teacher & RSP want to modify work

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My son is 3 weeks into 2nd grade. He has a few great days but mostly crummy days where he does zero work and does not participate in what the class is doing. Homework has been on-and-off.

The teacher is aware of his capability when he is "on". She knows he is very very smart. The RSP person may not know that yet, but she will eventually.

In the meantime, already, they are both pretty frustrated with his lack of "output". A lot of his classwork comes home completely blank. He gets sent over to RSP to work on stuff like language arts and math, and many days he just sits in there with his head down, doing nothing. He really really really hates paperwork.

So they want to call an IEP meeting to talk about modifications to his work. Starting down this path *terrifies* me. I feel that their agenda is, ultimately, to scrounge up some "success" for him, even if that means dumbing down the work for him to the level that it's almost impossible for him to "fail". (Which, of course, is just a form of failing HIM on their part.) He is absolutely being educated-- all the info is going in and being processed-- he just still struggles with OUTPUT. He hates writing and hates tedious worksheets. He refuses a lot of that type of work.

I've had some success with suggesting they allow him to do certain things on a white-board instead of on paper (like spelling tests.) The white-board allows him to stand up while he writes (which works better for him) and I think it feels more fun for him, and probably also is better for his fine-motor delay (requires less pressure to write than with a pencil/paper).

Any suggestions for keeping the conversation at the IEP geared towards THOSE types of modifications, rather than heading down the path of "dumbing things down" for him? I am so scared of getting into a path where he is no longer working at grade level-- not because he doesn't understand the material, but because they want him to be able to "succeed" at any cost. His intellectual ability is through the roof. He just struggles with the *mechanism* of PROVING it to them.

I am ready to pull him and homeschool if they do not have an alternative to, say, the path to a "no diploma" situation. I will NOT fail him in that way. They would probably be willing to go that route though. Having him sit there do nothing is clearly too stressful for them.

Yikes!

My son was always allowed to stand at his desk. I don't know if it is core muscle thing or what, but my son won't sit for long periods, either.

I would stress that you are not worried that he does not understand the material as you believe he is and that you are fine with him having less output but not less input. My son is very similar, and I will often ask him questions instead of requiring too many written answers. Writing is our nemesis b/c of fine motor skills and b/c it is a different mental process. Maybe if he can take "oral quizzes" in the resource room they will allow that to count as output. They questions may need to be very specific to avoid open question blanking out. If a question is too expansive it can be hard to know how to answer.

So much of your story resembles what I would say about my own early years in public education. I resented homework and refused to do it 99-percent of the time. If I was required to do it, I rushed its completion during another class. As a result, my grades were terrible, while my test scores were B-level or better. I refused using cursive writing because I found it tedious. I spent most of my classes listening to the teacher and staring at the desk or floor. I was lucky enough to be autodidactic, so listening and reading about the class topics was how I learned. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I and the other students were instructed to use 35mm filmstrip projectors to assist in our reading skills. The projector would show one sentence at a time and progress to the next sentence depending on a speed control. I quickly mastered it at its highest speed and ended up putting the filmstrips in upside down and backwards which taught me a kind of Da Vinci style ability to read quickly, upside down and even backwards. By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, I expanded my self study to include law and history. This was all in the 1960s and 1970s.

I describe this simply to show that all is not lost with your son. His school should accommodate him, not the other way around. Maybe he would find more interest in learning if he used a computer or laptop to accomplish the lessons. Same with books (when he is older, I suspect). Maybe a combination of school and home-schooling. Meanwhile, I would stick with encouraging the school administrators to accommodate his needs to learn the ways that work best for him. Homeschooling, of course, is a much better alternative altogether. There are home-schooling materials and tools (including software) to help your son learn on his own, or with your assistance. Either would be better than the tormented education he is experiencing now.

Good luck.

I agree that the school *should* accommodate him... but I'm starting to question whether it's really possible. They mean well but I don't know if they can really change things to the level that may be necessary to interest him, engage him, and allow for his difficulty with output. I'm still waiting to see what more they can do, and how willing they are to do it.

I realize that so much of school just seems so "dumb" to me ... like "reading comprehension" (which he HATES, even when they offer to let him do it on a computer.) He is a VERY strong reader, well above grade-level, and he doesn't need ANY encouragement to read on his own (I have to take books away from him so that he will get enough sleep at night) and he has a great understanding of things that he reads. So why do they have to "teach" him how to read really poorly-written "assessment" texts that are boring as hell and then test whether he could follow along with them with boring questions? I remember hating reading comprehension when I was a kid too, even though I also loved to read on my own and didn't have any trouble with "comprehending" what I'd read. It seems like if they could just break things down into what they actually want him to be able to DO, they'd see that he can already, in fact, DO those things (can he read? yes. write? yes. spell? yes. add & subtract? yes.) Can he tolerate really poorly-written materials that are boring and seem pointless? Not so much. This is where homeschooling is appealing. We could read really FUN and interesting stuff instead. We could do science experiments. We could learn engineering and electronics. We could enjoy ourselves WHILE we learn. We could forego the constant assessment. BUT I have to say that making the leap scares the hell out of me. I'm already overburdened with responsibilities and I know it would be a lot to take on. I'm also scared of making the wrong choice for him. But as things at school keep feeling so "wrong", and they keep panicking about his lack of output (in spite of my repeated assurances that I'm not worried about him academically and that it's clear to me that he is being educated), it's starting to feel that I couldn't make much of a WORSE choice than keeping things as they are. Maybe I'm just scared to strike out on my own. Also, he claims to enjoy school and wishes to keep going there. Of course when I ask him what he likes, he says, "recess and lunch."

ASDMommy, I know from your other posts that you homeschool. When did you know it was time to make a change? Was it a crisis decision, or more of a slow burn to that point?

We were lucky that I was able to wait until after second grade, so my son did not feel like his year was interrupted or that he failed. The trigger was really how they were dealing with compliance issues.

His teacher had a medical leave and that was when things really went to hell. They switched his speech teacher at the same time without telling me or his teacher. It was disruptive and she was awful and rigid. He started trying to socialize (by being bossy) and no one helped him. One of the boys started pushing his buttons on purpose to get him in trouble and to watch him go off. He also really needed a 1:1 para to keep him focused and to help him socially, and all they had was an extremely untrained inclusion aide. His behavior issues were getting worse as a result of how they were handling everything. I am not saying he was an angel. He wasn't, but everything they did made it worse. They doubled down on what was causing most of the problems.

I am not the type of person who would normally homeschool. I did it b/c that was my only real option to keep him safe. The educational benefits are a fringe benefit. I wish I could afford a robot lab and more science stuff, but at least we can do things at his pace, which helps a lot with splinter skills. I can give him choices and reduce the amount of boring stuff. Some boring subjects have to be covered, but I can build tolerance in a way that is better than just ignoring the issue.

As far as reading goes, those AR tests are an enthusiasm killer. I am assuming that is what you are referencing, or something close. I don't have access to that, here, and that is not a bad thing. We just talk about his reading and that works better.

I think my main caution is the possibility of invisible barriers and holes in knowledge. It is very, very easy for our smart ASD kids to cover up deficits, and the only way to shake that out is by trying to do the "normal" work.

My son, for example, was not only "bored" by the repetition of worksheets, but also overwhelmed by them (in addition to the physical pain he had from trying to write the answers). He was trying to hide the later by his insistence that it was boring and unnecessary. He also has some issues transferring using sight from a board to paper.

Accommodations are supposed to help uncover the gaps and issues, not simply reduce workload. We did things like cover up all but one problem on a worksheet, so that he could more easily identify what was being aked and complete it. We also did things like use timers, where the task was simply to work for a designated number of minutes. As long as he actually worked for that time, once the time was over, he would be done, whether or not the sheet was completed. All these things helped him learn to sit down and attack tasks that otherwise seemed (it turned out) endless, boring and overwhelming to him. In learning how to sit down and attack the task, he also learned that it wasn't as horrible as he had imagined. Not sure but that all may have been related to the executive function issues often inherent with ASD; executive function remains extremely challenging for my son.

And, of course, we worked on the dysgraphia, including the frequent use of scribing when he was young.

What I liked getting in my son's IEP was permission for ME to decide when the homework would literally be reduced. That allowed me to push my son when I saw opportunities, and accommodate him on days he really couldn't handle being asked to do more. Through out elementary school, we had complete control over the decision to sign off incomplete homework as "done," or to choose having us scribe for him instead of him writing himself. We never took advantage of that; we knew as parents we wanted him to learn as much as he could, learn how to sit down and do unpleasant tasks when necessary, and so on. But we needed the out, because sometimes he needed the out.

An IEP doesn't have to rigid; it can be written to allow for in-the-moment judgment decisions. Our son's IEP always was flexible in that way, and since he always had dedicated teachers, no one used the flexibility as an excuse to drop balls. But I can't promise all schools and teachers are the same; this is a very individual type of decision.

I would go into the meeting and see what they suggest. Then decide if you think it is the right approach for your unique child. You don't have to sign the IEP, and you can make suggestions for things you think it should - or should not - include.

If your son is bored because he already understands material, that can be really upsetting, my daughter had trouble wih that. What she also had and has trouble with is that writing for very long hurts her, despite a lot of help from a really amazing OT. And as DW said, a lot of times refusing work is about something being difficult.

It does sound like the school staff want to make things better, have they involved an OT to look at the handwriting issues?

Modifying work doesn't have to be dumbing it down, though that's easier and more familiar to most people. They can also modify by giving more challenging or interesting work, sometimes only after the student finishes but that can make it more worthwhile to the child to get the work done. Or they may decrease repetitive assignments that are hard on your child because of handwriting issues and which he does not need to understand the material. It can make a big difference for some children just seeing adults meet them partway to helping them be more willing to do what is asked.

I would see how they want to modify before you panic. Talk with him ahead of time about what he feels will help him participate well, if you haven't already. Kids sometimes can tell us exactly what's wrong even if they can't fix it.

Lots of really good thoughts here; thank you. I am feeling less panicked now... it's just like me to totally panic over something like this in the moment and go into binary thinking ("the world is ending! right now!") which is exactly the kind of stuff that I'm trying to help my son deal with more rationally... and then when I'm faced with something that puts me into the same fight/flight mode, I can't even follow my own advice.

I did finally read "Smart but Scattered" last month and I wish I'd read it sooner. It brings out pretty much every "problem" area he has at school or with homework. It has helped me with specific language to discuss his needs to the staff, and target areas we're working on and things I need their support on. The OCD-type behavior is tougher. It sees to come in cycles, and when it really "blooms" (as it is right now) he really really suffers with the crippling perfectionism and has an extremely difficult time with school assignments. He could write one line of one word and have an extended shutdown over it because he thinks it looks "weird". The staff don't really "get" that degree of perfectionism and don't know how to deal with it. I like the idea of having permission to have an "out" on the homework on the days when I know that NOTHING good will come of pushing him. I think they trust me not to abuse it. They know that I *want* him to do the work, but torturing him with it on a bad day is like kicking someone when they're already down.

I keep learning more about the core of his issues with the schoolwork but I'm not totally there yet. There's certainly some problem with writing. The school OT did nothing for him so we hired a private one and she was wonderful-- helped him catch up about year's worth of handwriting skill in about 2 months. But even though his writing is almost at grade-level now, WHEN he does it, he still avoids it as much as possible, unless it's for his own pursuits where he's very calm and/or happy and enthusiastic about a project. The combination of handwriting plus a boring assignment is like a total mental deal-breaker for him. It seems mentally PAINFUL for him. It could look very much like stubbornness to someone who doesn't know him but there's clearly something "real" going on. Just not sure what it is. The staff seem open to letting him dictate when necessary, if that helps, but it seems like because of poor handling or poor anticipation of his triggers, he will often get to shutdown level BEFORE they offer him that option at school. At home, when it's a matter of a lots of sentence-writing, I usually just go ahead and have him dictate to me right off the bat, and then I give him the option to re-copy it later if he feels up to it. They are okay with that, even though it sort of bypasses one of their goals for the other kids, which is to force them to blunder through spelling on their own. (I have argued that he doesn't learn to spell the same way most kids do anyway, so he shouldn't have to blunder through and be okay with spelling mistakes all over the place.) I remember being really fed up with his Kinder teacher over that... she had a rule about parents not being "allowed" to help kids spell things. Which was just stupid, because not everyone learns the same way.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Even today I learned some new stuff about him. He had a week-long homework packet due tomorrow, and he's had such a bad week that almost none of it was done yet. I had permission from the teacher to just do whatever, like maybe every-other-page, or every-other-problem... she knew he was having a rough week. But I wanted him to at least try and see what we could accomplish, without things becoming ugly... I decided to offer him a deal of 15 min of break (iPad) for every 15 min of work. 15 min at a time was about all he could handle this week... I was also giving him maximum support on his perfectionism by giving him a "point" every time he was able to be "okay" about a perceived error, like just erase it and fix it and move on, instead of rolling on the floor and moaning and berating himself for 30 min like he wants/needs to when he's in a high-perfectionism-mode..... this was working pretty well, but he still was intensely averse to doing any of the language-arts assignments. Finally, during a break for a snack, I made it into a "working" break as he seemed okay with it, and I just let him go through the entire packet, dictating all the answers to me, which i wrote down on separate pieces of paper. it was all kinds of stuff- vocabulary, poetry, grammar, math equations, word problems, etc... he did the entire packet that way in about 10 minutes. it was impressive. i knew that he could do it, but i actually didn't know he could do it that quickly or confidently if the actual writing was removed from the process. So that really told me a LOT. He *can* write, and at grade level under ideal conditions, but something about the process (unknown whether it is mental or physical or both) is *seriously* holding him back. So this gives me something really solid to contribute to the discussion of modifications.

Thanks everyone for the insights and suggestions.

CarpenterBee, when we took my son in for a private evaluation to get SAT accommodations, she told us she could see just by looking at his hands that he was disgraphic. She still did the testing so we would have all the necessary paperwork, but I found that interesting. Disgraphia is a lot more than messy handwriting. While there are multiple different potential causes and manifestations, they all come down to the same thing: writing is especially difficult for the child. Most disgraphics eventually get comfortable with typing (hands aren't really ready until 5th or 6th grade), and that was the accommodation we asked for on the SAT essay portion. But it is interesting to think that someone extremely experienced can actually see it. Your son may very well be disgraphic. I would look into it.

Would a well-trained OT be able to tell this? My son has worked with both school- and private OTs now for over a year and nobody has ever brought it up.

Our private OT is going to be starting the "keyboarding without tears" program for him, so that he has other options at school... I guess it's a new program by the HWT people that starts with much younger kids (preschool even). I have looked at it, and for the really young kids it's really just mousing skills... but for my son's age they do actually get into real keyboarding. He's already pretty comfortable with a keyboard because of typing stuff into Minecraft (chatting with me or whatever) but real touch-typing is a different beast... I tried out a tough-typing program for kids a few months go (Disney theme), and it triggered his OCD stuff because he doesn't want to make any mistakes, but he doesn't feel he can "give up" in the middle of a lesson even if there are tears streaming down his face. It's painful to watch. I'm hoping the KWT program is not so triggering.

He sounds a lot like me at that age. I felt overwhelmed by having to do pages of boring arithmatic and stuff. If the teacher said "we're doing arithmatic from 9 to 10, start at page x" I would just stare at the page or at the clock and sit it out. After this was going on for a while one of the teachers had a bright idea: he chopped up the assignments. If we had to do 10 rows of multiplications he would tell me to do one row, and then show it to him, and then he'd tell me to do the next row. I was more willing to assignments piece by piece. They also gave me some leeway in leaving class. If they noticed I had trouble sitting still they'd give me a "chore", such as delivering a note to another teacher. I suspect many of these notes just said "trollcatman needed a walk".

For reading comprehension the school seperated the children in groups of different levels of reading comprehension. They were only able to do this because they had "reading-mummies", volunteers who helped and oversaw all the small groups. Kids could move between the different levels if their ability improved or they lagged behind. We also had a small library, sometimes we got to choose what book we wanted to read. I still remember one small book about William the Conquerer. If your son is ahead with reading ability, perhaps they could give him more difficult or interesting assignments? It's a waste of everyone's time if he's doing assignments below his ability. It shouldn't be that hard to just give him an assignment of a higher grade, or maybe let him pick a text that he finds interesting. Maybe you yourself could suggest something, or make something. Perhaps there are parents of other children who struggle as well, either because the work is too easy or too difficult for them. Our school also had volunteers to help with kids who lagged behind in other areas than reading.

Edit: I forgot to add, we never got any homework at his age. I live in the Netherlands, and I got my first homework at around age 11 I think.