My mind is always blank I can't write a story
I have one child with AS but I have a 2nd child who has some symptoms of AS but doesn't have it. He is a good student but a little socially awkward but not socially awkward enough not to have some friends in the 2nd grade. If anything he seems to have ADHD but the attentive type as he has no problems paying attention in class. Lately I have been getting notes from his teacher about my son not staying on task, needing encouragement to complete his work, or not doing his work at all. All these problems revolve around one class which is creative writing. He keeps telling me how his mind goes blank and he can't think of things to write. Well I went and got my son evaluated by a learning centers like Sylvian and they found almost nothing wrong with my son, he almost got a perfect score in English except for spelling. So currently we will be getting my son some help with spelling which will lead to sentence structure which will eventually help with creative writing.
Anyway I have to ask is having trouble with creative writing like I described an aspie trait? I have to ask because I am just so confused by my son's lack of output in this one area. He is otherwise a decent student and I have told him just write anything as doing nothing is bad.
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Have a child with AS and I also suspect that some family members have undiagnosed AS. I am NT.
Being able structure sentences does not mean that your mind will generate new scenarios.
He probably needs help finding a starting point for his writing. Maybe giving him practice with some kind of stimulus- like a picture or a short paragraph, and getting him to write about that- could help? From there you could move on to strategies to help him find his own writing stimuli.
I used to have English classes in the art room and I loved it because I'd get inspired by the pictures.
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Music Theory 101: Cadences.
Authentic cadence: V-I
Plagal cadence: IV-I
Deceptive cadence: V- ANYTHING BUT I ! !! !
Beethoven cadence: V-I-V-I-V-V-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I! I! I! I I I
Though I am no expert, by any means, it sounds like your son has a few of the traits of intellectual giftedness; the work presented to them is often not engaging enough to maintain their attention. Alternatively, or perhaps concurrently, he may be so much of a visual thinker that he struggles to place the images in his head into words. Your advice to "write anything" is a good tip that is suggested to even professional writers at times; once the ideas are "thrown" onto the paper, it is often much easier to organize them and to spur off of them than to attempt to craft a perfect piece at conception. In any case, I wish both you and your son the best of luck with schooling.
Traits Of Gifted Children
I am curious: would he be able to come up with a story to tell, verbally?
The reason I ask is that are a bunch of possible road blocks, and one of them is simply that writing is a multi-task function, and ASD kids really struggle with multi-tasking. They can either think up a story, or they can sit down and write; doing both at once uses a brain process that is not developmentally available yet.
If that is not the issue or part of the issue, another possibility is that the question is either too open ended, or is a topic the child is completely uninspired by. My son can write up a creative storm, but he can't do it on cue, and he can't write about the typical topics that schools use as prompts, but that they never reflect directions his creative mind wants to go. Those were all things he had to spend years practicing.
You also have to consider if writing is physically difficult for your child, as it is for many of the kids on this forum. My son has needed years of supports to get comfortable committing his wonderful ideas to paper; disgraphia/hypermobility and hypotonia all got in the way in elementary school; it literally hurt him to write for any extensive period. A child with that sort of issue is going to build in subconscious defenses against the task, which could include simply blanking out.
Anyway, those are just some possibilities. Good luck sorting it out.
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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).
Thank you for all your ideas and prompt input. I am reading them all carefully I love everybody's perspective on this.
Who-am-I -loved your idea of writing in an art room and my son likes art.
Werewolfpoet-my son is actually very smart and you described exactly what the problem is. I do think if something isn't engaging enough for him he won't do it or it takes a ton of coaxing to get it done.
DW-a-Mom-You have some good points I should really try and I should at least ask him to just come up with a verbal story. I am actually not sure if my son is ASD but his sister is. If my son is ASD he would be really high on spectrum and he exhibits totally different ASD traits than his sister.
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Have a child with AS and I also suspect that some family members have undiagnosed AS. I am NT.
Your son is only in second grade, right? And, from your post, he has a bit of social trouble and more trouble writing creatively. No other symptoms? No sensory trouble, coordination trouble, meltdowns, perfectionism, special interest, rigidity, etc.? I would wait for more symptoms before you dx your son with AS.
My kids (NT and aspie) and never been in the school system so - take this for what it's worth. I've watched tons of young boys learn to write and have seen different methods and great teachers in the homeschool community. It's very, very common for young boys to have trouble with creative writing, just as you descrived your son. To me is seems quite normal. In fact, a very popular program among homeschoolers was originally written just for this purpose. This program never asks the kids to write a story without plenty of structure and specific direction. They start out in the younger years by rewriting others' writing. In the younger years, it is almost formulaic. Over time, these kids become great writers and don't need the structure and direction.
If this is true for your son, I guess that doesn't tell you how to approach his class. Try what others have suggested. In addition, I would try Dragon Software, which is a voice recognition software. It helps both my kids handle their assignments much faster. They still have to apply all the skills they are taught, but it gets the thoughts out faster. Plus there is a novelty factor that may help him get out of his funk.
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