suggestions - Aspie children sticking to homework until done

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Chupa,

He'll do better if he finds a job that's he's actually interested in. My biggest obsession is writing and that's what I've done for a living for 22 years. Also, if he is not social and doesn't enjoy being around people and noise, look for jobs that do not have that. Technology, Librarian, Writer (I'm talking technical writer and not journalist or communicator because those are both bad Aspie jobs), research, etc. Those kinds of things. I don't know why they list telemarketing as an Aspie job. That's an exhausting job for an Aspie and the pay is very low. No benefit there.

In Technology they usually look for people who home in on the work and can sit at their desk for hours on end working. Socializing is seen as a very bad thing. Usually you can hear a pin drop in the departments I've worked in. Now we don't even have face to face meetings, we call in to meetings. They think meetings are a waste of time and people can keep working on conference calls. It's a great environment for an Aspie and I love it.

They are probably going to be like me and hate management. I hated it. There is no money to make it worthwhile. I'd rather stick forks in my eyes than deal with people like that.

I agree with Temple Grandin that we should find the jobs that suit us and where we can excel.

My son loves history and military history, as well as things like weapons systems, figher planes, and the like. I could see him doing research on stuff like that.

Research is a great job for an Aspie. Much of my work is researching, it's just looking through old code and doc, but I love to do it.

I wonder if the Pentagon has that? I know the CIA and FBI have researchers, but there might be problems with security. The trouble with history is that most of the research is done by professors and he may be like me where he couldn't handle that much human contact. Although some Aspies can, so he could probably let you know.

My oldest brother was obsessed with the military and fighter planes (still is). He was in the air force for a long time which he did fine in actually (he loved the structure). After he got out, he became a technician working on machines (he used to work on planes in the military). He works alone with the machines mostly and he loves it. They love him because he's good at it. The social people at work seem to even help him out (I guess because they value him).

So there are some ideas at least. Just be sure the job coach understands the social and sensory problems with Asperger's. Sometimes I see people on here getting directed to jobs that are really tormenting to them and that's no way to live. There are jobs suited to us, we just have to look hard to find them.

Have you give him the Meyer's Briggs to find out his personality? That really helps with picking a good job. He can take it here Meyer's Briggs Personality Test. What it will do is show whether he actually gets energy from other people or himself. Whether he is more of a feeler or thinker. Whether he is intuitive or a sensor (need to actually do something to understand it). And whether he is a judger or perceiver (perceivers see all possibilities while judgers usually jump to the answer). If you both take it, it will reveal a lot about how you should communicate. It also can make things clearer to him about why feelers need input from other people or extroverts want to socialize. Sometimes we do better with black and white facts rather than abstract concepts about people or something like, "It just makes them feel good."

I was thinking about the homework thing last night. I remember reading this teacher's aide worked on making the work more visual and the Aspies took to it better. We are visual thinkers. It made me think of the old Sesame street where everything was visual. I was too old for that when it came out, but I remember I liked that concept for kids.

Last edited by ZanneMarie on 06 Apr 2007, 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for the help.

Zanne Marie,

I've begun the "space puppy" thing with Will. You know how you mentioned that I should explain it to him, that basically his mind is being hijacked into thinking about other things, and we just have to get him used to pulling himself back to his original work? Well, unfortunately, we just took a flight to visit his Grandparents for Spring Break, and after I had talked about hijacking [i.e. airplane hijacking] then he would talk about being hijacked on the plane on the way home! oh well . . .

But you're right, he does kind of smile when I call him a "space puppy" and it does tend to diffuse the situation.

We just talked face to face with his teacher last night. She has been saying that his note-taking abilities are not working very well at all, probably because of the "space puppy" phenomenon. I had thought of trying info-mapping when she mentioned this, and then I read your latest comments on this thread. I used info-mapping (without knowing what it was called) when taking a law class in college. It makes much more sense then trying to write things in a linear fashion. I'm going to work with my son over the summer to teach him this skill. I wonder if I could make note-taking more of a puzzle-like activity, if he would think it was fun and actually enjoy taking notes!

Another problem for him, I'm guessing, is trying to figure out what part of a lecture or discussion he should write notes on. I've been working with him this year, trying to teach him to use notecards to "chunk" the information that he gets from a chapter in a social studies book on to the index cards so that it reinforces what he's reading, but also puts information into manageable amounts when it is time to study for tests. At first, I would write the definition/name/date/historical event on the top of the index card, and then he would have to find the info and write down the information. Now, he is doing the cards totally on his own. He did a GREAT job, finding the correct information and writing it down. This is partially, I think, because I told him that anything that is either a definition, a name, a date, a place, or an event is what he should write down. That made it very technical, and he could do that. Do you think giving him those same parameters would help with info-mapping/note-taking?

You're really spending a lot of time giving out advice lately, for which we are all grateful!

Kris

Glad the info mapping concept worked out. I wish I still had my old training materials for the week long class because I would send them to you to use! We broke down information into tasks, rules, introductions, etc. You might also want to do that. It organizes information and I loved that. It probably appeals to our brain because it is a way of organizing information.

Space puppy. Keep at it. It took my husband a long time to get me to see I did it and for me to become aware of it enough to pull back from it. You might want to tell him that when he does it, the way his eyes stare into space scares you in the same way looking into people's eyes is creepy for him. Most of us have that, even when we see our own eyes in the mirror. I think it's because we can't read eyes at all, even our own so we have no idea what the person is thinking when they look at us. Very unnerving. My husband just explained to me that space puppy gave him the same sensation. It made it much easier for me to let go of my enjoyment quicker so I wouldn't do that to him. It was something I could understand.

As for homework, I finally realized why it never caused me trouble even though I thought it was the most boring thing on the planet. I just turned it into a routine I did at the same time every day and then I was fine. I patterned my brain. Most of us have these weird routines we follow that just seem to give us comfort. I decided to make homework one of those and it worked for me. Does he have routines he uses to make himself feel more comfortable? Tell him homework can become like that where it's just comforting.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that "spaces out" from time to time.

I agree about pattering your brain... but it's still boring. Homework is largely an NT drill, the way they burn stuff into their heads. It's almost completely unnecessary and even counter-productive to Aspies, but we live in an NT world so we have to do it anyway. Although sometimes you get lucky, and get a teacher who's more tuned in to learning differences and will cut you slack...

I remember when I was in college, studying programming. While the teacher was giving the week's lab problem in class, I was already seeing the problem in my head, seeing the code that would work out the answer, and by the time class time was done, I could go directly into the lab, and type the code straight into the computer, generally error-free (one or two bugs at most). One of my professors saw this, realized I was a prodigy, and would have fun thinking up extra assignments for me to do the rest of the week. However, another professor would royally chafe at this, would insist I go back and write the pseudocode, the flowcharting, the module diagrams, yada yada yada. Basically all the things NTs have to do to get from point A to point B. He just couldn't see doing it any other way, and was trying to force me into an NT mold.

I was fortunate with my teachers in that they built a separate curriculum for me once I hit sixth grade with extra classes I wanted to take. They let me go to the library to do my work. It was ideal for me.

Homework was a way for me to zone out and calm down after all the socializing at school. I have super low tolerance for socializing so I need something to decompress. I still do. Homework was just a mindless way to do something repetitive and unwind.

So was space puppy, but I saved that for later when I could really enjoy it!

I sent you a PM. I got the software today! I am so excited,

Anyway, I posted all about the different programs on my software thread:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... ic&t=29771

Our son will put of the work he don't like to do. He is homeschooled, which helped me see more what his Kindergarten & 1st grade teachers were talking about. Somedays he just decides he's not going to do work at all. Then we will make it up later. I have modified his work to help him learn it faster, (he gets bored if it is to much repetitive work). Small amounts of repetitive mixed with something new is best. Some of the work he don't like to do.

Since we are planning on putting him back in regular school next year, I do know a few things I plan to have in his IEP. But, as a parent you need to use your discretion, if it is pety work that isn't going to help him learn corresponde to his teacher (if it's not graded, then maybe you can skip that or modify it to his way of learning and doing the work). We are finding ways to help him learn better. Getting the work done in a timely manner is a totally different ball game. We have found that making him read everything at least 2 times each helps him learn better. Which makes the amount of work he does double, but then he understands it better. But, if we don't stand over him he refuses to do the work. Some subjects are getting better though.

Sometimes, incentives work but other times they don't.

I hope that helps some.

I don't really know about MOST days - but today almost killed me. My son just did NOT want to do his homework. He'd make the effort to sit down and do it, but then he'd start complaining about an itchy toe, a canker sore in his mouth...his legs hurt him...it was just not going well (he's 7 and in second grade). Normally he sits down, and he's interested in getting it done as quickly as possible, but not today. So, after about an hour - I gave up. He'd done some of it, but there's no point in attempting to force him to finish. (just so everyone understands - we're given a weekly homework packet. It doesn't matter what you do each night, as long as it's all finished and turned in on Friday morning) Granted, tomorrow he'll have a little more to do in order to catch up, but hopefully he'll be ready to get it done. I even suggested he run (that's how he stims) - and he didn't want to, so I don't know what was going on!

I completly understand. My son is 8 and doing 4th grade work (essentially 4th grade), I have had days like that and I appluad you for picking your battle. I think sometimes they may just be bored with school work and want a day or 2 to r-n-r. On school days, especially when there is a big push to get stuff done, that is when we have the biggest problems. (getting ahead for a trip, or getting extra work done to spend extra with grandparents, etc...) We have the same things, plus the restroom, every 3 minutes (and no it's not diabetes, we had him tested), the birds at the feeder, the dog, a stomach ache, my ear hurts (worked on dad), I'm itchy, sharpening our pencil more than normal (which is alot already).

You may want to try a keep track if they are having a big push for something in the classroom, does that trigger the "I'm not going to do it and if you try to make you'll pay for" behavior.

Today was a huge battle for us, but his dad is pushing so that we can go out of town this weekend and he just didn't want to do anything yesterday, so we didn't push it with the plans of making it up on Saturday.

I'm sorry but I did have to laugh while I read your post, only because it was nice to be able to relate to someone. That what we go through isn't so foreign.

Oh - go ahead and laugh. I have to or else I'd cry some days!

I have to say though, there IS something going on at school that I didn't give any thought to at all until you said something. They are getting ready for state testing in a couple of weeks (I hate this time of year). I am SURE his teacher has been bringing it up and telling them that they need to know all of this stuff. That's probably completely stressing him out. He gets stressed out when they have timed tests in math, much less all-day testing. Oh boy, it's going to be a long month...

I'm sitting here watching him (it's only 8:25 pm where we live) and he's spinning around and around on the floor...and now he's gotten up and is doing what I can only describe as "pretending to be a chicken".

Yeah....it's time for bed.

Homework has always been a sore spot in our house too.

We have flexible deadlines in my sons IEP, and I am going to start DEMANDING that the teachers let us "use discression" when it comes to homework. One thing I often do is let them know "we need the weekend" or make up my own deadline based on how things are going.

I know with a 7 year old it is nice to have the weekend free and clear, but I think it can be a lot of ask of them, going to school mon - fri, the over stimualtion, the socalization difficulties, the "pressure" of behaving for so many hours all day. Some nights, they just need to decompress and nothing else. Could you get some lee way to let him do homework in small doses over the weekend sometimes if he needs it? There is just no point making homework misserable, it only leads to trouble and anxiety down the road.

I also play with the format of my sons work. I will if he needs it, copy out the assignment and turn it into a cut and paste activity! Or I will let him do it on a computer.

There is a program called "inspirations" that is really neat. you can get it at www.inspirations.com as a free 30 day trial. Otherwise it is I think $70.00 USD. However if you think it will help your kids, you may be able to get the school to pay for it. What it is, is a visual mapping / diagram program. If your child can use "paint" they can use this program. It is very visual, with fun pictures and all sorts of neat colour graphics. Being on a computer, it really "holds" their interest. They have two versions, one for the 10 and up crowd, and the other for 10 and under. I would try both, even with a 7 / 8 year old, if they are at all bright, the 10 and up may just do the trick, and they will grow into it better. (I also find it more useful).

I know, I don't let up on the "software", I am rather obsessive if you have not noticed!

Well, I am glad that helped. I personnaly think the schools put too much emphasise on state testing (they are getting ready for that here also). With homeschooling we still have to do this also, but I'm not pushing the extra studing. I rather focus on school work, to me that is more important. But, the schools get extra funding for having x amount of kids making the top marks. Also, the schools are graded from these tests. So, to the administrators it becomes more of a competition to see if they can make the school with best results in the state, they don't worry about how much they push the kids and what ill effect it will have on them.

Have a wonderful evening. Feel free to PM me if you want to some time.

Doing homework is one thing, getting my son to bring it home is another.

We have a timetable for the afternoon and he is allowed some free time after school and then he has to do any homework he has actually brought home. He used to find 5 minutes was tourture and could not possibly go for any longer than that in one sitting. Fortunately we can now get half an hour out of him. Of course this does not give adequate time but I am just pleased that he is doing better.

In some respects I have given up on his education and am looking at following his interest which is in animals. He is now 12 and so I am looking at ways that he may be able to find a career in this area and so he will actually want to learn.

I think that unless they are interested in something they couldn't really care less about the consequences.