ASD Son in high school

[leiela]

You lovely people helped me win my school's appeal back in june so i was hoping you could help me again.

I'd like to note the school are fantastic and im son has settled very well.

My son is high functioning ASD and dyspraxic. He can most of the time function quite well and is highly intellient.

The problem at the moment seem's to centre around what my son deem's as important and hence what he does not. He is very forgetful and disorganised.

First on the adjenda is his school coat, his currently spends more time in school than it does at home as he repeatedly loses it. After school he walks to his grans and he's arrived there a couple of times soaked though to the skin because he "lost it"

Last week it disappeared, we've been pestering and last night he finally said it had been stolen it seem's a child messing about snatched it and ran off with it. I asked if he'd told his teacher and he said "No i didn't think too" so i asked why he didn't tell us and he shrugged "i forgot"

Ok firstly how can i make him understand that if someone steals something it IS important!! i've gone around and around in circles and he can't understand that things like that are important.

Secondly homework and homework planner.

He has a planner all the children do at each lesson they are supposed to write thier homework in it and then parents can check it make sure they do it. This planner spends most of it time lost as well, hence he doens't write homework in it and we can't check it, remind him to do it. 90% of time he comes home without it. We then ask him if he's got homework but if he can't remeber where is coat/planner is he has no chance of remembering homework so i always get a shrugged "i can't remember"

If by some fluke he does remember his planner/homework we ALWAYS make sure he does it however 9 times out of 10 it doens't make it to his teacher. We make sure it go's into his school bag, we even bought him a folder because he had loads of bits of paper floating about at the bottom of his bag. However by the time the lesson he needs to hand it in at comes around he's usually lost it somehow.

He's had a dozen or so detention's in the last month over missing homework and they make him very upset. It's such a shame because when he does it he works hard at it and produces some lovely work.

Im just not sure what more i can do?? I don't want to baby him and get teachers to report directly to me with and for his homework because that isn't going to help prepare him for the real world.

Any suggestions

Lei

[IndigoBell]

I think you need to talk to the SENCO about this. It's not something you can sort out from home.

[bigbluebus]

Does your son have an IEP where he could be targeted for organisational skills re his homework and planner? The school could then work on strategies to try and help him. Would speak to his head of year/SENCO and see what can be put in place. Obviously someone needs to get to the bottom of what is happening to his planner- and you are not in a position to do that - school must tackle it. Sort out the planner problem and then you/he can keep on top of the homework and hopefully the detentions will stop.

My DS hasn't managed to lose his planner yet and does seem to write his homework in it - which has amazed me. He hasn't lost his coat either - mainly because he refuses to take one - whatever the weather. Its a battle I gave up on! Did lose his brand new PE kit 1st week of term as it wouldn't fit in his school bag, so he left it somewhere as he forgot he had 2 bags - fortunately he tracked it down. I have tried same system as you with a folder in school bag for bits of paper - DS only uses it for homework - bag stilll fills up with random bits of paper.

You are right - he does need to learn to prepare him for the real world - but he is obviously going to need a little extra help - and school may need a bit of prompting.

[Peachy]

When ds1 was in year 6 (in an ASD Base now- MS comp with ASD support, any of those near you?) he had the same issue with losing everything: forever getting told off (me) for not returning notes I never got!

What they were supposed to do in the end (never enacted but...) was

have a basket by the door of teh classroom for all his things: coat, bag, watrer bottle, homework.

All notes etc to come home in a zip file with a cover sheet from a photocopied proform that was a list of everything that could possibly be there- note home, IEp review date, change for dinner money, etc- and those included ticked off


Sounds as if he might benefit from a little of the TEACCH approach?

[EllenJaneisnotmyname]

My DS has HF ASD, but also a statement, and he has an electronic 'passport' that pops up for the subject teacher to see on their laptop. Among other things it states that the teacher must check that his HW planner is filled in. Then if it's not filled in it isn't DS's fault if he hasn't done the HW so they can't give him a detention. This may possibly be too much for your DS, but my opinion was that the HW was more important than him organising his planner by himself. (He's likely to 'forget' to fill it in to avoid doing the HW and doesn't think ahead to the consequences of a detention.)

I feel lucky (if that's the right word) that DS's difficulties are significant enough that I don't worry about him getting help, but I can understand the reluctance to 'baby' them.