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AIBU?

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Original poster

Is this really concerning?

14 replies

Geniegolightly · 13/10/2020 17:43

I have name changed for this as I don’t want it linked to previous threads.

DD 8, had a diagnosis of autism very young but having had a lot of help, she is now supposedly (according to her review last night) coping with and engaging with school lessons so they have being up to standard on all things apart from writing. However, her alphabet came up tonight and for her life she could not repeat it correctly. She kept missing out swathes of letters.

Obviously she is half way through the term and it might be tiredness but is this concerning considering it’s something so basic?! Has anyone had any experience in this? Her reading is pretty good so this has never come up before but I am worried about regression now!

OP posts:
lanthanum · 13/10/2020 18:08

Maybe it's just got missed out somehow. Although people like teaching young children to say the alphabet, it only really begins to be useful when putting things in alphabetical order.
Have a go at learning it over the weekend or half-term, and you might find she gets it learnt pretty quickly.

Original poster
Geniegolightly · 13/10/2020 18:34

This is the thing. She knew it. She knew it when she was 3

OP posts:
JKRforPM · 13/10/2020 19:08

But did she actually know it when she was 3 or was she just repeating it by rote?

My DS (10) has ASD and he can repeat things by rote incredibly quickly - but he doesn’t actually understand/comprehend if that makes sense so a whole term later he would be unlikely to remember it

Original poster
Geniegolightly · 13/10/2020 19:10

Maybe but there was no reason to think she didn’t. As I say she has been reading competently for ages. I dunno - maybe it was a gap. It has been a shock - I know that...

OP posts:
stayingaliveisawayoflife · 13/10/2020 19:11

We teach how to use the alphabet in year 2 to find words in the dictionary and often find the children have forgotten the order of the alphabet. We have to re teach it.

JKRforPM · 13/10/2020 19:13

It’s always worth a chat with her SENCo if you are worried. (I know that doesn’t help right now whilst you are whittling sorry!)

JKRisagryff · 13/10/2020 19:16

I’ve noticed this with kids in my family. They usually learn the alphabet as a nursery rhyme before they start school but then are taught phonics and aren’t necessarily using it with proper letter names in order.

BestOption · 13/10/2020 19:18

@JKRforPM

But did she actually know it when she was 3 or was she just repeating it by rote?

My DS (10) has ASD and he can repeat things by rote incredibly quickly - but he doesn’t actually understand/comprehend if that makes sense so a whole term later he would be unlikely to remember it

Strange question maybe...but don't we ALL only know it by rote? What do you mean by 'know it'?

A few things have happened/been said recently that's making me wonder if I do/know/see/understand things differently to other people & I really don't understand what you mean?!

JesusInTheCabbageVan · 13/10/2020 19:42

DS8 is NT and has an unusually good memory in general, but the alphabet is a bit of a blind spot for him.

I do wonder if it's one of those things kids now get less practice in. You used to need to know it to use dictionaries, encyclopaedias, the phone book, libraries... Not so much now. I remember it being along the wall in the infants' class in my primary school. DS was taught it in nursery, but maybe there hasn't been much emphasis on it since then?

JKRforPM · 13/10/2020 20:05

BestOption

By knowing it I mean understanding it - if that makes sense - b follows a, c follows b, d follows c, rather than just a random set of letters that you can recite in a given order .

TheDaydreamBelievers · 13/10/2020 20:08

Children with autism can struggle with sequencing, the alphabet is an example of this.

Ither examples would be -
The months of the year
Being able to do a set of small instructions that make up a large one - so that "get ready for school" means doing 15 tasks all in order

People without autism tend to remember the alphabet in clumps that link in a sequence (k,l,m... m,n,o,p for example). As others have said she may have known it all by memory when young but now she cannot get from one letter to another the way you could.

TheDaydreamBelievers · 13/10/2020 20:09

Unless she has lost other cognitive abilities, I wouldn't worry Smile

Saz12 · 13/10/2020 20:23

Alphabet learning is really just a sequence of letters. This is unlikely to be DD strong point as she has ASD.
The school saying she is “coping with” and “engaging with” lessons could mean that she is working at (approximately) the level of the class. Or it could mean that she’s interested (or feigning interest) and managing not to have meltdowns much.

Original poster
Geniegolightly · 13/10/2020 20:32

No. She does all the stuff the rest of her class does and has been holding her own in the weekly maths and English tests (8/10 and 12/15 averages). I guess that’s why this has been such a surprise.

She seemed to have more of a grip on it earlier and the comments about practice and alphabet usage and other cognitive functions has been really quite reassuring so thank you x

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