My dc has no imagination

[sherbertlemondrops]

We are really struggling with our dc communicating well and also things like writing or telling a story.
Dc is 7 and if you ask for example
How was your day
They always say 'good how was yours'
But like a robot churning out a line they've learnt.

If you try to coax more information such as did you do anything particularly nice today they'll continue and say, 'yes' but nothing more. You have to ask continual chain of questions to get even a small piece of information out of them.

Now that we're online schooling it's becoming more of an issue, the teacher is giving up trying to coax anything out of them and dc is left to sit with their one word answer while other dc are praised for their nice longer answers.

On top of this they are currently doing a story writing project and my dc will write about four lines and think this is a good story. Something like, the horse ran through the grass. They liked it, the end
If you ask them to describe something for example a banana they will say it is yellow. Even when you ask, anything else? They'll sometimes infuriatingly even shorten their answer to simply 'yellow'

They then receive a low mark and I am linking the zero imagination in their writing to their poor communication skill.
Is there something wrong here? Can I improve this situation. Of course I'll say to dc afterwards maybe embellish the one word answers, however it's the same thing every morning. 'yes how are you ' blunt stare.
Anything I can do? Any ideas.

Play games?
Start with a simple sentence.
Then extend, then extend some more.

The cat sat on the mat
The lazy cat sat on the green mat.
The fat lazy cat sat on the green fluffy mat.
The fat lazy cat sat on the green fluffy mat staring at the white mouse who was doing cartwheels happily on the wooden kitchen table.

Any other 'quirks'? DD1 can't add detail. It turns out she has dyspraxia. (Motor skills, problem solving, sensitivity to taste & texture, can't put herself in someone else's shoes.)

How much reading together are you doing every day?

My dc was similar, and we did what TeenPlus suggested. That was so fun, dc enjoyed, and actually really help.

Keep asking why on stories. Why did the horse like the grass? What else did he like? Set out an aim at the beginning to write x number of lines. If the teacher has given up chivvying along you'll have to do it.

Lots of reading.

Set expectations. 'Tell me three things that made today special'. 'When I ask how you are in the morning I want you to tell me if you slept well or had a bad dream.' And keep repeating those expectations. Hopefully you'll only have to prompt rather than spell out what is expected at some point.

Oh there's quirks a plenty. Dc can read very well but often adds in extra words so if a sentence says
Maria went to town on a brown pony
My dc will read
Maria went in to the town on a brown pony.

I don't know if that's not normal or not though. We are a book family and they have shelves of books available. We read most evenings. We have not tried to extend the sentences each time I will try that.
I do try since homeschooling was so bad to ask to describe things now so each room I'll say describe the fruit describe the garden but it's so painful. Garden is green. There are trees.

@TeenPlusTwenties I will definitely try this thank you

I would be considering SEN. I think this goes much deeper than simply playing expanding games.

Will your DC tell stories outside a school context or play with figures (Lego, dolls etc) to tell a story? Written work is often (usually) way behind play/verbal imagination.

It is never too early for an ED Pych assessment to ascertain if there are any underlying reasons or provide strategies for support. I am happy to dm you a couple of fun online courses we used that DS loved & really helped after experiencing similar issues.

Even with their toys it seems to be dull. I often have to start a role play situation, they are better at continuing the physical played out story lines when playing than they are if it's being spoken or written.

However they do not instigate an imaginary situation, they need me to start them off and it's the only way I can get them to play, I will say oh wow look what teddy's done today he's climbed to the top of the mountain and dc will continue this idea of a story but if I didn't start it dc will just follow me about. I put it down to being an only dc as they are mainly stuck with me due to lockdown. I talk a lot though and am very sociable so this has stuck out a lot to me.

@EnolanotAlone oh yes I'd welcome any sources that may help thank you.

I am willing to put the time and do whatever it takes and if it's SEN I will start sorting that but I'm not sure what I should be doing.

I am from the 'old school' ways of ah it will all be fine eventually but it really does appear to be continuing without much improvement and I'd thought they would have grown out of simple one word answers by now but it seems to be set in stone. I will try these techniques as well though.

Don't ask closed questions with yes or no answers.

Ask things like
What did you do today
What did you enjoy most today
Who have spoken to
What did you talk about
What would you like to do

Where possible start answering your questions with more details

I used to think my autistic DS didn’t have imagination because he struggled in a similar way to yours when younger.
However , I now think he was struggling with knowing how he was supposed to answer the question. He felt there was a right answer and he didn’t know it. Especially things like how was your day, but school work too.
I saw his amazing imagination when he found his interests eg lego and saw how he could create things because he was interested in that.
He’s now a teenager and his recent creative artwork in English has floored his teachers (and me) - it’s brilliant.

PS how was your day is hard to answer for lots of kids - as other questions like - did anything funny happy today? My DS likes “were there any shenanigans at school?” and he’d rattle off who had been cheeky or naughty and what their consequences had been. You have to ask a specific question of him or he doesn’t know how to answer vague enquiries.

Sorry I don’t know why I said creative artwork, meant creative writing

Adding in an occasional extra word when reading is pretty normal at that age I think.

By quirks I meant anything more obviously unusual, such as

• obsessions
• one sided conversations
• motor skills
• confusing word orders
• etc

Sounds like it could be an early representation of Aphantasia

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

My friend has it. We discovered it in Yoga when she couldn’t make herself “see” certain things in her minds eye and she has a pretty poor imagination.

Some of her immediate family members are Autistic, one very profoundly. I’ve never ever had wanted to say anything to her but to me she presents as almost a stereotype of the autistic female representation. I really think she has no idea. She just thinks it’s the world that’s “wrong”! She’s quite kinaesthetic though. She’d struggle making up a story but if you ask her what the horse “feels like” or “what texture is sadness?” she can come up with some interesting answers. She was somewhat of a genius in school but very little imagination.

Don't ask closed questions, ask what was your favourite part of the day, ot how was your day, what was the best thing you did today not what did you do today etc. Build sentences start with a simple sentence like the cat sat on the mat and ask them to add some descriptions. We used to play writing a story so one person writes the first line then folds the page over and stops with someone else then they write the next line etc, so I might say where did it happen then name some characters give the characters a problem and then how was the problem solved. Use story dice, use simple words and build a story around it or find a favourite toy for example a red car, so describe the red car where did the red car go who did the red car meet what happened to the red car etc, talk the story through rather than writing it down.

Sounds like me DD at that age. But she couldn't read or write at the time. She was diagnosed dyslexic when she was 8 and school had to go back to basics with her. She was taught phonics and the alphabet alongside what they were learning in school. She could read and write and recognise and write numbers bu the age of 10 but she to this day does not have an imagination.

One of our dc was very much like this. PPs have mentioned the need to give the ' right' answer - which is easy in Maths, but tricky in social skills. Also blossoming when it comes to a personal interest. An approach that we found very helpful was to say "Tell me something interesting". That puts the demand firmly in the listener's comfort zone, because if it interests them it is the right answer.

I can only speak from the perspective of a member of an extended family, many members of which have strongly autistic traits and with at least one diagnosed autistic member, but this really does sound like an autistic trait. Not that it is an issue - the dc I referred to learned to use their imagination and is a very able hobbyist musician and creative practical joker.

Oh yes when it comes to maths it's easy. Dc just gets it. It's this that's the problem, having a conversation, maintaining a conversation and imagining things.

Story writing has proven almost impossible.
And of course it worries me that in the future they will have no friends if the extent of their conversational skills ends at 'good'

He is only 7, it's too early to say story writing has proven almost impossible.
Like I said before, my ds was similar. I too, thought imaginative creative writing was impossible for him at the start of ks2.
I've asked on primary board and got a lot of suggestion. Done lots of work with him. By yr5, the teacher said she couldn't believe he used to struggle. End of ks2, he's got greater depth for writing. So, it can be improved with some work.

I have no imagination. As a child, writing stories was very difficult. I cannot do imaginative play or improv drama stuff. When I had to write imaginatively in school, I was taught in ks2 by a very nice teacher to give myself a visual starting point, rather than just a title, eg a picture that was relevant to the task then mindmap vocabulary around it. Then writing the story was essentially putting the words together in sentences. Thankfully my spelling, punctuation and grammar were good, because it was still lacking in content, but avoided it being too thin.

I can't answer qs such as 'Why did the author use that word/imagery?' etc, because I don't know, so can't guess. I was (and still am to an extent) very impressed people can figure stuff like that out, because unless the author told me why, I have no clue.

I'm a teacher and wouldn't be overly concerned at this stage.
I'd concentrate less on the imagination to start with and more on him talking in full sentences. Get him to tell you about something he knows so he doesn't have the added effort of making it up.
For example, let him watch an episode of something on the tv then tell you what happened.
It doesn't need to be forced, just conversation.
"What happened in your show?"
If he says something simple like 'the car went to the shop'. Ask him what colour car it was, why did it go to the shop etc. At these stage don't expect him to make it up, just elaborate. Then when he answers 'red' and 'to get bananas', model turning his simple starting sentence into a more detailed sentence. "The red car went to the shop to get bananas".
Once he's more used to using full sentences verbally, I imagine he will get more creative with his own ideas.

Thanks @Xerochrysum for the positive outlook! I will try to be a bit more positive about it all.
@Superstardjs I suppose I should also acknowledge that it's not the end of the world if dc lacks imagination.