Weird Drawing Inability

[rabbitstew]

Our ds1 (AS) has never had trouble learning to write, nor learning to draw geometric shapes (albeit as he has low muscle tone and hypermobility, he's not hugely neat). However, he has always had a colossal issue with drawing. Ask him to draw something irregular, like a human being, for example, and it's a complete mess! He has no idea how to draw something unless he is taught (as per writing symbols), then once he's learnt a rudimentary technique, will not happily accept any suggestions on how to improve it - so, although he can put details into his pictures, even ears, these days, because he has been taught to do this, if he draws a person, the scale of each body part is unbelievably bad, and he seems to have no issues with legs being largely severed from bodies, or arms coming out of torsos, with separate shoulders above.

It seems fairly clear to me that ds1 will also, despite his extremely advanced abilities at mental arithmetic, have trouble later on lining numbers up in neat columns.

Does anyone else have issues like this with their child? What are the best ways to help it?

Maybe Picasso had AS

With respect to lining numbers up in maths, don't worry too much. If he is seeming to be advanced in numeracy, he will probably have less of a need for neat working than some pupils. Using algorithms involving lining up numbers are helpful for people without such a deep understanding of the concepts.

Obviously it's great to encourage it and for him to practise in order to avoid unecessary errors, but I wouldn't get panicked about it. If he is that mathematically minded, he will detect the errors in his head.

Not trying to belittle your concerns, but just trying to reassure you from a mathsy point of view.

get him a drawing book showing technique. They should have a bit showing how many heads fit into each part of the body at different ages, I seem to remember it is 7? for an adult and varying ones for youngerr people.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that maths is a lot more than mental arithmetic, and ds has a whole range of problems with visualisation - eg needed to be taught how to get dressed, tie his dressing gown cord, get a hat on his head (if he can't see where it's gone, he has no idea which way round it is), has an unusually low ability at puzzles involving mental visual manipulation and advance planning (eg connect 4, noughts and crosses, the whole concept of chess, even spotting words in word searches even though his reading ability is about 8 years above his chronological age, jigsaw puzzles), etc - basically, his non-verbal IQ is considerably lower than his verbal IQ (which is unusually high). I really don't see how anyone can excel at maths if they cannot visualise well. Also, he has trouble putting picture sequences in order, despite having a fantastic memory and ability to narrate a story he has just been told despite being unable to put the pictures for the same story in order. He does also have very odd, mixed hand, foot and eye laterality - uses right hand for writing, but left hand for everything else; but is right foot dominant and left eye dominant. So I don't think his drawing skills are irrelevant or unimportant - I think what is odd is the fact that his ability to tell left from right and ability to do joined up writing aren't compromised, too!

ps ds1 was also very early to be able to tell the time on a conventional clockface - another unusual ability, surely, for a child who has uncertain hand dominance and needed to be taught how to work out which is the top and which is the bottom of a long-sleeved t-shirt (ie no understanding that the bits sticking out were for the arms...)?

I would love to get inside his brain to see what was going on in there!

Does your son see ot? My son also has low tone too and has similar difficulities and at his last appointment she spotted visual difficulties which I hadn't spotted which would explain things he struggled with. I don't really understand it properly as we are going to discuss it properly at next appointment after she marks a visual motor assessment she carried out.

Could you let me know what your OT says, 2Siobhan? OT is going to observe ds1 at school, but I seriously doubt she'll notice that sort of thing, there.

Telling the time is a systematic process. It is also not a 3d shape. It sounds like it is spatial reasoning he is having trouble with. I would be surprised if it affected lining numbers up on a page tbh.

Yes, I think it is 3D he has most difficulty with. He does have some oddities in his 2D perception, aswell (eg if 3 circles are drawn overlapping, as per venn diagrams, he will perceive this as triangles over partial circles, not as 3 circles overlapping, so will have great difficulty copying this, even though he has no trouble drawing circles). And he has trouble working out that some 2D drawings are representations of 3D - therefore trouble following plans, eg for lego, so I guess trouble with the overlapping of 2D and 3D ideas?! As for lining up numbers on a page - I'm sure this is something he can become practised at once he understands its importance, but I guess you could say he does not understand that in music and maths, the neatness of the presentation can actually affect the entire meaning, whereas the neatness of the presentation is not really much of a genuine issue in his creative writing (albeit when one line of writing almost entirely writes over the last line, even this is debatable!).

HuckingFell - any ideas how to help improve his spatial reasoning, given that he doesn't enjoy most activities involving this skill?! What would be an easy starting point for encouraging him to see this skill as something which can be enjoyed and developed?

I am awful at visualising and v scruffy. But always did v well in maths. Obv look into improving sequencing etc and into ideas others have suggested. But dont panic on the academic front, v talented kids need little written working out

Thanks, TotalChaos. I guess it's the huge disparity between ds's verbal and non-verbal abilities that is getting me a little bit concerned, so nice to know it shouldn't end up being a big brick wall for him! I think the problem is, when they try to stretch the brighter children in maths, the first area they tend to try to stretch them in at ds's school is in the side that he is below average in! He's a whizz at recognising number sequences, no trouble with learning times tables (at age 3 would happily entertain himself by counting up in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, etc, as quickly as he could count up in 1s) but would probably have trouble recognising visual sequential patterns, finds completing the other side of a complex symmetrical shape difficult etc.

Mind you (whinge coming up), it's not surprising he has the difficulties he has - he didn't have the skills to move around and explore his environment until he was nearly 17 months old, thanks to hypotonia, hypermobility and health visitors, parents and GPs refusing to accept there is a difference between a child who happily never goes through the rolling-over stage and benignly doesn't bother to bottom shuffle or crawl until an advanced age and one that is utterly distressed and incapable, despite considerable effort, of getting to where it wants to be, or even get from lying to sitting... He missed months worth of learning through movement at the appropriate time and it must be harder later on to catch up with all that, particularly if you are already weak enough in that area that your physical issues literally prevented you from moving without help, rather than delaying your development slightly. I still remember being particularly upset by the physio's comment in the first session, "it's a shame I didn't get to see him sooner." (After I had been asking whether something was wrong since he was about 12 weeks old...).

Oh, it is fun to whinge from time to time!

Ah ok, that puts a different slant on things.

I do think that people talented at this group of concepts/skills we have decided to call maths can be vastly different in how they understand things and solve problems.

For quite high level problems, there are people who will immediately model using spatial reasoning. More common, I would imagine, is to use algebra.

Sounds to me that your DS will like algebra (obv could be wrong) and then he will be well away, honestly.

In earlier years, his spatial difficulties may appear to hold him up - but stress to him that it's fantastic to excel in the area of maths that he does excel in.

I think the higher the level, the less he will struggle. Geometry becomes a great deal about rules, deduction and proof and bears little resemblance to 'shape, space and measures'.

I haven't researched this, but I bet there are great great mathematicians with poor spatial reasoning. I'll pop back and tell you if I find out about any!

Thanks, youtalkingtome. Algebra was always much more my sort of thing, too, although there are quite a few very good spatial reasoners in our family (unfortunately for ds1, ds2 has a particular talent in this area, which tends to put ds1 even more off attempting to do things his little brother can already do! Even worse, little brother emulates big brother, so is now also getting very good at big brother's special talents, which I think makes big brother feel quite insecure, because they have always been his very special talents...).