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annie2
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31 Jul 2008, 3:52 am

Hi,
Does anyone know of any links or ideas associated with teaching creative writing to AS children? My 8 yr old son is very resistant when it comes to this sort of writing. If I could find some ideas to help it would be great.



Endersdragon
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31 Jul 2008, 5:09 am

Sadly, it can be really hard to teach a kid with AS to write fiction. Is there some pressing need as to why he should learn to write this style. Teaching him to write poetry would be easier, and teaching him to write nonfiction is even easier then that. Kids with AS can get confused with their being too many possibilties about what could happen next, though if you really want to get him to try to write it, I would suggest getting him to read more fiction books first. Almost all my creative writing has been through A) getting ideas from my own life, B) getting ideas from other peoples lifes, and C) getting ideas from stories. Considering he already has his own experience and is not to likely to be great with theory of the mind at his age, having him read other stories seems like the logical way to help him to me. Though, once again I must ask, whats the need at this point in his life?


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annie2
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31 Jul 2008, 10:38 pm

That's really helpful - thanks, Enderdragon. Possibly 78 views and 1 post means that no very few know any links to help with creative writing (which doesn't surprise me now that I've spent two hours surfing the net on the topic, and hardly come up with anything!!). One thing I did stumble upon (that others may find interesting) is some research into allowing AS students to use word processors to do writing. It is supposed to take away any frustrations with poor motor co-ordination. The main thing it does though, is allow them to use the "delete" button in a major way without ruining their work. While kids may be resistant to revisiting written work and having to cross things out and add in, they can quickly add and change stuff on the computer. Another idea was to get them to talk their story into a tape recorder and then write/type it up afterwards.



Endersdragon
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31 Jul 2008, 10:59 pm

Sure thing, if you ever need any more advice don't hesitate to PM me. Though you never did answer the question about whats the need? I am just curious if this is something he needs to be able to do right away or a gradual building over time. If its right away, see if you can have other forms of writing substituted, alot of aspies I know are quite good poets. Maybe thats another idea.


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Mum2ASDboy
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31 Jul 2008, 11:14 pm

Could you get him to write about his special interests for creative writing? Maybe something like an adventure on a bus (that is what my boy would write about lol). Or his favourite character could save the day in an unpleasant situation. Or maybe he could creat a character and write about it's adventures.
I don't know any links sorry but I was good at creative writing at school and wanted to give you some ideas :)



annie2
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01 Aug 2008, 2:08 am

Endersdragon wrote:
Sure thing, if you ever need any more advice don't hesitate to PM me. Though you never did answer the question about whats the need? I am just curious if this is something he needs to be able to do right away or a gradual building over time. If its right away, see if you can have other forms of writing substituted, alot of aspies I know are quite good poets. Maybe thats another idea.


The "need" is that it is part of the school curriculum and is what his class is working on at the moment. I guess that because he is well-advanced in some subject areas (eg. maths, art), it's not so much expected that he might struggle in others. Both the teacher and I agree that he has enough written language skills already to equip him for life, but on the other hand he can't "drop" English as a curriculum subject for about another 6-7 years. I can see that if the school go "easy" on him and don't expect him to do creative writing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next two schools he will move onto will have the same philosophy, and he could be even less-equipped.

The main thing we are trying to overcome with this is his resistance to it. He gets huffy with teachers, and will sometimes lie down on the floor and refuse to do work that he considers too difficult. He struggles to admit he needs help or to ask for it. When he does do written work, he often rushes through it (he has some of the neatest handwriting in the class, but often makes a mess of it), but then is often sent back to flesh out content. This does not go down too well with him :x (as you can probaly imagine!).