ASD and GCSE English?

[handmademitlove]

Does anyone have any positive feedback on intervention / support that helped with GCSE English or other essay subjects? My DD really struggles with "what was the author thinking.." or "why did the author..." type questions, or anything that requires an opinion! She is very bright and has no problems with factual questions.

@handmademitlove Yes, my daughter is the same, fortunately she has a good English teacher this year who is very thorough. My ASD son (now 19) got through English quite well by using the accompanying study guides. So while I don't have any techniques to suggest, my son's recommendation is to use the study guide carefully and work out what the examiners want you to say.... If anyone else has anything more constructive I'll be an avid reader of their advice!

@VMJ1 Thank you - I think that may be where we need to go. Unfortunately the ASD is affected by ADHD tendencies so rote learning may be a challenge! She is yr9 at the moment but next year the study guides will be a good idea - must get them early I think so she can read them through several times!
There seems to be a real gap - I am a researcher by training and have hunted for anything out there on high achieving students and GCSE level help. All the research articles seem to be on the school environment rather than on the actual academic study, which is quite strange. I wonder how specialist ASD schools approach it? Would love to ask them!

@handmademitlove My son also has ADHD so it is possible! (Only just diagnosed, we didn't know he had either when doing GCSEs, he just worked his way through it all but ended up burnout). My daughter suspects she is also dyslexic so searching for quotes etc is almost impossible, but we are going to explore this further with an assessor soon.

I agree that finding information to help them in a practical sense is very difficult. My hope is that my daughter has a very good English teacher this year who is going through the book and highlighting what they need to know in great detail.

I have found a couple of useful resources - still working on it... they are american but I think may be useful to send to her teachers.

www.readingrockets.org/teaching/experts/sylvia-diehl

www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/articles/a-teacher-s-brief-guide-to-teaching-more-advanced-students-on-the-autism-spectrum.html

Bump

Interesting thread @handmademitlove and useful resources. DD did GCSEs last year and I'm afraid we just kept her away from the subjects she couldn't manage (especially history and RE). She managed English (in fact did really well) - I suspect she gave formulaic answers very well. I don't think it every occurred to her that there was an author, never mind that they might have intentions. And I know for a fact that she wrote pretty much the same story over and over again, but nobody noticed.

My DD is choosing options at the moment and I have been clear with school that there are certain subjects she will not do due to the need for opinion and inference. She has to do English and re, but we are working on rote learning of key things. She had some one to one support at school who went through things like all the words connected with humour, or anger etc. I am currently considering what support would help - I think she needs a translator in effect, to explain what the task requires and how she can approach it.. which would require an ehcp, but her overall grades are fine so that could be a challenge.

That's interesting @handmademitlove. My DS is 10 and I'm torn as to whether to let him sit the competitive London 11+ at the end of this year. He had ASD and excels in logic and fact subjects but we have the same issue with English. On the one hand I don't want him to miss out but on the other hand it's hard to say if he can manage in a selective school. One option I was considering was keeping him a non selective and then transition to a tutorial college in year 10 for GCSE's in order to get a more tailored approach.

ds1's teacher (special school) tackled it by teaching English Literature first - we were a bit surprised but it did seem to work for him. I also recommend looking at the sudy / revision guides and in particular looking at the model answers as there seems to be an awful lot of exam technique involved to make sure you get the marks. Also there are some very good youtube videos down by "Mr Bruff" which help explain how to tackle questions.

Currently trying to persuade ds2 to finally do his GCSE language exam - he has A levels in the sciences but could not cope with English GCSE at the appropriate time. But at least he has just passed functional english 2 which is a lot more straightforward than the GCSE and is accepted as an alternative by some places (not all so hence encouraging him to do the GCSE).

Yes, I think it is about exam technique. She spends her RE lessons listening to other people's opinions and then writing them down. She can remember the arguments for and against all the different subjects - she simply doesn't understand why they are persuasive arguments or why people would think those things. But much like in a debating society, she can write the (borrowed and learned) opinions down coherently and gets good marks. She just doesn't understand it - eg peer pressure, or ethical dilemmas..

You could do similar with English too to an extent. DD could e.g. learn scripted answers/phrases/paragraphs/ideas to certain themes.