learning difficulties and asd???

[mysonben]

Hi, My last thread made me think about this.
I read somewhere on a website, that learning difficulties were quite common in people with asd. Do you agree with this ?
My ds is 4.1, has been in nursery since age 2.
He has mild asd, and speech delay (receptive and expressive).
Now in the last year, teacher and myself have spent much time trying to get DS to learn his colours, a few letters, shapes and to recognise his name on the board at nursery.
DS still doesn't know any of it! He may get one right then 'forgets' it the next minute
Generally DS needs things to be repeated or shown to him many times before he gets it, and he tends to forget very quickly, like what he is supposed to be doing, where we are going, events, and all the 'academic' stuff.
So far the only people who have mentioned briefly cognitive abilities are Bibic.
DS knows his numbers to 25, and has learnt them without much input from us. He seems to have a good memory for certain things like songs, tunes, and his dvds and struggles with the everything else.
I know some people who think he is still young, but tbh DS doesn't know half of what other 4 years old know. He barely ticks any of the boxes for his 'rising 5'.

Anyone with opinions, experience?
Who is the best person to approach with this? ( his teacher?)

Thanks.

Hello mysonben! I think the person to approach with this is the Educational Psychologist (your teacher or GP should be able to refer you).

I remember being told ( by an EP) that one of the hall marks of ASD is an uneven ability profile ( I don't know if I have said that correctly). My son does have LD ( and was not hitting most of the rising 2 boxes at rising 5)and at 10 cannot count to 25 yet. We notice he forgets (or never takes it in) anything that is of little interest to him - I guess he does not need numbers beyond 13 (stairs to his bedroom) many or lots will do!! Maybe your little lad does not need to distinguish colours (its us grown ups that seem to want colour and shape words)but is more interested in reciting numbers (and has the auditory memory to do it). Ds seems to have developed differently - some things are relatively advanced others we have a long wait for - but he is getting there in the end. For instance he did not understand simple drawings - only photographs. Then one day at about 6 he started drawing circles with spikes on to represent conkers (his obsession at the time) Breakthrough!! although ds does have significant LD ( and low IQ) I know of other more able children with ASD who seem to need a little more time in early childhood but get there in the end.
Yes the EP is the one to ask for assessment.

DS was seen by a Clinical Psychologist and an Educational Psychologist as part of the diagnosis and statement assessment process - neither would test his IQ because he was too young and probably would not comply. However this might be more possible rising 5. BUT children with autism do notoriously badly on IQ tests because they tend to be based on verbal / written ability rather than tap their visual strengths. We had the opposite problem where DS loves shapes, colours, numbers, alphabet too too much and seems to have a good rote learning ability but does not "get" more abstract concepts like why you would play a game, or what a present is for and will not share stories. I think that all children with a language delay have a LD in relation to their inability to understand language and maybe its only once they "get" language that we are then able to assess whether they have other LD / below average IQ as well. I have seen various percentages quoted - I think it used to be thought it was 80% had LD as well as autism but I think its now considered to be below 50% and perhaps around 30%. They used to think non verbal children had low IQ but now non verbal adults are writing novels they know thats not true. So I'm not sure how accurate the IQ data is. Alot of ABA studies quote increases in IQ as evidence of effectiveness and DS would definitely score higher now after 3 months of ABA than before, but I don't think thats because his IQ has changed its just he now understands the expectation that if someone asks you a question you answer and he would be more compliant.

DS loves the computer and learnt letters and numbers from youtube alphabet and counting songs and VTech machines but he is obsessed with these so I think its been the sheer repetition that has worked. DS is definitely a rote learner but many ASD children will have a different learning style, it may be that he needs to learn things visually, or by touching things - some children I have read like letters where they can touch the shape (you can buy sandpaper letters but could probably make your own with wool stuck on a card) or count by counting objects. It could be he has LD or it could be you just haven't worked out his learning style yet. We worry about this too because we've been told that they won't be able to tell us his IQ until he is much older. We have started ABA and that has really helped as DS will learn something when there is a clear "do this and then get reward" approach and also ABA breaks the task down into really small parts. I don't know whether ABA is an option for you - we do the hours ourselves to keep costs down and just have a supervisor. You would probably see quite quickly (in the first 3 months) if an ABA approach was going to work or not.

What I would say is DS does not learn anything by observing others or just absorb it, he only learns because of direct teaching 1:1 eg if we were teaching colours with ABA we would start with him sat at a table with two objects identical but different colours and say "give me red" and then put our hand over his and lift the red and put it in our hand - then we'd say "well done" and he'd get a reward eg 30 seconds with a favourite toy. Then we'd do it again and prompt hand over hand - or try just pointing at correct one - until he gave the right colour independently. You would do this over and over (I mean over days not keep him there for ages!) until had learnt it. Then move on to two new colours etc. The ABA specialists we have seen think DS is bright but he definitely learns things in a totally different way to my other children and I frequently question his IQ. Finding their learning style is probably the key thing and I just don't know how much experience non ASD specialists have in figuring that out.

Thanks ladies for replies. I guess getting the EP to see DS again and definately contacting her before the next review in April to ask about a proper assessment this time as oposed to simple observations like last time is the thing i should do.

I'am a bit unsure about DS's learning style... he seems to pick up songs and phrases from his dvds very quickly, yet our voices don't seem to have the same effect on him, he forgets or doesn't listen or even understand.
But DS replies a lot on visual cues like when he is at nursery, he doesn't listen to the teacher when she gives instructions but looks at what the other children are doing.
He generally gets something better when he can see it.
So maybe it is visual.

DS is the same with DVDs I think its the sheer repetition and that its the same every time whereas we are less predictable. I thought about your thread yesterday when my MIL was talking about some observation my other two children had made which she found surprising for their age and she was saying how they just pick up so much from whats around them; and I could only think DS3 doesn't, I always know exactly where he got everything from, I can trace its exact source - usually from the DVD and the computer. And I realised how little he picks up incidentally from the environment compared to the other two, yet I would say in his own way he is just as clever, but everything will have to be taught not just absorbed.

Yes, it is the same for us. Much of what DS does say can be traced to the tv, his dvds or words for words repetition of what we say, he seldom talks new spontanous phrases.
And DS notices details and focuses on them so it makes it doubly hard to teach him anything.

MSB ds3 was exactly like that at that age, colours were a big focus for us,I genuinely thought he would never get them.

It wasn't an LDthough,more what someone here wonderfully described as functional IQ- basiocally his IQ (no idea how they would test it with him though ) is fine but he slips in and out of concentration somuch,with absences and distractibility and literal langauge and expressive /receptive delays that his functioning is very much reduced.

As he ahs aged he has done well in come areas- knows colours etc now- but there are big gaps,and we have problemsaround maths with stimming (if you change routine he demandssums of you ten to the dozen)

Oh with colours BIBIC taught us to try everything with sweets with him getting them if he got colours right (similar actualmethod to below) but in the end it was his CM spending hour upon hour with the balls at the local ballpool that did it. No idea why.

DS1 learned colours though garage door then taxi obsession - He liked looking for the different colours. I think I did expect more rapid development after that - I was thinking 'oh well if he's got colours and shapes, he'll pick up more' But no, it's still a long slog. I do remember though when he was 22 months, the man at the check out in Marks and Spencers was so amazed that he knew all the breeds of cats and dogs that he went to get a colleague to show her 'this amazing little child'. He does have learning difficulty but the extent is hard to gauge with such a spiked and uneven profile. There's still a lot that comes and goes compared to the rapid and straightforward development of an NT child.

I agree about focussing on detail - DS1 learned all the breeds by memorising the look and the names (receptively) and could point to any one that an adult asked him to but at that age, he could not say dog or cat. DS2 could say dog and cat at that age but was not interested in minor differences between types. I do think in some ways he is amazing but in a way that is hard to access and hard to teach.

Hi,my son is 8 with ASD, global developmental delay and receptive and expressive speech and language disorder.

He is 8 (in mainstream) and only just learning to read, write and spell.
He's had a 1:1 since starting school and we were just all begining to reach the point with him where we wondered if he'd ever start to learn/take in what his peers had been doing for years.
Just a few weeks ago though something seems to have clicked and he is now recognizing his letters and numbers. No one has done anything that different with him it's just that it's only just started to sink in with him it seems !
Last week he got 24/24 in a spelling test (he's in year 3 but mostly doing year 1 work).
It's fantastic though because when he started school he had no more than 20 words in his vocab never mind being able to identify colours correctly.
All children are very different i know and i now know with my son that it was just a matter of time and that he will get there eventually it just may take him a good few years longer than most.

Anyway i remeber how worried i was when we'd spent so much time teaching him colours etc and then thinking he'd got it only for him to have seemed to forget it a day or two later. So just thought i'd drop a line as i remember how that was. Only thing that seemed to work with my son was years of repetition,it's been such a long slow road but finally we're seeing the results .
He's also getting help from an outreach center in our area (i chose that rather than him go to them)and they've been extremely helpful in comming up with alternative ways to teach him things that he seems to be enjoying. The assesment you spoke about might be really good as it may help the school find him some extra/alternative help for him like our school did.
Also i always think its worth chatting to the teacher. My friend is a teacher and she's aware some of her students learn different ways (some are visual learners etc)and tries to incorporate these ways of learning for these students.You may find his teacher is willing to help in that respect too.
Always worth a try anyway

The other thing to always check is context- just because they don't know something with you, theymight with someone or somewhere else. DS3 can read at school and brings home some lovely writing (about a year below age I guess)- here, nada, won'tread (except on club penguin or the TV schedule ) and it took me an hour to get him to put his name in 5 cards, then it was barely readable. In the taxi with his Escort he knows all the words to LittleDonkey; couldn't manage a verse at home. He is very context specific and that can make i6t hard to know what he can do.

I know this is such an old thread but @mysonben I've read some of your posts and your son sounds identical to mine (aged 3.4). Can I ask how he is now and if he was able to learn at school?