Reports on Melissa Hershey:

7 years old and has two sisters, one older and one younger. She also believes she is a good soccer player.Likes when quiet, smoothing music is played.Enjoys bringing friends to her school counselor’s office so she can watch them and learn how friends play together kindly. Says mom lets her and her sisters do whatever they want at home. Makes herself dinner and puts herself to bed at night. Says her teacher is mean because she tells Melissa what to do and gives her consequences.She had a grand mal seizure at age 4. She has involuntary muscle movements in her hand on the left side after the seizure. She had trouble walking after the seizure, but walks fine now. She has nightmares sometimes. She is sensitive to loud noises and bright lights. Her father left 2 years ago and does not have contact with the family; parents fought a lot before dad left. She cries when she smells cologne that her dad wore, though this is decreasing over time. Mother used to give spankings for bad behavior, but Melissa began hitting her sisters. Mother used marijuana during pregnancy. Mother acknowledges being inattentive to her children’s needs when they were infants. She is having trouble in school and is disinterested in completing schoolwork. She has difficulty with abstract reasoning and taking others’ points of view. She earns a sticker for every homework assignment she submits and is making progress, so now the teacher wants to change the plan so she earns a sticker for each day all homework is submitted. She can point out the correct answer on tests if given choices, but cannot state the correct answer on her own. Math class is at the beginning of the day and she does well with facts, but if tested again in the afternoon, she can’t remember math what she learned. She wants more friends, but tends to tell others what to do and bosses them around. She has difficulty labeling emotions and often looks to others to see what emotion she should display. She is lively, active, imaginative, disorganized, and insecure. She participates in Big Brothers/Big Sisters weekly after school. She tends to go along with the group without considering consequences. She can be aggressive with other students. She takes food from other students because she comes to school hungry.