adhd for child with asd

[adhdoh]

So DS is 14 (Y10) and at high-achieving mainstream private school. He has ASD diagnosis since age 7. Left prep school after Y8, the prep was very organised - all homework done at school.

At new school he would forget things and struggle with organisation and would do things like defer working on long-term projects till the last minute and what not, but at start of Y10 things were much worse as he basically didn't do his homework at all. He also skipped sports practice on lunch time (because he couldn't be bothered) without telling us even though we were driving him on weekends to the same thing.

School got quite concerned about this as he was not doing any of his homework.

He is literally only motivated by games/internet, he does other things (if told to) but it's quite perfunctory - 15 minutes playing guitar and 5 hours playing games (if allowed), for example. Sometimes he plays games on his computer and then while it's loading will play games on his phone as well. He doesn't try to fix things. Like the video card on his computer wasn't working, so he couldn't play most of his games, but he didn't work through from start to finish to try and fix it, he preferred to have it sitting broken for literally months.

He also tries to put things off 'I've got two days to do that', he says on Monday. Me : 'Really, when is it due?' He: 'Wednesday'. Me: 'Well that's not two days is it, it's one.'

Anyway, we have been more rigid with having him do homework and what not, and set firm rules with him about IT (his ipad and phone go in our bedroom at bedtime, so he can't play with it in the night). But the school have still asked to see us. They asked for any psychological reports, etc. It did make me wonder about ADHD, I have just been reading about it (and as it's 3:30am yeah hmm, me too, perhaps), just wondering if I should seek a diagnosis (is it useful in education, or can we just use the strategies without it - I mean ultimately an ASD diagnosis didn't really change anything it's not 'oh, he has ASD, let's treat and cure that' (although he does get extra time in exams)) and if there is an expeditious way to do so: we dealt with NHS before bit of a waste of valuable time if you can afford to avoid it?

We asked if he knew how to approach it, and he said 'yes, break it down into parts and do a bit each time'

But there's a difference between knowing what to do in theory and being able to plan out the steps and put it into practice. Can he break it down independently? It sounds like he needs more support in planning tasks and managing his time.

It sounds like he needs more support with executive function and with finding the motivation to do tasks which don't interest him.

Past paper practice is boring and it can be very difficult to find the motivation to go over the same thing again and again. This is an area where my DD really struggles, unless it's a subject she finds inherently interesting.

What has helped us is looking at long term goals, and working backwards.
So my DD doesn't like maths. But you have to have maths GCSE to get in to university to do anything. We looked at prospectuses and university admissions sites to confirm this. And we work back from there, setting little goals on the way to the big goal and building in lots of time for the things she enjoys.

Thanks. Are you Malaysian? DS is half Indonesian.

We went to see the school today; the form teacher was a bit no-nonsense and basically said that DS shouldn't do play any games Monday-Friday. I'm not sure if this is reasonable exactly, or if he has experience with ASD (I suspect not). Also the learning support assistant said he should move to word processing his work; I said well that's a good idea and he has the tools in place in terms of us having bought him a laptop equipped with all the software, but that alone isn't enough - the whole structure needs to be put in place.

We did resolve to try and make his laptop a distraction free zone, so no chat apps, games, etc. He still has ipad, phone and gaming computer, so that seems like a reasonable compromise - we keep finding him there sitting in front of his laptop on social media or whatever, so

I suggested that he needs a structure to manage his tasks, and the form teacher said he has a structure - he has a diary. I had something more granular in mind than that - I was looking at a couple of apps, Todoist and Wunderlist (Todoist looks better) - but I think I will need to actually implement that myself and then follow it up with the learning support person. The problem partly may be that you can use a phone or whatever as a productivity tool but at the moment it's quite the opposite. I installed the Todoist app and it's very easy to add a task - I added one while sitting at a traffic light on the way home 'fill screenwash' - but it needs to genuinely be a productivity tool, and while if you are a professional making notes on your phone in a meeting then no-one is going to assume you are playing Candy Crush, but in school I'm not sure. At the moment I do believe his phone pops up notifications every four hours to collect some 'chest' in his game (Clash Royale) and there are pointless Instagram notifications like 'Natgeo has just posted a photo' as well.

He is very proud of his Clash Royale prowess; I do not share his enthusiasm - Clash Royale is a freemium game, and employs a barrage of psychological tricks (keithburgun.net/psychological-exploitation-in-games/ www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/chasing_the_whale_examining_the_.php?print=1) to get players to return to the game, and ultimately in a minority of cases spend thousands or tens of thousands of pounds to get better at the game (which the game rewards by promoting the player higher so they need to spend more money). The alternative to spending £££ is to spend very large amounts of time playing, which is always the trick with freemium - by getting players to spend more time in the game, they hope they will eventually spend cash (and also there is the sunk cost fallacy, whereby the more time you spend on something, the worse it seems to give up). I think some other boys at his school play it, so he feels proud of his prowess (achieved through obsessively playing the game).

The school sound a bit clueless, tbh. You need different strategies and advice than you would for an NT stroppy/lazy teen.
Having the laptop purely for 'work' is a good idea - it sounds like he is easily tempted by distractions. You'll have to keep the other devices out of the room too though.
Have you tried using an app like OurPact to help regulate phone use? You can turn off access to certain apps and leave others running (e.g. turn off the game and leave a the task planner on or restrict the game to certain times of the day). It's less confrontational, we've found, than removing the device or trying to agree limits that are never stuck to.
Since the phone is problematic, could you try using organisational tools that are not phone based? Old fashioned lists, visual timetables, planning sheets to help break down tasks. If your DS doesn't yet have the maturity to limit his own phone use then introducing more reasons to look at the phone will make it harder to limit it for other things. Can the learning support person go through his diary with him at the end of the day, prioritising tasks and helping him break down and plan his work?

I'm not sure that they are completely clueless, we were supposed to meet the head of learning support, but she was ill so met one of the other learning support staff. The form teacher didn't really seem to know anything about autism, and didn't seem like he was on the same ballpark really. But that didn't surprise me - when he has had male form teachers in the past they have mostly (with one exception) been similarly straightforward, so to speak.

He has a weekly learning support session, I don't think daily would happen necessarily but they did mention that they could at least help him implement a system for structuring himself.

I was thinking about a internet/blocking app when I made my last post, but more in terms of the laptop. I have just looked up OurPact and it looks like it might be handy. At the moment phone and ipad are in our bedroom overnight as a minimum, and he doesn't really use the laptop that much. When he's at home I think ipad and phone are both with him all the time, and he could be sitting supposedly working on the laptop but with phone and ipad also in the vicinity.

I am not personally that keen on paper-based things, as his bag is a bulging mess of bits of paper and textbooks and what not, and his handwriting is not good, so my instinct is that an app approach is better, as it's neat and tidy, whereas anything written will inevitably look like a mess, which I suspect is not inspiring.

My DD, also year 10 has been finding the step up in work volume and the expectations on her as a bright child to be able to organise herself really hard.

She definitely gets more stressed if I challenge her. It's hard but I try to encourage, support, guide etc. I do have to be assertive though and we have agreed a "powerhour" (her phrase) every evening at kitchen table. It really is helping as she knows the pressure is off afterwards.

One evening she had got sidelined into watching some American to show on laptop (wears headphones) when I thought she was working. I was exasperated and showed it. She shouted, in tears,
"You have made me so stressed I have to go upstairs for 5 minutes to calm down now."

She was right. I was wrong because one of her difficulties is distractibilty.

Technology is so difficult isn't it? On the one hand there are great tools for helping to keep the DC on track and to help them with difficulties. On the other there is a whole world of distractions built into most tech devices!

DS could really do with learning to use a keyboard..... but he messes about with fonts and photos so has had his classroom privileges to use the computer removed! He ends up needing adult support to use the tech and not get distracted..... .... rightly I suppose the teacher has decided that if it's difficult and he still needs adult support they may as well stick with the handwriting....

As an aside we have found WriteMonkey fairly good - it's a free blank page word processor. Can't say it stops DS switching to the internet tho....

"Right, I can't remember what I posted already but I'm reading this and identifying with him a lot (I'm autistic and have significant executive function problems). "

Well so am I (at least I think so, more-or-less), it's problematic as I am fucking useless at getting things done.

I also tend to deflect when challenged, although I at least acknowledge to myself that I'm shit. I don't know if DS does. But perhaps it's the same. I went to see a psychologist before about executive function, we didn't get anywhere though, I don't think she was particularly into ASDs though. Actually I have got more done in the past when I have been motivated, I basically got motivated and made some money and then no longer really could be bothered IYSWIM?

Anyways I popped into see him just after 9pm, he was in his room on the floor with the laptop, I asked what he was doing and he said Physics, but I could see in fact that he was on Youtube. I couldn't really be bothered so I just left. He shouted after me that he was still talking to me.

After that he came downstairs and asked about meeting with school. I explained that the form teacher had said he shouldn't have music when working. Form teacher also said that you shouldn't get used to music because there'd be none in exams. I think teacher was talking quite a bit of bollocks in a lot of what he said, but anyway DS said he needed music to help him focus . I took the laptop off him and inspected his browser history, it showed he had accessed Youtube around 8 times in 10 minutes - he was claiming that he just put music on and that was it. I said 'well it seems like it is distracting you'. He said something about a playlist. I said it's not a playlist though, you keep going back and forward. It turned out in fact that finally at the end a minute before I had gone to see him, he HAD put it on a playlist, so that was a big 'point' to him and he got very angry because I was wrong about that, even though the larger issue of him flitting back and forwards was still there.

But maybe he can setup a few playlists and limit himself to those. I am not really sure. I know he said he was distracted by noises such as floorboards and other environmental noises, but I don't know 100% how much this is affecting - whatever his current POV is, he'll swear blind that it's correct.

As we were discussing his focus and saying that he would remove all distractions from his laptop - he has phone, ipad, and gaming PC, all with distractions, but his laptop would be his temple so to speak. He never really likes this sort of discussion, and it's quite stressful for us, as he will tend to show stress and anger on his face, and respond rudely and then deny that he is doing so. I suspect you have to ignore most of the low-level rudeness, but it's rather trying anyway.

He then complained that he wanted to do his homework and why were taking up his valuable time. I pointed out that I had not told him to come downstairs, he was the one who insisted on starting the conversation at after 9pm and if he wanted this discussion then he should expect it to take an hour or so.

Arguing about how long the discussion was taking took up some more time before I could move onto a task management app. He said he had used one before but didn't get on with it. After pressing, it turned out he had only had it suggested to him by learning support - he hadn't ever tried anything. So I installed the app for him and tried to show him how it worked. He said he would find out for himself, and I pointed out that he wasn't really likely to do that, as he doesn't initiate things - he needs to have other people initiate for him. But he was quite angry and tired at this point so I am not sure if it got through at all.

He went off at that point saying he was going to charge his phone in his bedroom - I had to say 'no, the phone goes in our bedroom' (this has been spelled out 100 times already, but he still keeps at it). I am not really convinced about the OurPact thing, as it apparently is very easy to circumvent. Enforced physical separation is more effective thing.

When I was at school I hacked the school computer network and they gave me a computer with no internet access as punishment. Got a lot of work done on that!

I agree about OurPact but why not use the router admin to control which devices have access. If only you has the admin password the only way he'd get net access is via data on a mobile contract which I'm assuming he's not old enough for yet?

Or more low tech, What's stopping you switching the power off to your router at a set time each day/night? A friend with 2 NT teenagers has this as a house rule to make sure they wind down and sleep.

PS Asperger experts responded to that 2014 feedback. The stuff I have bought recently has much better production values and they offer a money back guarantee

he has a mobile contract as we had PAYG previously but he would run out of credit and then not be able to call us when he was late back from practices or whatever. So now he has guaranteed minutes as well as 1GB of data.

Also I guess some of these games don't require data anyway.

Too much tech!! He sounds screen addicted. Looking for solutions in more apps and tech where a pencil and paper would do is not solving the issue at all. Sorry but it sounds like life revolves around apps and screens in your home, very addictive and distracting for an adolescent who is finding things hard. It is so easy to get sucked in and lose hours on these things and the games are cleverly designed to have this effect.

A book I've been reading suggests with kids like this don't get bogged down in reasons, excuses or blame. The rule is no games installed on lap top/put the phone away until homework is finished or whatever and the consequence is set out and followed through. Never mind how it got there, why or how long was spent on it.

Could he do his work in the same room as you?

Switch the router off and he leaves the other devices with you. If he needs to use a device, that one has nothing but work on it.

I imagine the ancient Greeks had to do lists, there really is no need for an app.