Asd, abstract thinking and homework tips or ideas please

[Thecarrotcake]

We have a new issue, well it won't be new, it will be that as ds is getting older and he's now in secondary, it has come very much to light.

Ds came home with a homework sheet, got in a complete tiz because it was " just a sheet of dots, with no instructions'.

So I through the trumps and there was instructions, but ... They were half way down the Second side inbetween the two halves of the homework, and they weren't titled as instructions.

He didn't even think, " I can't see any instructions, I'll look through the sheet to see if I can find some".
Which tbh he wouldn't.

This isn't the first time this has happened since moving up schools.

So I need a really good way of teaching him to "look" for information if it's not where he expects it.

TIA I'm popping out for a bit but I will be back :)

I read the sheet through his grumps

sorry

We already have this with ds1 in year 4, I suppose because he tends to be give work in frames rather expected to write it directly in his book as a result of his lack of planning and spatial awareness skills and handwriting issues. We seem to get the 'missing instructions panic' a lot with maths sheets in particular.

He often starts getting stressed and panicky because he can't see what they want him to do. I tell him to go back and read the whole sheet front to back, start to finish and if he still can't find the question I will come and read it with him.

It usually does take me to read it with him, but live in hope that by keeping on sending him back to read it himself first, one day he might by some miracle find the question himself.

The only other thing I've thought of doing, is gathering together a whole load of his old sheets and using a highlighter to show where the questions were, then going through them all with him to demonstrate how many different places questions or instructions can be placed on worksheets.

Something along the lines of "Ds here is a pile of worksheets, I've highlighted where the questions/instructions are for each sheet, lets count how many different places the instruction are ..."

If you can't get hold of any of his past sheets, you could print some worksheets off the internet, deliberately choosing ones that have the instructions set out in different styles and places.

I know like my ds, yours doesn't stand for social stories. I was kind of hoping this would work a bit like a living social story rather than one that was written down, iyswim.

I suppose its a bit like a 'rule' for them, that instructions come at the top of the page, so we need to show them that that rule doesn't always apply and what to do if they aren't.

Sorry I did laugh at 'through the trumps' though.

Life would definitely be more amusing, although definitely more smelly, if they trumped instead of grumping at these things.

:o ah at least autocorrect bought some joy!

The sheets and highlighter is a great idea.. I'll sell the idea to him by rewards.

I wonder if it comes more to light because the secondary system is more inclined to assume that pupils will just look for the instructions if they aren't at the top.

And your right that it does seem to be a rule in his head that instructions come first.

It could be some sort of strategy to get them to read through the sheet, instead of just starting at the top. I remember them trying to drum that into us waaay back when I were a lass.

If the worksheet thing doesn't work, is there anyway you could request that teachers either point out the instructions or highlight/indicate them to your ds before he brings the sheet home?

Does he have a passport? Ds's is being printed this week and its the sort of thing that could be added into that under the 'things you can do to help' category.

He does have a passport, it's in his information for all the teachers, yet not every teacher for every lesson is going to remember to do it. Some do, and the lessons he has a TA in are okay, but then we get the teachers who forget ( and i totally understand), or the subsitute teachers and a few that haven't seemed to be able to to get a grip on the fact that you actually have to tell ds step by step or he'll miss a step out.

So I think this is a case of trying to teaching him to look for information at home and try and get him to transfere those skills.

That is a tricky one. An SEN TA at my DS2's next school, when I queried about how DS2 will try to avoid homework, said that his passport will say 'teacher to make sure he writes in his homework diary' and if it's not in his homework diary he doesn't have to do it, as the teacher was at fault, not DS. Stops them getting detentions but doesn't really deal with the issue of independence and getting them ready for the real world.

Good idea that your DS's passport could get the teacher to highlight the instructions, verbally or physically. Perhaps they could start out for a few weeks with a highlighter pen and back off to pointing it out, then eventually just telling him. Would the school be up to that?

I'm going to give school a quick call to see if they will, I hope they agree.

Go careful with the making sure it's written down in the diary thing, with ds it sounded good in theory, but he has ended up writing it down in a rush and forgetting / missing important aspects of what he is supposed to do.

Thanks carrotcake. DS2 is still in year 6 so it's all a bit scary at the mo. I have a transition conference thingy next week with both Sencos, TA, autism advisory teachers etc to talk about things like this. I'll keep that in mind.

Ellen while your doing the transition bit, it would be worth asking if a TA or teacher could just make sure homework is written down correctly.
( or written down for him) and time allowed to do this.

Ds tends to get in a rush and then forgets what the different steps are.
So if he had say cooking and needed to write a three course menu, he'd likely write in his diary, write menu. He'd not write down the three course bit and would also forget to write when it's due in. Or for maths homework he has written 'maths' on the day and then he had no idea what it was.

It's easily sorted, but I didn't think about it until it happened.

Thanks carrotcake. You know, I always feel hungry after talking to you. Mmmm cake.

I often think that the tunnel vision viewing is from the neanderthal hunting man. If it isn't jumping up and down in front of them with pompoms and shiny lights - it isn't in their field of vision. It would be interesting to see how many DDs suffer from this as well.
This reply is probably from my DS not being able to find his football kit bag out of 2 smallish tubs in front of him.He only looked in the one on the left......it was on the top of the one on the right.

Auntevil, I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

Most men/boys seem to do that don't they. They can stand in front of a cupboard staring at the contents and still not find something that's two inches from their nose. This is one of my biggest bugbears with dh. Even if I say, its on the top shelf, left hand side at the front, he still comes back and says he couldn't find it.

Who was it that said that autism is actually extreme maleness? Didn't someone suggest there was some link to maternal testosterone levels during pregnancy?

Ahhh I have to agree woth extreme maleness.

I think it was Simon baron cohen ( the essential difference) that talks about extreme maleness and asd.

Can't think of the testosterone thing in pregnancy, interesting though because although I had a healthy pregnancy with ds, I was under extreme stress levels ( ex who I'm sure is undxed asd himself, was signed off work through depression, I worked full time until 1 week before ds was born, and basically held things together for ds1 and me.)

Did you know he is Sacha Baron Cohen's first cousin?

The testosterone thing includes having ring fingers longer than index fingers. Afraid mine is, so are DS1 and DS3 (much longer), but not so much for DS2 who is actually DX ASD.

Exception that proves the rule?

I found the testosterone thing interesting because it rang bells from when I was studying dog behaviour. Apparently a bitch who was between two dogs in the womb is highly likely to exhibit what are essentially male personality types and behaviour patterns (dominance, scent marking, leg cocking etc).

Our old girl was one of a litter of ten with only two bitches. She was dominant, scent marked, cocked her leg and behaved for all the world like a male dog. Interestingly, she also always came across as quite autistic (in a dog way that is). She never played with a toy once her entire life even when she was a puppy - she just didn't 'get' toys, didn't seek affection and would actively avoid it if possible, thrived on routine and hated change, BUT, she was the cleverest dog I've ever met, you could teach her anything in just one training session and she'd never forget it and she loved learning more than anything in the world. She didn't even work for treats or toys like most dogs, she actually loved training and wasn't fussed with getting a reward. She used to throw herself against my leg to get me to do heelwork with her on walks as she'd rather do that than run and play.

Once upon a time (before the dcs) I was going to go to Uni to study dog/animal behaviour and thought if I ever had to do a research project, I would love to do it about whether or not autism occurs in other species, particularly dogs.

That was way before I'd even considered having children, let alone had ds1. I sometimes wonder if the universe gave me that particular dog to make sure I'd done some reading about ASD before I had ds1.

Both my ring fingers are significantly longer than my index fingers. I've always been a bit of a tomboy as well and wondered if that was a factor as well.

That said, we have a family history of ASD going a long way back on dh's side, plus a couple of suspects on my side and ds had several indicators to do with pregnancy and birth as well (IUGR, lots and lots of ultrasound scans, long, complicated extended labour leading to an instrumental birth and his heart rate dropped dangerously low just before he was delivered). Actually, earlier this week I was mulling over getting hold of a copy of his/my notes to try and get it all straight in my head.

Great to have a head start, as it were. I hadn't even seen Rain man. I just had this vision of a child completely locked in. So sad, but nothing like DS2. There aren't many books about ASD I haven't read now. (Actually, probably loads I haven't read)

Autistic animals? Wow.

x posted. We think my FIL and BIL are undiagnosed AS, but my DH is the least autistic person in his family. I have a Physics qualification and DH Maths. I'd like to blame it all on him but I can definitely see traits in myself, more than DH certainly. (But not more than FIL and BIL)

Mmmm, but so bizarre that it was all dog related, although actually modern dog training was borne out of child psychology, so I suppose the two do kind of fit together in a weird way.

These days the dogs have taken a back seat and all my dog books are in the loft, their place on the shelf taken by books on ASD, child development and parenting.

Have you read about the latest experiment of Simon Baron Cohen? He gave testosterone to perfect NT momen and this significantly reduced their level of empathy (temporarily). He wants to use this to prove the theory about testosterone in pregnancy. I would think this would explain why AS in wemen is mildder.

I am scared of this fingers' test mught be musused to fingerpoint ASD people.

Moose that's really interesting, i swear our mutt is asd :)
her and ds are perfect for each other.

I have a dog trainer friend who actually said " treat children like dogs, they both respond to rewards and boundries"
his children are very well grounded lovely teens :)

and there are definate similarities between ABA and clicker training :)

We are much the same, dh's brother would most likely have a dx himself if his father (who everyone is now sure also has AS) hadn't physically ejected the Ed Psych from their house and refused to cooperated. His son definitely has AS, both him and his wife admit it, but they also refused to have him assessed. Poor child has been to hell and back and really suffered all the way through school. I spoke to SIL about it recently and she said she really regretted not getting him dx as they were pretty much told at the outset that he was a clear cut case.

Going back the family has some very eccentric characters running right through it. They were pretty famous in their area and its even been said in books that if they were around now they would most likely have some sort of dx.

On my side, my maternal grandfather was a dead cert as were a couple of other people in his family. I also see quite a lot of traits in myself, although I don't think I would have got a dx and it's mainly manifested itself as social phobia at different times in my life.

The sad thing is that dh's family are in total denial about it and extremely over-sensitive as well - I suppose in truth they know, but they don't want to know, iyswim. To the extent that we can't tell them about ds's dx as it would cause a huge family fight. Obviously this leads to all sorts of awkward or downright difficult situations in our interaction with them.

TheQuiet, that is really interesting.

Carrot, I've always wondered that about ABA and clicker training, but have never managed to read enough about ABA to know if I was right.

I love clicker training and find it fascinating to watch a dog thinking and working it all out for themselves. I just wish my dcs would work for a click followed by a tiny piece of their favourite food. Might get a bit messy with macaroni cheese though.

:o @ moose's disclaimer and macaroni cheese!

Ahh all of it would make total sense if dog training was derived from child psychology!
( I'm going to hunt through mums psych reference books! )

and I am very interested to see if stress and oxythingy and testosterone in pregnancy may have tipped the balance for ds2 on the genetic history, where ds1s pregnancy was very un stressful ( the birth was awful) and he is NT.

moose, your family history sounds very similar to ours, although the inlaws here are now ex inlaws, but they still refuse to accept or deal with ds's dx.

Seriously they have an issue with difference, it drives me nuts.