Are we dealing with learning disabilities, too?

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My AS son is 11 and being homeschooled this year. We are having difficulties with specific areas of school, which I know can be common with Aspies, but I'm now wondering if we're dealing with more than just "having trouble" with a subject.

J. told me at the beginning of this school year that he had tried to read a specific book, but that he couldn't "picture it in his head." Wow, o.k. He started school reading his own lessons, but I quickly realized that he retains information better if it's read to him. When he reads on his own, it's always a book with pictures, whether comics, or illustrated classics, or a picture book. His vocabulary, ability to read out loud, and ability to understand content when read to is normal or above normal - he just seems to maybe not be able to do two things (or more) at once - both read and understand. This is getting slightly draining for me, as he is very limited in his ability to work independently. Or maybe it's just because I'm such a darned good reader, and so much fun to be with!

He also has extreme difficulty with writing. His cursive is good, and he'll write out short things, like a list or a joke or a note. But essay writing last year was completely incomprehensible to him, things like comparing/contrast get him frustrated REALLY fast. Just recently, though, I'm wondering if these two things are actually connected to the AS, and/or neurological.

Has anyone else had this challenge with their Aspies? Was a "label" given to it? Did you get outside help with it?

Sounds like a bit of dyslexia thrown into the mix.
Characteristics: deficit of working memory making planning an essay impossible or at least very dificult (I was given some software to help with this, and dispraxia - coordination of movement.
I can do calligraphy this is pure fine motor copying the shape of each letter and when I concentrate I cope but to write something where I have to think about it at the same time I have to write quickly and this is course motor and mine is poor (most pronounced attempting ball games and racquet sports) my writing turns into a scrawl as I try to capture my thoughts before the next thought pushes it out of my mind (the working memory again).

I have to read things several time before I can visualise them or preferably have someone read them to me and therefore to read a story from a book requires quite some determination.

I suspect there are a few who have a similar experience.

Iceb:
What software were you able to use to help you with essays and writing? How did you deal with full-blown academics?...did someone read to you all the time, or did you have software to help with that also?

The planning software is known as mind maps and the package I was given was called inspiration: http://www.inspiration.com/
It is supposed to enable you to rapidly throw a lot of ideas onto a map you can the arrange it to show relationships between the ideas and structure the essay.

I think I was dogged by slow machines (avoiding long explanation of too many details) and never put the effort in to using it as I did not get a dyslexia diagnosis until my second year at university and at 40+ years old had already developed many techniques for coping with dyslexia but I have seen people use it and can see that it can be very effective.

I am quite good when it comes to extracting information, formulas and statistics from a text and there are a multitude of text readers about Mac OSX has quite a good one built in my biggest difficulty is reading a story which strangely I can enjoy but nowadays a plethora of audio-books available and many things I could never get past the first page of like the Dune trilogy when I read text it general has to be something of a much simpler style usually aimed at children like Alice Through the Looking Glass (a favourite)

As a temporary fix: we find audiobooks work well for my son, even better if we can combine audiobooks with the actual book.

While you could classify these as separate learning disabilities, I have been reading up on schooling, and these issues are apparently not unusual. Our psychologist recommended the book Aspergers Syndrome and the Elementary School Experience by Susan Thompson Moore and I found it covers this sort of thing and offers a number of strategies.

Keyboarding and access to a word processor seem to be critical for a child with AS; many of them have difficulty with handwriting. We are trying to get this into my son's 504 at his school.

One that worked with me was was the Narnia chronicles Somewhere or other most of us have The Lion The Which and the Wardrobe read to us. One of my teachers read us The Horse and his Boy this gave me enough interest to read the rest of the books, re reading a book that had been read to me was something I often could do.

Keyboards are magic there were no computers around when I was at school (unless you were Bill Gates) and there was no way I would have even attempted to go to University without access to a laptop and a home PC I have used lots of different voice type solutions but they all have there problems and are impractical for note taking in class or lectures.

I did get the help of having been to a special school where there was an emphasis on crafts and practical skills I did not even attempt to take the most basic CSE English but did leave with part 2 Electrical Installations (a qualified Electrician).
To this day when I get an exam question I can answer with a diagram it is the first one to do.

iceb - that software is amazing; I can easily see where I could use it, let alone my son!

Just dug out my copy (its version 6 and I see the current version is 9) It was supplied to me with a Mac unfortunately all the software they provided was for Mac OS9 which as I was studying AI, had no intention of using as OSX had been released and being UNIX based far more suitable for the types of software I wanted to run (both mac and windows versions are in the box) I did have a windows box but it was not that good and it ran frustratingly slow on it.

Seems zippy enough on my ThinkPad

I home schooled 2 Aspies. I'll focus on my daughter (she is 18 now.)

She had a neuro psychological exam at 8, and was diagnosed as ASD/Asperger's, ADD, OCD, Selective Mutism.

She has the same writing problems. (actually her handwriting, motor skills were/are awful.) But she couldn't write essays or longer answers.
The diagnosis: dysgraphia

As far as reading: same problem. She Hated to read!! ! I learned through trial and error although she could read the words, she too couldn't "picture" the story, and had No retention of what she read. Same problem if I read to her. Although she did well with DK, highly visual books, or cartoon books too.

The solution: have her work with her hands while I read to her (would also work for audio books.) Then she truly "got it" and retained what she read. I had her make the Great Wall of China out of sugar cubes while I read to her, and her comprehension went up 100%. It wasn't always that ambituos (sp?) She could play with legos and learn equally well.

She had Central Auditory Processing Disorder also, could hear fine, but couldn't comprehend what was said until minutes/hours later.
This was helped by playing as she listened.

Update:
She to went to public school at age 11. I took all of her testing results to the school. Her Dad, who she lived with the divorce (not my wish, long story, she had a brother, didn't want to separate them) didn't want an IEP for her, he said let the school handle those details. He also denies her diagnosis, but thankfully, does accommodate her "differences."

This girl loves to read! We can't get a book out of her hand sometimes, it is wonderful! She picked this up on her own.

Dysgraphia: She still has trouble with this, so I wish she had an IEP for it. She doesn't do well on essays, and is taking Advanced Placement in high school. She says she may stumble on the essays. I told her just do her best, that is all that matters.

Also, my son Hated to read. At 21, he's picked it back up on his own, and reads some for pleasure. Funniest of all is the book he ordered - King Arthur. I made him read this when he was 11, and he fought me tooth and nail. He even bought the follow-up book, Merlyn.

Let us know what you find out, please.

Sounds just like my son 13 with AS. We home school too. He has great difficulity in comparing contrasting and giving an opinion on issues. He read well but his memory is terrible although he now tells me that he only remembers what is interesting to him and most school work is not. I realize most kids think this too but for him it logically does not make sense to learn something he does want to (we struggle all the time with this).

He has great difficulty in doing more than one thing at a time, and he virtually cannot write and think at the same time. He has no concept of an essay. I have resorted to getting him to dictate his words to me and he then edits it later. He can write some good pieces if it's based on his interests but otherwise it's hard going to get some thoughts out. He says he likes 'fiction' but cannot tell me what kind of fiction for example.

It is very frustrating as he requires one on one work but there is not much I can do about it. Many things come into it such as poor organization skills, lack of attention, memory problems etc. We even tried modules that were designed specifically to impprove memory but they didn't seem to do anything for him by way of retention. Many of the issues probably could be classed as part of ADHD but I haven't got as far as figuring that all out yet. I have another thread running at the moment talking about the time of day I am doing lessons to see if that makes any improvement.

Not much help really just confirming similar issues.

Thanks so much for all the thoughts and suggestions!

Iceb:
I downloaded the free 30-day trial of "Kidspiration," the kid's version of "Inspiration." It just might have some possibilities - even my NT daughter was fooling around with it last night, and objected when I had to kick her off the computer.

Thanks!! !

DS's OT (whom we LOVE) has recommended the Inspiration software as well. She thinks it will really help.

Writing is a very complicated and difficult thing to do. I am not surprised that your child has difficulty with it. As far as what to call it, it depends where the problem lies:

Option 1: Your child may have dysgraphia. Otherwise known as difficulty writing due to an underdeveloped set of fine motor skills. I have this, and it is fairly common amongst people with Asperger's Syndrome. Typical signs include sloppy writing, pain while writing, and difficulty with multitasking while writing. Basically, it is like trying to write with your left hand, while wearing an over-sized mitten, and also your hand is numb. It is very difficult to do, and requires your full concentration just to form the letters. Because your spending all your concentration writing, you don't have any concentration left over for actually thinking about what your going to write. This is why I don't take notes, it just doesn't work.

The best way to deal with this is to simply let your child use a keyboard. It is much, much easier to type then it is to write, and becoming proficient at keyboard use doesn't take very long. It also improves your spelling dramatically as your computer will highlight words that aren't spelled right, and give you options to replace them. Every other sentence that I write would contain a misspelling if it wasn't for spell checking.

Option 2: Your child may be dyslexic. Trying to read is difficult, even without dyslexia or other reading problems, but dyslexia just makes it a whole lost worse. Because of this, your child's full concentration is required just to read the words. And therefore he has no spare concentration to do things like actually make sense of what he is reading. Based on what you have said, this seems to be the most likely.

Unfortunately, as I have no significant experience with this, I can't give much useful advice, other then to say get your child some books on tape, and be patient with him. Most people can learn to read with dyslexia if given enough time, but it isn't something you can really force, and no amount of telling him to 'work harder' or nagging him is going to suddenly fix the problem. Just give him time, and he will slowly learn to read more effectively.

Option 3: Your child has problems organizing his thoughts, and conveying what he knows. There really isn't any fancy medical labels for this, perhaps 'communication disorder' at best, but thats vague and not very useful. The basic problem is that communication isn't very easy. Simply forming sentences with proper grammar can be a challenge in and of itself when your brain isn't set up for it. I know that doesn't really make sense to somebody who is a natural at communication (as most normal people are) but I can assure you that it is neither simple nor easy. And the more complicated an idea is, the more difficulty it takes to properly express it. And things like essay questions and open ended compare/contrast questions are often the hardest of all because they are incredibly complicated things to answer.

Keep in mind, that the problem here isn't a lack of an answer. If your child is anything like me, then he will probably have the information that he needs to answer the question available, and he will understand the answer in in his head. But trying to get the answer out of your head, and translate it into a usable syntax and explanation is a VERY VERY VERY difficult process which is very hard to learn. It took me years of effort before I was able to properly answer an essay question; I really don't think I was able to do it properly prior to the age of 21 or so. And even though I can now do it to today, doesn't mean that it it simple or easy for me. I still take a good 2 hours or more just to write out a single page. So, expecting your 11 year old child to easily write an essay may be beyond their abilities at this point.

If you want to help your child learn to organize his thoughts and become more proficient at getting the explanations out of his head and down onto paper, then I suggest starting small, and building up with a lot of practice. Rather then going for long essays about books, keep it simple. Perhaps a single paragraph question such as, 'what steps are involved in making making a sandwich'. That is a very basic question, but it gives you an idea what I am talking about when I say a simple, and direct question that can be answered easily within a paragraph. From there, you can ask more and more complex questions that take more explanation to write out. And over time, your child may become more proficient with writing out what is in his head.

If you are going to do this, then I would recommend getting your child to write about something which interests them, and something which they are knowledgeable about. Trying to learn and convey information at the same time is difficult, whereas conveying information which you are already familiar with is much easier. I think the thing which really taught me to write effectively was the time I spent writing on game forums during college. I wrote many lengthy posts on the forum discussing things like game balance and so forth. It was really the first time I was able to properly articulate the point I was trying to make in writing. All my previous essays for school where completely random and had no theme or coherent point. I have no idea why I passed those classes other then the fact that half the class spent less then 30 minutes on their essays while I spent hours. So all that to say, ask him to write about things which interest him. If he has a favorite game, ask him to write an essay explaining what he thinks about a certain part of it. That way he can just focus on getting the information from his head onto the paper, and less about coming up with new ideas.

Also, along this line, it is important that you teach your child to break down the task of writing into it's constituent parts and do them separately. Basically, when you have to answer a question in writing, you have to do the following:

1. Consider the question. What is it really asking? What type of answer is the person looking for? What does the person want to know specifically? What details are they interested in? Etc.

2. Consider what information you need to provide to answer the question. What points do you need to make? What evidence or logic do you need to use to justify your position? How much do you need to explain, and what can you assume the reader will understand? What writing tools (allegory, analogy, or metaphor) can you use to explain your point?

3. How should you organize this information? What should you start with? What points should you make in what order? Is there certain parts that need to be mentioned first so that later parts make sense? Are all the points of the essay properly explained and supported by the proceeding points?

4. How can you tie all this together. Once you figure out what to write, and what order to write it in, you still need to 'blend' the various portions together by use of transitions. Metaphors can be extended across multiple points, transitional paragraphs and explanations can be written, recaps and reviews of previous points may be useful at later points in the essay to properly explain the point.

5. Find the write words. Once you have an idea of what to write, what order to write, and how to write it, you need to then figure out the words. This is arguably the hard parts as words are not very cooperative, and it takes a lot of practice. But if you know what you are trying to say, and how to say it, then finding the right words is easier. In other words, make sure steps 1-4 are done before you sit down and start on step 5.

6. Sit down and write it all out. Once you know what you are going to say, step 6 is to actually put it down on paper/computer. This is probably the easiest step as it only takes a few minutes to write the answer once you have it in your head, but steps 1-5 can take a couple hours.

For example, when I read this post, it took me a day or so to mull over the question, and the answer in my head before I actually sat down to type it out. The actually typing portion has only taken me a few minutes, but the thought process that has gone into it has taken a lot longer. Unfortunately, most normal people overlook the need to properly do steps 1-5, and expect the child to jump strait to step 6. So they ask a question, give the child pencil and paper, and then expect the child to start writing. It just doesn't work that way. If you want the child to write you an essay, ask the question first, then spend an hour or so discussing the question, then give your child a few hours to organize his thoughts, and then you can expect him to start writing, but not before. Otherwise you wind up jumping over steps and then you get nothing.

Hopefully that helps you to understand the 'writing difficulty'.

Tracker:

I just wanted to thank you for all the time you spent putting together your answer for me! Wow! Your "options" section jogged my thinking, and I have a couple of questions for my son to try to clarify what writing is like for him, physically and mentally. I mean, obviously I know it's difficult, but I don't know, for example, if it causes him physical pain, and it would be helpful to have that information.

We have pretty much avoided writing this school year. Last year's focus on essays seemed to have really affected him, and I've wanted to calm down the extreme stress that 4th grade brought about. But you've got some really good ideas, and lately I've been thinking about slowly trying some different ways of broaching the subject. His father, who I think has many Aspergian traits, interestingly enough didn't understand writing essays until the 10th grade, and then it was his science teacher who taught him.

Maybe we'll try inventions, since that's his area!

Thanks again!

My son suffers from the same issues as Tracker. Also because of many issues in school he felt that none of his thoughts were valid to put down on paper or otherwise.

We have homeschooled for the last 3 years and his written output has been very limited, he can write short answers to questions with difficulty but essay's not at all. He uses a keyboard for most of his work. His best work is produced by dictating his thoughts to me, I make notes and will type it up in Word, mainly to give him the structure, he then edits and adds additional material. We discussed using dictation software this year but he was happy with the methods we have used so far, but that might be something that would help just to get thoughts down.

I agree with the comments on finding topics that interest your son as that does help, unfortunately my son has trouble identifying what he likes. We have written about some of his special interests which works out great but trying to get other topics can be hard going, still I keep trying. He recently announced (he's now grade that he likes works of fiction but he doesn't know what!? The teacher I report to told me to go with whatever I could get from him even if it meant copy & pasting a paragraph from an article just so he could type what his thoughts were on it as he has difficulty giving his opinion. Her suggestion was also to try using some of his more technical work that he produces as part of special interests as he keeps statistical type data, but thus far he doesn't want to explain what all the facts are about, he views that I believe as an invasion of privacy and I get that.

He does suffer with significant memory issues and lack of concentration and I started another thread on this forum recently as I have changed the time of day we do school work and this seens to have helped as he is more focused in the evening.

I should say also now at 13 he does understand more of the difficulties with AS and he has of late been reflecting on his issues and is now coming forward with some solutions that could work.

I hope you find some solutions that work for you.

I like the idea about the audio books. In fact, I've been thinking about buying them for myself. I can listen to them on the evenings that I stay home.