Intelligent Child/ Slow to Produce Work

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Hi Everyone

This has been an ongoing problem since my almost 6yr old daughter started school last year. She's very intelligent and finds school work pretty easy. But, she takes ages to write anything down. For example, the teacher will write a sentence on the board and the class have to copy it into their jotters. My daughter might have only written down a couple of letters and almost everyone else has finished. She was actually shouted at yesterday for this, which I'm really displeased about, as I know she's trying her best. We've been trying to figure out what's going on as she knows her letters, is getting 100% for her spelling tests and her reading is progressing very well. Anyway, she's now told me that she's having problems because she's having to look down at her jotter then look up again at the board, over and over. But, that's the same for all the kids, so why's she any different? Could she be losing the place on the board and having to refind it each time? Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing?

Last week, I was in her class for 'meet the teachers' and I was sitting at her desk. I had difficulty reading from the board (I'm really short-sighted, but with my glasses on my vision is perfect). The angle was pretty awkward as the classroom is long, the board is on a long wall and my daughter is close to an adjacent wall. However, she was in a different classroom last year and I think the layout was OK. She's getting her eyes tested today, although they were tested just after she started school. I know the teachers will probably say we should do this in the first instance. I expect she might become short-sighted at some point as both her daddy and I are, but I don't think it's a problem yet (usually happens around teenage years). Does anyone think it would help if she was moved to a better position, even if her eyesight is fine? I haven't heard any other parents complaining about the class layout. My preference would be for her to face the board, but the kids are seated at 4 long tables, fanning out from the board, like the rays of a half set sun (if that makes sense).

Any advice would be appreciated.

First I would have her eyes checked. That has always been step one for board seeing issues. Then If they issues continue I would ask the teacher if it is possible to help your daughter find a place in the room where she can see the board better. When I was a child I had special permission to go sit on the floor directly in front of the board when we needed to copy off of it because I needed glasses and my family could not afford them. (trouble started in 1st grade and I bought my first pair in 8th grade)

I agree with having her eyes tested. My son's eyes changed a lot in one year (and then stayed pretty much the same, phew!) There's no reason they can't move her to a better position, either.

If it still taking her a long time, maybe special accommodations are in order? This just sounds like a handwriting exercise. Does she need to practice her handwriting? Can the teacher just give her a piece of paper to copy from, so she doesn't keep losing her place?

I hope this does not cause your daughter too much grief.

Many kids with AS have particular difficulty with copying from a board. There is actually a name for it, that I don't remember, but the resource specialist at my son's elementary school had some exercises designed to help with it. I would bring this up to the school and have them start with preferred seating. If that doesn't help, talk to them about either testing further on this issue, or simply providing the notes in another manner.

Another common issue with AS, that you will want to consider, is slow processing speed. Totally anecdotally, I would say people with AS rarely have "average" processing speed: it seems to either be slow, or accelerated. Even though processing speed is an IQ component, it isn't the overall level of intelligence, but more like the speed with which one moves through life. My whole family seems to have been given some sort of slow motion button compared to other people, but we've all been tested with really high IQ's, so it is very much possible to have this and still be gifted. You will want to know if processing speed is an issue with your daughter, because teachers will need to allow for it, and it isn't about being lazy or not putting the pedal to the metal: if she has slow processing speed, she has no choice but to move that way. Being aware of this will allow her to make smarter job choices, when she gets there, too.

[quote="Porridge" Can the teacher just give her a piece of paper to copy from, so she doesn't keep losing her place? [/quote]

I have a possibly congruent situation with my son that is a little hard to explain. He has an accommodation in gym that allows him to sit out of games he finds difficult, and one of these is kickball. He just can't do it, right at that age when kickball is such an important game for kids.

The teacher runs the older kids through all kinds of games, and she finally got to softball - I cringed and hoped for the best. Turns out, DS was brilliant at softball and blew everyone away.

My theory is that kickball requires you to look DOWN at the ball, and then UP to run to the base; softball everything is pretty much in the same plane. I realized that many, many things DS struggles with involve changing his plane of vision: so sports like basketball and football are difficult for him, but he can do the monkey bars like a, well, monkey. I'm not sure what the mechanism is here, but it sounds like Peanut may be struggling with something similar in class.

My son struggled to keep up with the rest of the class when copying from the board, he frequently had to miss break and to carry on writing, and almost always had to bring school work home to get it finished.

He's very accademic, just slow all though primary school. He seems to have speeded up a bit now he's in secondary school.

I was really interested to read your post, DW_a_mom.

The sports comment made me think of something I do. Sometimes just for exercise I enjoy shooting basketball hoop in the driveway.

However I don't think I could enjoy the actual game because that would require dividing my attention between moving around the court and looking down at the ball while dribbling.

Thanks everyone for your replies. She had her eyes tested yesterday and there are no problems. I'm going to arrange to speak with one of her teachers tomorrow.

It's interesting to hear that copying from the board is a recognised common difficulty for AS kids. I will mention this to the teacher. (Thanks DW_a_mom) I also think she has a slow processing speed. In fact, she says she's slow. She's a bit like me in that respect and my IQ is pretty high (although when I'm in 'the zone', my processing speed is very high). I've told her that although she's slow, she always gets the correct answer, the speedy thinkers don't.

Momsparky - I've also been thinking about the change in plane of vision. I think she might be losing the place on the board and having to refind it each time. And she seems to be copying one letter at a time, which is strange, given that she knows how to spell some of the words she's copying - I've even seen her doing this with her own name when she was copying something I'd written. That part might be working memory related. It's obvious to see why it's taking her so long, with these 2 issues alone.

As for her handwriting, it's very neat and I don't think she has any particular difficulties with it.

I hate the fact that she's getting into trouble for this. Last year, if she hadn't finished copying something, she had to stay in at playtime. Thankfully, this only happened a couple of times, but it semed like punishment. However, she wasn't on anyone's radar then. She's now on the autism assessment waiting list and is on the school's additional needs plan.

I'll let you all know how I get on.

Thanks

I've often found that having your child dictate to someone can work quite well. I know there are some programs that let you do speech-to-text I believe.

When I was in school, I did better dictating than writing because if I had to write, I need to focus on the letters, how they curve and join, the right height and etc whilst with dictating I can just...well...speak and let my mind race.

It's not perfect...but it's good.

Unfortunately, without an IEP or 504, most of these things aren't going to be implementable: for instance, with DS (who is able to write fairly well, but seems to struggle with the sequencing) I usually ask questions to help him figure out the meaning of what he wants to say, then take dictation, and then have him copy my dictation - I can see that he struggles to put thoughts into words, then to change the audible words to symbols. It fascinates me that when reading all of this same stuff happens automatically and smoothly (we have the same issues with math: it's clear that he can remember and knows all his math facts, he just can't get them out of his head; I know this because he can do multiple-choice like a demon.)

Does the school know the results of the eye exam? If not, you might just say "she's having trouble seeing the board" without specifically talking about vision, and see if they can either give her a printout or move her seat.

My daughter has all the difficulties you mentioned plus a few more. She has preferential seating, writing support, testing support - a long list actually - but none of it would have been given to her without the IEP. Even in her 504 she didn't get these supports. Only the psychoeducational testing and recommendations got her the IEP and the guaranteed supports she needs. I would highly recommend she get those supports in place, legally, as soon as possible. That inability to keep up with the other kids in this regard only broads the gap between her peers going into higher and higher grades and can get discouraging if she feels she is constantly behind, failing or slow.

I wonder if in a way a kid could be trying way to hard to be precise?

For example what if the teacher drew a picture on the board and had the kids copy it? Most of them would probably all be doing what your daughter is doing. Looking up and down to make sure they get the detail. Well some more and some less. Some kids might not look that much and be satisfied with a less precise copy, some looking like a bad scribble, but finish faster.

Just some speculation from my part, but could her mind be working as if she was trying to copy a picture instead of text? It seems like she should be able to read a few words or sentence parts and then transfer whole sections of writing to her paper.

The mention of copying one letter at a time just made this idea come to me. It makes me think of how for a long time computer scanners could not differentiate between images and text. You couldn't just copy words with a scanner and then put the document into a Word Processor because the computer only saw the words as a single image document. The computer needs to be taught this by adding character recognition software.

Thanks everyone again.

I spoke with the depute head yesterday and she seemed to get it right away. She spoke with the teachers, and by the afternoon, my daughter had been moved to just next to the board. She's happier with where's she's sitting (not so happy about being away from her pal, but she likes the boy she's sitting beside). Then today, she said to me, 'Mr McK was really nice to me when I was in P1. He used to write it down on a piece of paper, when I was struggling.' I said, 'What. That's the first I've heard of that. Why didn't you tell me?' She said that she'd forgotten. So if the new seat position doesn't help much, I'll ask them if they can do what Mr McK used to do.

With regards to the perfectionism, I think that's probably a factor. Her handwriting is particularly neat. The female teacher she had last year was quite emotional when she was decribing how beautiful it was. So, maybe she is spending a bit too long trying to perfect it. Also, when she's doing her homework, she really doesn't struggle at all and can whizz through it. She has to traffic light each page (green for easy, amber for a bit hard, red for really hard). I would say she she should mark everything as green, but she sometimes wants to use amber. I think she thinks everything should be simple and, if it's not, she's hard on herself.

Many children with AS, and probably similar spectrum disorders, also have non verbal learning disorder, and many children with non verbal learning disorder have what's called slow digit symbol coding.

Though they don't notice it, it literally takes their brain longer to process incoming visual information, figure out what it's looking at, and what to do with it. Additionally she may only be able to take in a little visual information at a time. She may also have some sub-clinical apraxia where it just takes more of her concentration to write neatly. These children usually grip their pencils tightly.

Children with these problems who are intelligent will usually perform below their peers on timed tests but will rise to the upper percentile tiers and outperform their peers when the tests are un-timed and they have the chance to exhibit their true knowledge and abilities.

I have to say as someone with these problems, I was frequently misunderstood to be a perfectionist but I'm not. It just takes a little longer for me to verify that I'm doing something properly, and my hand writing needs to be neat enough that I can easily process it when I re-read it or even as I'm writing it.

If I'm not as slow and careful as I am I will not absorb much of the information I'm trying to record and I will make an unreasonable number of mistakes.