should asd children be assessed differently? (sorry long and rambling)

[basildonbond]

one for the teachers? a couple of recent posts (including mine about ds2's problems with word problems in maths) have got me thinking ..

ds2 has asperger's and although he's very, very able at most aspects of maths, he often gets 'sent the wrong way' by the wording of maths problems, he also has trouble with inference in comprehension although his reading age is way ahead of his chronological age - when he's asked how he thinks a character might be feeling he clams up - he's not them, so how would he know?

He also has problems when he's asked to write something in the first person which isn't true as far as he's concerned, e.g. his class was studying Hindu festivals and he was asked to imagine he was at a Holi festival and describe what he saw. He just couldn't do it - eventually he and the teacher came to a compromise and he wrote a piece as if it were a travel brochure (3rd person, purely factual)

dh gets very cross about this as he feels ds2 is being discriminated against - as far as dh is concerned, ds2 only has these difficulties because of his AS, so shouldn't be penalised in marking tests etc - dh's argument is that he wouldn't be marked down for not being able to see if he were partially sighted for example

so should there be a different way of assessing children on the spectrum? or do they just have to learn how to fit in as best they can with a neuro-typical worldview, however unfair that might be?

access arrangements at GCSE will mean that shouldn't be discriminated against because of his difficulties.

but he's already being discriminated against - I know he'll have extra time in exams and be able to use a laptop etc, but he's being marked down for things which he can't help having problems with - e.g. inference, processing etc

I don't see how that can be addressed without asd kids being asked completely different questions in some cases

Unfortunately students are assessed in things such as inference and this is the case in exams so no way round that as such. However, teacher should be able to give feedback in a positive way and help him come up with solutions so as not to knock his confidence. I don't think he simply shouldn't be assessed in things he finds difficult.

In lessons things could be phrased differently and in exams he may have a reader who would read the questions to him but at the end of the day he will be assessed against national criteria. Sorry not sure I have helped!

I don't think I will be able to help you but I wanted to say you are not alone with these worries. My DS is awaiting assessment for Aspergers and has clear problems with things like inference. He just thinks in a different way and ambiguously worded questions cause him problems. He also has problems which impede his writing because of DCD.

How old is your son?

I am seeing my Head tomorrow to ask about these type of issues. The problem is that schools etc don't generally undertsand that there children on the spectrum frequently have different learning processes, so it can be very hard to address.

Has he seen an Ed Psych? Did they give guidance?

I am also with you on this one! I don't think basildon was saying her DS shouldn't be assessed against the criteria but just assessed in a different way. Processing of wordy questions can be clumsy especially if the question is not well organised, and that's not just for our AS children! And don't get me started on questions that DS thinks are factually incorrect - no he cannot just accept that the question is wrong (possibly just for him and his point of view) and try to answer it anyway!

And of course there was the task in RE to write about how Isaac felt when Jacob had tied him up to sacrifice to God.....guess what DS is called ?

Having a reader doesn't necessarily help either as it is not the actual reading that is the issue but the processing of what those words in that order mean. Extra time may help and for DS in his SATS this time I think we are going to try doing the papers with his TA in a seperate room, but doing about 15 - 20 mins at a time then having a break if a particularly tricky question (not as in hard for him but hard to process) comes up. He has trouble moving past these questions and coming back at the end if there is time as we teach the other children because his literal mind says he can't do that.

Assessments within schools such as SATs or inclass assessments are primarily used to give a picture of the child's abilities for the next teacher. Therefore if a child struggles with a particular strand of maths, the assessment is giving an acurate picture of that child. Maths, literacy and science are all broken up into strands of learning. So, if you were worried about ds2's assessment being skewed by a particular type of question you could ask the teacher to give you the overall level and then the average of the strands left after taking out the one causing the issues. However, staff talk to each other so even if the teacher passed on the overall assessment, the next teacher would know the background of the child.

GCSE's and other formal qualifications are a different issue. Obviously they need to be assessble for all but they also need to give a good indication of ability for potential employers. I'm not sure where the line in the sand should be on this one.

In my experience these difficulties become less pronounced as a child gets older and has experienced more assessments.
Also with age they do tend to understand the subtleties better.
Certainly in the case of using first person in a piece of writing for my son he was taught it by rules and practised translating third person to first (very boring but he got it).
Ds is now in year 10 and studying GCSE's and is coping with English Literature because he has been taught to spot irony, sarcasm, humour, suspense, anticipation etc.
None of it comes easy or natural but he has learnt rules and knows when to apply them.
Ds has no imagination so it is very difficult for him to do creative writing just by giving him a title but again svhool provide him with a picture of either a character or a setting and he manages.
Ds has moderate autism and his understanding of language both written and spoken is impaired but he has areas of ability. For example he shouldn't be able to understand the quetions or the explanations for top level maths but he does and got A* in his GCSE Maths module exam but at 7 he got W in his SATs.
I think age and experience is probably the explanation for such marked differences in ability tbh.

basildonbond,

Are you thinking they could somehow "slice" the whole curriculum/education "cake" differently?

So a report would be

pattern recognition : Grade A +
ability to use logic: Grade A+
sequencing of narrative: Grade C concentration span: anything from A to F
ability to multitask: Grade C
etc,etc.

rather than splitting into maths, English, etc?

I can sort of see this though of course you have to reach a certain point in your weak areas in order to be able to compensate with your strengths.