organizational skills ideas/help

Post Reply New Topic

My 6yo son has Aspergers and is highly intelligent, yet he cannot organize anything. I feel as if this one area is going to hold him back later in life. He is extremely disorganized, when doing school work he has issues with things that are multi step casue he dosent know where to begin. If I organize FOR him he is fine, but I wont be with him forever!

Here are some examples:
Counting coins, he will scatter them out so he has quarters mixed with dimes, nickles and pennies and attempt to count them that way, which comfuses him. So I tell him to group them together. He will then do that and easily count the change. BUT I have to tell him how to organize. Now, after a year of counting coins, I STILL have to tell him to group them, or he just scatters coins and tries to count that way.

Alphabetical Order...he has words that he has to cut out, and paste in alphabetical order. There is a grid to glue the words on that is numbered, so he knows which spot to use next, but he willl cut the words out, have scrap paper mixed in with words, all jumbled together, and attempt to put them in ABC order. I wrote him a detailed list of what to do, step by step, and he can follow that list. But without it he cannot organize the words or figure it out himeslf.

His room is a mess, he has no need to order or organize like some autistic or AS kids do. I am more worried about how to get him to be able to organize tasks on his own. I know he is only 6, but I want to help him be more self sufficient. He is extremely bright, but this might seriously hold him back.

any ideas?

I find I have similar trouble. I can't get my head around all at the same time. I find taking time to draw a diagram, a mind map or a list of what has to be done to be very useful. I love whiteboards for this.

I am a lot older and I still can't organize things and my thoughts but I like to sort things and arrange things but organizing is lost on me.

organizational skills are part of executive functioning. The part of the brain (the frontal lobe) given the most attention for development of executive functioning continues to develop well into the 30's.

Here is one explanation:
"Executive functioning in children appears to develop in a sequential fashion. Distinct growth patterns have been observed in which there are periods of intense development between the ages of 5 and 7, 9 and 12, and during adolescence. Between the ages of 5 and 7, children typically begin to display the capacity for longer periods of sustained attention and the use of silent verbal mediation to guide themselves. Information processing capacities, accuracy, and fluency increase dramatically between ages 9 and 12. Adolescence brings the capacity to consider “what if” situations and increased planning, organizational, and problem-solving skills. Interestingly, recent research indicates that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until an individual reaches his/her early to mid 30s. " from http://learningworksforkids.com/EF/development.html

In addition, children with ADHD and ASD tend to develop these skills even more slowly.

Your child is 6. I think he doing awesome in being able to follow the instructions even if he cannot apply them independently.

Here is a pdf from a ppt about executive functioning. In the middle is list of what to expect at different ages and at the end are some strategies to use to help with executive functioning. http://www.ashpac.org/EF_lecture_parentshandouts.pdf

Although this behavior seems pretty normal for a 6-year-old, I would agree that now is a good time to start working on it.

One of the suggestions we have yet to implement with my son is to label things with pictures the way they are supposed to be, instead of with words. I wouldn't worry that he takes a long time to internalize the instructions, it's a really good thing that he can follow them.

Laminators and Google Images are your friend.

ugh...we're at 14 and counting. I would say it hasn't gotten any better, except it has. My daughter can't organize very well at all. And yet, she has figured out a way to finally keep her room in passing order (it used to be kind of a health hazard, and I actually at some point just gave up on it--sooo frustrating). For such a long time I thought it wouldn't ever get better, but then sometime just this year she started having regular "clean up". Now her room doesn't look awesome or anything, but it's a big change from before. One of the big problems she has is organizing for school...for instance we are on our fourth day of she was supposed to turn in late work, but she can't organize herself to turn it in. As a result, her first year of high school is going rather badly. I've actually considered getting her an organizational coach this year, and may still. But the other issues is that she's quite posessive of her mess. She doesn't like anyone "touching her stuff." So giving up that much control to actually let someone help her with this, doesn't seem like an option at the moment. Even so....little by little she is figuring things out...not huge steps forward but little. And honestly, I didn't do anything. After some time, I stopped cleaning her room and stopped going in there, and simply managed the rest of the house....but slowly I think keeping the house somewhat organized and clean...and her seeing that daily, has been an external prompt for realizing when she goes into her own room she'd like more order. Part of the battle for me has been to realize, "I can't force you to manage, but you'll have to learn to manage (since she won't accept much help) if you want to be successful."

B

This is what went through my head whenever I was told to clean my room...

How should I organize my toys? By dominant color? By frequency of use? By form? By function? By state of repair? By date of acquisition? By ... ?

Maybe the OP's kid is experiencing something similar.

The book Smart But Scattered is all about how to teach organization and other executive function issues to your kid. It breaks down the teaching process in a very discrete step by step fashion. I highly recommend it.

I've heard good things about the above book.

I think what I would like to add that since executive function issues are very common with ASD's, it is possible you are seeing the first hints of what may be a life long struggle. But it isn't like you can do anything to "fix" it; just that you can do things to improve it. And my reason for saying that is that you need to be careful how much pressure and emphasis you put on it.

We've had many posts in the past about the ways adults have worked around their organizational issues to get things done as they need to, so there are definitely things that will help.

Executive functioning is definitely an issue with ASD kids. (and adults) My 10-year-old does SO many things without thinking first. He is just the bull in the china shop. My 7-year-old, even with severe ADHD, is the planner and can think up all kinds of creative solutions to problems.

We are working with some of his therapists to start working directly on the executive functioning. He also has issues with praxis - motor planning. So, we are working on that as well. They use similar type of planning strategies.

We will be starting some neurofeedback training in about a week. One of the goals of the neurofeedback is to help encourage some of the neural connections needed for executive functioning since the qEEG showed definite issues in those areas of the brain.

For now, I talk out loud about all sorts of things so that my son can hear how I think about things and how I solve problems.

As far as the messy room. I totally understand. I am a perfectionist and so is my son. If I can't keep something organized PERFECTLY, I can't seem to deal with it at all. So, my house is very cluttered. It is hard for me to learn to clean "well enough". Luckily, my husband takes care of keeping things like the kitchen and bathrooms clean.