Working my way through Smart but Scattered (Dawson and Guare

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Well since taking over the care of our 17yo ASD son since his mom left, I've been slowly working my way through Smart but Scattered.

Without going into particular detail it's noted this book is aimed at younger kids, up to about 12yo. Still, applying the various tests for 10-12yo on our son, I got really low scores for eg Task Initiation, Organisation, Working Memory and Time Management. His best scores were for response inhibition (quite a good score), with maybe adequate scores on emotional control, flexibility and even sustained attention. This fits in with his prior diagnosis of ADD-inattention (the dreamy kid in the class).

The book then required you to evaluate your own scores, to help you avoid criticism when your particular executive function skills are much better (eg my working memory skills eg remembering jobs to do is very high whereas my son's is very low) as this highlights that what seems easy for me is not easy for my son. Also to show my son that he might be better at some things than me (eg his emotional control is probably at least as good as mine), and that we both share weaknesses in task initiation, planning and organisation, so I can empathise with my son's difficulties with those and we can work on those together.

I will report further once I have gotten through a few more chapters. I do feel my son needs a lot of help here. For example he is a very talented artist but will fail at least three of his four Art units this year simply because he could not organise himself to meet the class requirements. Today was not a good day for him. He was on his own from about 9.30am to 9pm and did absolutely nothing - didn't do the practice exam I told him to,nor any study work at all, did not put the key back, forgot to eat the dinner I'd prepared, didn't put his DVD's/videos back in their cases etc. So I'm hoping this book can make a difference.

I should read that book someday ... But I also dread seeing how I would test on those things!

Many of these areas are going to be battles for him his whole life, and how well he can tackle them will probably bear a direct correlation to his anxiety and depression levels. Must always keep the later in check to be able to rise above on the skill set.

You know, I really want to punch the school system for placing organization and "follow instruction" requirements ahead of actual learning in the grading rubric, that is exactly what it comes down to. I just found out that a brilliant friend of my son's flunked a class this quarter that he was doing fine in on the progress report. He had no warning what-so-ever because this teacher doesn't hand back graded work promptly. And so a 14 year old ends up crying all night. The kid could recite everything from that class; he learned the material; an F is ridiculously unfair. And my point is - - just because your son is failing classes does not mean he isn't talented or that he isn't learning. He needs to know that, and not let it get to him.

Yeah it is certainly sad when a talented ASD child fails mainstream education. Our son is possibly the most talented artist in the whole school (> 1000 pupils), but he has failed his art this year, just because he cannot follow instructions and organise himself to complete the required projects properly and on time.

Well, my fault too in not gathering that he was running into so much difficulty.

Smart but Scattered is certainly a very comprehensive book to cover the issues of dealing with executive function failure. It is not the easiest book to get into, given that it is so comprehensive (I think the authors are typical obsessive academics) but there is a great deal of good advice there, albeit a lot of it seems common sense. I'm pleased to see that I naturally knew a lot of the suggestions, but also did not know or had not thought of a lot of the others.

It does not incidentally deal much with parental evaluations, but that was one aspect of the book, as the authors are trying to comprehensively cover all bases.

There are detailed plans on dealing with each of nineteen named executive skill weaknesses. The problem for me is that my son's difficulties seem so overwhelming. I thought for example that I would concentrate on time, as he has no idea of the value of time, nor how long things are going to take etc. But then I thought ... it is not much use concentrating on time for doing tasks when he does not have any good idea of what the academic tasks he needs to be doing are. Really his executive function deficits are quite extreme.

It does make things frustrating. Today I wrote down a task for him (print out and complete a classics exam from prior years). I also rang and reminded him of that at around 6.30pm. (It is hard keeping tabs on him when a solo dad who is commonly working 12+ hour days). When I came back after a busy day at around 9pm, he had printed the exam out, but nothing else. (He had also been tardy getting up and ready this morning - a perennial problem, despite my having written instructions in his room about this, not eaten the dinner I had prepared, instead I think just eating chips and a peanut butter sandwich he made, and had played with the dog on my bed leaving it a complete mess). He also has a curious habit of saying "yes I heard dad" when I remind him of something, but doing absolutely nothing about it. He does seem to live on a different planet, and I need to watch not getting cross with him, which is easy to do when I am running around and he seems to be doing nothing but spend time on his laptop.

I can see it is going to be a big task to bring his executive function skills up to some semblance of acceptability, but really important that I do this. When I got cross with him the other day he was saying "nobody likes me" and stuff like that. I think he gets flack from the teachers as well when he mucks around, and it is very easy for me to understand the teachers' reactions.

But at heart it is the malfunctioning of his brain which is causing the problem, and Smart but Scattered does give a very large number of ideas for helping with this, and seems quite optimistic that steps taken will create measurable differences in the child's ability to cope. I need to work on these steps and be encouraging to him ("catch him doing things right and praise him for that") rather than getting cross at the fact he is not functioning at all as would a "normal" child.

I have added Smart but Scattered to my reading list. A friend with a teenage ASD son had also recommended it awhile ago, but I had forgotten about it (my own executive function being such as it is!). My sons are much younger than yours, so the academic expectations on them are low right now (grade 6), but I see trouble brewing for the future similar to what you describe.

Thank you for the book recommendation.

An off the wall thought just occurred to me. Somewhere on this forum there is a selling artist with AS, and my recollection is that she lives somewhere in Australia. She has organized her life in a highly unorthodox way but it really works for her. Might be an interesting connection for you and your son to make, if she turns out to be anywhere at all near you.

This is a common problem we also have. DS has an incredibly long list of "correct responses" that he uses in all kinds of social situations. They are totally automatic, even though many of them are incredibly detailed, so that it seems he's responding to the situation rather than hitting the "playback" button.

When I think I'm getting one of these auto-replies, I ask my son to repeat what I just said. Sometimes even this, he's able to do on autopilot, so if I think that's happening, I ask him to detail the steps of what he is going to do. If I'm giving him a direction from another room (or from on the phone) I will wait until I hear him completing the first step (rustle of paper, etc.)

Unless he gets distracted along the way, this is usually sufficient for him to actually act on what I want him to do. Imagine he really does have selective hearing, if it helps you.

DW_a_mom - thanks for your comment

Actually we are in NZ ("Australasia"). From a quick search I see there is an autistic artist here - http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-n ... tic-artist - but she is clearly quite severely autistic unlike our high functioning son. Apparently UK/NZ Raymond Thompson of Cloud 9 is a successful businessman with both he and his son having aspergers - he assists asperger children here - http://withyoueverystepoftheway.com/about-us-2/

Seems the following autistic woman from Melbourne has achieved considerable success in various fields including art and sculpture -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Williams_(author). See also http://www.donnawilliams.net/artist.0.html

Here is a Malaysian/Australian autistic boy achieving success in art - http://www.pinglian.com/

At the moment I am just trying to get our son back on track.

momsparky - thanks for your comment.

It is rather frustrating, isn't it. Your son seems to have developed his repertoire rather more than our son. I guess your son can repeat back what you just asked because we (nearly) all have short term memory, so do hold what was said in our mind for a short while even though we may not have paid any attention to it. I will try and use the techniques you mentioned.

I know. But I'm out of ideas on helping with that, and I hope your son doesn't get discouraged by the grades.

One of the issues I have had to contend with is that "on track" looks different than what I thought it did.

Instead of seeing my son with a long list of stuff to fix, I am having to take a step back and get good with who he is, with the skillset that he has. I am hopeful that we will make progress, but "on track" looks really different than it did six months ago - and we are all much happier.

The doctor who diagnosed our son as ASD about six months ago now told my wife that our son was just "different" and that her expectations were not attuned to his condition. He needed to be accepted the way he is etc.

I prefer the approach of one of his teachers a number of years ago. She had said to let his artistic talents flower but said he needed to be able to cope with the basic tasks of life (basic arithmetic, basic English skills etc). To that I would add basic organisational skills.

Without those, he will continually fail and not be able to be independent. That is what I mean by trying to get him back on track.

Has anybody else noticed that the scoring key on pages 39-40 are incorrect? The following items #28-30 are scored for Metacognition, but seems to be for Flexibility:

28. Doesn't "get stuck" on things.
29. Can "shift gears" when plans have to change due to unforseen circumstances.
30. Can do "open-ended" homework assignments.

The next three items are scored for Flexibility, but seems to be more like Metacognition:
31. Is able to anticipate in advance the result of a course of action and make adjustments accordingly.
32. Can articulate several solutions to problems and explain the best one.
33. Enjoys the problem-solving component of school assignment or video games.

Must get this book. My son has executive function issues. In trying to learn how to help him I came to understand that mine parallel his, or are potentially even worse. Sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for posting about it.

I've noticed more errors. In the "Executive Skills Questionnaire for Parents", items #10-12 are supposed to be for Sustained attention, but they seem to be more for Task initiation.
10. No matter what the task, I believe in getting started ASAP.
11. Procrastination is usually not a problem for me.
12. I seldom leave tasks to the last minute.

Items #13-15 are supposed to be for Task initiation, but they seem to be more for Sustained attention.
13. I find it easy to stay focused on my work.
14. Once I start an assignment, I work diligently until it's completed.
15. Even when interrupted, I find it easy to get back and complete the job at hand.

There are probably more errors that I haven't noticed or others haven't posted about yet. The authors may have been inexcusably sloppy and/or did not have a good proofreader. I'm no longer sure if the book's strategies apply since our strengths and weaknesses could be wrong in the first place!

I got this book out of the library - great title and it grabbed me immediately (for both my son and I because I am not ASD but scattered, most definitely). Depending on how I go, I might make the investment and buy it. My son is 5 but boy, are we in for a rough ride, I feel. Despite having been at kinder for over a year and a half, he has no idea that he needs to take his backpack out the car and place it in the locker, take off his coat and wash his hands - every day I need to tell him - this is just the beginning. BTW, my son is also an extremely talented artist, his ability to focus and draw is amazing.