving and planning skills. Brianna’s current goals is to learn how strategies for navigating social interactions, improve her interpersonal skills, identify and practice effective coping skills, and work on developing a healthy and positive identity.

At the beginning of her treatment, Brianna express discontent with her transition to Pelham Academy, engaging in maladaptive behaviors to seek attention of peers and staff. In addition, she had limited self

awareness of her warning sings, limited emotional vocabulary and coping strategies Thus, leading to frequent dysregulation and AWOL attempts. Over the course of her treatment, Brianna made some improvements across all settings and reports she wants to face new experiences and improve her awareness around her impulsivity and social skills.

She attends individual sessions weekly and engages in therapeutic activities that focus on social skills, challenging misperception of social encounter, increasing her level of awareness of her emotional and physical state and exploring activities that will improve her positive identity. Brianna demonstrates poor memory, planning and problem solving across all domains of functioning. In sessions we have utilized expressive therapy modalities and the SMART model to expand of her sensory skills to improve her cause and effect thinking skills, increase body awareness and tolerate new stimulation. In just, it improves her ability to recognize the changing emotional states in her body and increase her ability to express it in sessions through the use of these modalities.

Overall, Brianna has made some improvements with her ability to ask for staff support when frustrated, identify strong emotions using her tolerance scale and access coping strategies when she experiences shift in her mood.