Moving this question seems to have killed the thread...

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Wasn't really looking to "introduce" myself, but to get some quick info/advice from folks who've been down this road already. I'll try again...

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My question today is how do I approach the subject (school evaluation, possible dx) with my son?

He's 12, in the 6th grade, in an entirely GATE (gifted) classroom. He tests in the 98-99th percentile across the board on state tests, but is failing (getting Fs!! ! 0%! !!) in school because he doesn't manage to turn in his work, bring home his books, remember when things are due, etc. We've tried getting him organized, setting up filing systems for him, etc. and it just doesn't work. It's like as soon as he's off of a task, it completely disappears from his brain.

Yesterday, he overheard me discussing the meeting next week with my friend (mentioned above) and what sort of "help" I could expect the district to provide...

He burst out with, "I don't need any help" and that was all he had to say about it. I let it drop, because I was not prepared to discuss it with him. But I know I need to involve him soon, or he will be entirely against it (he really doesn't like things that were not his idea to begin with!)

ADVICE???

hmmmm since your son is refusing help, you might want to consider a home tutorer that way you can stay on top of him. This might be a good solution for now. If he objects, you need to tell him he needs to prove he can organize himself before sending him back to regular school.

That sounds EXACTLY like me all through school. I, however, wasn't placed in a gifted program because my grades were so low and I wouldn't talk in class. It didn't matter that I always scored in the 99th percentile on every single standardized test placed in front of me, I just could not keep my attention focused on school...everything just kind of disappeared once I had to switch tasks.

I was also very stubborn when it came to getting help, and would refuse point blank to do something if it was not my idea, or if I percieved some sort of problem (be it real or imagined) with an idea. For instance, I knew from watching other kids, that when a student left class for something like speech therapy, all that happened was more teasing. I also really, really, REALLY resented having to be treated differently than anyone else, even though I really needed it. Anyway.

Maybe you could just sit down and talk to him? Or if that won't work, you could kind of casually slip in information, or write him a letter, or ask him why he thinks he doesn't need help. Does he have to switch classes every 90 minutes? (That was a really hard thing to adjust to in intermediate school for me.) Has he been involved in organizing, or did you just say "use this?" (That never worked for me. I had to help make or create my own organizing system, or I would never use it--it just didn't mean anything.)

It was me who moved the thread in the first place.

You must be a relatively new member. I hope you have enjoyed posting here.

I look forward to hearing from you when you are in a happier mood.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

Jman: I thought that might be the solution, too. So two years ago we pulled him out of school and homeschooled him for a year. Ironically, the school psych is pointing to that now as the "cause" of his problems. She has suggested that he has simply "fallen behind". (Funny, since it was at the end of that school year when he tested into the gifted program!) Anyway, he hated it. It may seem atypical for Aspergers, but he really craves social interaction (which makes it even more painful, I think, that he is so bad at it!) He was miserable at home, and didn't gain any ground organizationally. He would somehow lose his work between his desk and mine! Also, this idea concerns me in the sense of long-term development. I mean, unless I intend to employ him, at some point he is going to have to learn how to function outside of our home environment, right?

dexkaden: You have hit on a couple of key concerns of mine. Primarily, he will be starting middle school next year, and have to switch classes every 45 minutes! I cannot conceive of how this is going to work for him... How did you manage? Secondly, I know that involving him in the organizational "system" is essential. He is rejecting my every attempt, I think, because he percieves them as my ideas. He, however, cannot come up with anything even remotely workable. Right now, he has resolved himself to just carry around EVERYTHING in case he might need it. Then, when it comes time to find something he needs, he can't... Are there any systems you've seen/tried with any success? I'm willing to try anything.

larsenjw92286: Sorry I came off as crabby. Wasn't trying to be. I'm actually relieved to have found somewhere I can try to find some answers, and was thrilled with the quick responses I got off of my intitial post. Just wanted to give the ball a little nudge to get it rolling again... (am an administrator on a message board of my own, and understand the challenges of trying to keep the boards organized and on topic!)

Again, many thanks to you all!
Karen

My son is also 13 and was formally dx'ed Jan 2005 and informally dx'ed about a year before that.

D is very active in the planning meetings for his IEP. He knows he is smart, he knows he is different, he knows he fails without support. Because he is seen as a full member of the team, he seems to accept most suggestions. Some we have had to agree to do for a trial period and some we have agreed to put off while he tries some other tact.

Basically though, since he knows he's different and that different is okay, we've never had "the talk."

BeeBee

Are you in a happier mood now?

Well...I really didn't. Honest. Intermediate school was where my refusal to talk in class, in psychiatrist offices--pretty much everywhere but at home--coupled with my abysmal academic record and high IQ led to me not being diagnosed with anything (because Aspergers wasn't really that well-known so I pretty much had a "well, something is wrong, we just don't know what" thing going on), which lead to me being put in a resource classroom for two periods every other day to regroup, to get my homework done (in school, where schoolwork is meant to be done!), and to just be relatively alone.

I guess that is how I managed, because I was able to just have those few hours to be in a "safe" environment. I WISH I had been allowed some extra time between classes, though, so I wouldn't have to deal with the crowded hallways and rush from one end of the school to the other. That part REALLY sucked.

Sorry. That doesn't really help, does it?



I got a dayplanner. My dad showed me how to use the planner, and we practiced with it until I remembered to take it everywhere. Then I began to remember to write things down. What helped was having the rule that if it wasn't written down for that day, I couldn't do it because unscheduled activities were for weekends. I got some great Dilbert planner pages, so I could read a comic strip while planning my day. The planner was one of the medium size ones, orange with a blue zipper (my favorite colors), so I couldn't really lose it.

I created a sort of reward system that changed as I grew more accustomed to using the planner. For example, when I first got it, I got a reward if I remembered to bring it with me, and once I got that down, I got a reward if I remembered to write things down in it, and so on. Now I just use it because I know that without it, I just don't remember. It was a VERY steep learning curve, though. I think it took me about a year to get used to it, to remember it, and to use it. (It can be done, though!)

(I also did this when I was 21, and newly aware of my neuro-atypical status, so I don't know about a 12-year-old...)

In elementary school, intermediate school, high school, and my first attempt at college, my idea of being organized was having everything in my backpack. (And my back is still sore, I assure you.) I had folders for every class, trapper-keeper binders where I could (theoretically) shove everything for a class and it would never fall out, color-coded notebooks---and all that I shoved into my very large backpack.

That is when I decided a monster lived in my backpack because not being able to find an assignment defied all attempts for a logical explanation. In intermediate school, what helped was having all the assignments sent to the resource room where I could then work on them, or, if I didn't finish them, they went straight into a specific folder, which went straight into my backpack. The one time I spoke in all the meetings with counselors and psychologists and teachers, I suggested this, and they implemented it, and it worked...kind of. Once I got out of school-mode, I didn't ever get anything done, so homework...yeah, didn't happen.

VERY insightful. I think it helps, to be able to see these things from the other side.

We've toyed with the dayplanner idea. He has a school-issued spiral assignment book, but for some reason even I find it confusing. I think it stems back to how the teacher writes the assignments on the board. See if this works for you...

Say today is Tuesday... She'll write a list of assignments up on the board that the kids are to copy down in the Tuesday column of their "binder reminder". The list looks something like this...

Wordly Wise Week #16-due Fri.test-Fri. 3/24
Spelling,dictation-Thurs.3/23
English p.235,237-Ind.Practice-odd
Punctuation Packet pages 6-8 due Thurs 3/23...

The items are not listed in order of when they are due, and there seems to be no correlation between when they are due and the day in the planner where they are written. I think the idea is put them in there on the day they are assigned, and then the kids are supposed to keep track of when to turn them in. But I find it very confusing. And I think Luc does, too. He'll look in his "binder reminder" for Tuesday, and see that he has written down A, B, and C for homework today. But he doesn't look back to see that yesterday, he wrote down 1,2, and 3 (which are also due tomorrow!)

Another thing that I think is causing him a lot of problems is the way she handles their Math classwork (of which he has not managed to turn in a single assigment!) She has the kids complete, correct, and then hang onto their classwork until Friday, when they put it all into one packet and turn it in. By then, Luc can never find what he's spent all week working on. Any suggestions on how to handle this better?

Your backpack description sounds just like Luc's... only he hasn't ever expressed his belief in a backpack "monster". His typical response is to get angry and insist that "someone stole it!" One day, I actually asked him, "Where do you go to school? San Quentin?" People are always "stealing" everything... his lunch, his binder, his jacket, his homework...

I like the idea of having the assignments set aside for him. Generally, I fear taking too much responsibility away from him (don't want him to believe there are homework fairies that deliver his materials for him!) but think that we could come up with some sort of system that would help him develop those skills while making it easier for him to succeed. Maybe, throughout the day his teacher places his day's assignements into an envelope for him, along with a list of assignements and materials. He is responsible for getting the envelope, and the materials, at the end of the day and bringing them home.

When he is finished with his assignments, he returns them immediately into the envelope, and delivers the entire envelope full of completed work to his teacher when he enters the classroom first thing in the morning. That way, if they need to grade something in class, she can pull it out for him... but we know at least that it made it to her in the first place.

He'll be developing the kind of habits you mention, but only keeping track of one item at a time (the envelope) instead of all those individual assignments.

What do you think?

BTW... I'm curious. You mentioned "my first attempt at college". How'd it go the second time? And, if I may ask, what was your major/career path? Luc was just asking us this morning, "what do you think I'll be when I grow up" and sadly, we were all a little stumped. It's so hard to imagine him in a job... any job. That's not to say he doesn't have talent, and brains. He's got plenty of those... It's just hard to imagine anyone willing to employ him! (I'd have fired him years ago! )

Karen

Yeah, that binder-reminder deal is bonkers. I would probably write it all down, then forget about it because it didn't mean anything. I find that writing down both when the assignment was given AND when it is due ON THE CORRECT DAYS, with periodic reminders throughout the week and months makes remembering to actually do the assignment (and give myself enough time to do the assignment) much easier and with a much higher success rate. Just writing down when an assignment is given does nothing. For example, I was given an assignment four weeks ago to have a paper turned in this Friday. If I had just written down four fridays ago that a paper was due in a month, there is no way I would have remembered until this Friday when I didn't have a paper to turn in. Now, it's done and ready to be printed off at school so I couldn't forget it at home.

And I had so many teachers (even in high school) who wanted all the assignments for the week turned in on Friday that it was no wonder I had so much trouble. I wondered why, if they knew I had a long history of terrible organization, they insisted I lose it. I still don't get it.

The collection of assignments really does work. And I never thought that there was some sort of magic involved (except for finally getting control and feeling a little better about myself for succeeding.) I knew that there was a problem, and I knew that I needed help, I just didn't know how to ask for it. I thank God every day for teachers who care, even if it means extra work on their part.

Ah, yes, the first attempt at college. I am currently in the second semester of my second freshman year at college, and it is going very well. Last semester, I had my first ever 4.0 GPA, and had only one all-night completion frenzy. (That dayplanner is amazing!) This semester I've had a few problems, but not too many, and things are going well. I expect the GPA to go down, but I don't think it will go down past a "B."

(My first attempt failed for many reasons, but I've decided that they all derived from a single point: my dependence upon outside support. I really had no idea how dependent I was on someone to remind me to go to class, to do homework instead of read, to take a shower, to eat (I tell you, some people complain and say they wish they could forget to eat, but it really isn't fun, and it really isn't healthy--I spent more money on pizza and fast food that I smelled and realized I hadn't eaten in two days than I did on books for my classes each semester. It was bad.)

But that failure led to a diagnosis, and a diagnosis led to acceptance, which led to me understanding exactly what the problems were, which allowed me to figure out ways to compensate for them. I am buying a laptop this summer (an Apple iBook!) that I can use to take notes in class rather than try to write long hand in class and spend hours trying to decipher after class. (My handwriting is legible only if I have time to concentrate, and notes in class just do not allow for that time.)

I am studying economics and political science. I think my life-long quest to understand why people act the way they do (mostly so I could learn to act the same way!) kind of guided me into those fields...they kind of allow for an impersonal, third-person observation of both human behavior and the motivations behind it that just seems to fit. (Plus, they are absolutely fascinating!)

I would have fired myself, too, up until a few years ago. I think I want to be a writer/economics professor, but I don't know for sure. He can be pretty much whatever he wants to be, just some things will be more difficult than others, and as he gets older and wiser (it really does happen), I'm sure he'll get an idea. At age 12, I wanted to be an astronaut, a veterinarian, the president of the United States, an Air Force pilot, a teacher, an archeaologist like Indiana Jones, a doctor, an author, a deep sea fisherman (er, woman), a horse jockey, an olympic gold medalist, and, last but not least, a dolphin trainer. Yeah, I was nuts!

What is he interested in? In high school, by some miracle I will never understand, I won an internship at the emergency room of a very busy hospital. Two weeks in, I realized that emergency medicine was NOT like on ER and was most emphatically not the place for me, someone who takes a little while to process things. But it was a good experience. Maybe you could let him shadow various places, to let him get an idea of what he likes. Maybe use that as a reward of sorts. I dunno. But after all, he is only 12.

You are so smart, articulate, and determined... the world is yours. Go get it!

(I, too, did much better in college "the second time" when I really wanted to be there.)

Thank you for all you input. I am going to propose that envelope system to his teacher tomorrow...

Karen