HELP How do I get my Aspie teen to do his work???

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I am at a total loss and my son's poor teachers are frustrated as well. Colton is 14 and in 8th grade. The teachers and school have done everything they can think of to accommodate him and his needs. He scored among the highest in the state on his state tests and knows all the material he is being taught. Problem is, he refuses to finish his work and what he actually does is only done after constant prodding. He is capable of doing everything, he just won't. Now that he is getting close to high school it is so important that he does his work. he has to go to summer school this year and they may have to fail him if something doesn't change. His teachers are wonderful and try sooo hard. I just need some advice. I don't know how to make him understand that he HAS to do his work even if he knows it and doesn't want to. Any advice?
Crystal

How do you know he doesn't want to? It could be he has trouble concentrating or has a lack of interest in it.
If he is the typical aspie and doesn't want to do his work because he is more focused on his special interest then hold his special interest from him and give it back as a reward for doing his work.

My teachers always gave me that 'you need to try harder' lecture. Bit hard when I have a learning disability...stupid teachers.

I have seen him do his work when offered incentives. I know he is not as mature as the other students his age, but he is making very poor choices. He is allowed to sit with any lab group that he wants, but he says he doesn't like anyone in there. So he chooses detention or In-school suspension instead and then he is even more miserable. i just want him to meet his potential. The teachers try to feed his special interests as much as possible and even change assignments for him to make them interesting to him. Its just like pulling teeth to get anything out of him. Its not that he just gets distracted halfway through, most of the time he won't even start. I want to help him without having to punish him for everything. I want him to realize how important it is to do his work and how smart he is.

Could it be difficult for him to get started due to trouble organizing or preparing what he needs to do in order to accomplish the task? If this is the case, it may just seem very overwhelming to him and he may want to give up before he even begins.

He may need a little help with the prep work, even if they work on changing his mindset regarding looking at the parts of the assignment versus the entire assignment.

I ask this because this is what I face, and still face to this day. With me, this mostly happens with writing assignments.

I apologize if I'm totally off base.

I believe that you need to clarify the expectations and consequences that the school and you have with your son. Explain to him that if he does not do his work, than he may fail. Explain that there are reasons why he has to do his work. You can explain this to him like he is an adult - knowledge is important for future success and the curriculum is legally mandated. It's the rules! They make sense, if you can explain them to him!

If you want to be punitive, then his special interest is the best way to go. Take whatever he does away from him. That's the real world - if he goes out in to the job world and doesn't do his work, then he gets fired. Tough luck!

If you want to provide rewards, then his special interest is the best way to go. Special interests provide both motivation, but also a relaxing way to calm down - they are simply great, except for when they are impairment to success.

This is somewhat a characteristic of autism (the apparent lack of motivation). It has to do with the executive function. I have read that teachers can be mystified at autistic students simply doing nothing and then going all out whenever they decide they want to do what the want to do. I read today about an autistic boy who stood in the middle of the playground apparently doing nothing - this happened for several days, but one day when something caught his interest, he ran around the playground and "looked" just like any other kid. My mind is blank at the moment - but i read a lot about this today in a journal .. I should have taken notes. Sometimes, for myself, I just need time to do things. For myself, sometimes I like doing things without the help of others - adding any social impact to a task can make it difficult, even if it is just a person trying to motivate me or watch me. Possibly, if he is behind, he should be kept after school, or during school, and you should let him do his work in another room, with little social contact.

Remember, make sure the teacher is providing some things for him: work is sequential (for planning problems)l; work has a (logical) purpose; there is frequent, reassuring assessment and work is challenging ( I hate writing about things I have known for a long time, or that seem second nature to me) .

You son is at an age that is absolutely terrible for a lot of autistic people. He may be depressed. He may have anxiety. He might never tell you what is happening inside and you might never figure him out through behavior/body language. Try and find out what is happening in his inner world! Also, how is his peer relations? He may be being bullied.

He may also have a learning difficulty that is related to writing (i can't say without know him). If he does, he may be capable of writing, but he may find the actual process difficult and tiring. Is the teacher providing multiple ways of assessment - such as allowing him to record his thoughts or use visuals?

Inertia?

The "trouble getting started" thing has plagued me all my life. For example, when I need to write an essay, my total time to finish may be about six hours--the first five of which are spent putting off getting started. It happens in the rest of my life, too, not just schoolwork. I have trouble switching from sitting doing something to going to bed; I have trouble getting up to use the bathroom (until I really, really can't ignore it anymore); I have trouble getting up to eat (until I'm really, really hungry)... I have trouble stopping or starting or changing directions. That's why I call it inertia. (Physics joke.) Granted, once I get started, I have trouble stopping doing homework, too; so things tend to be done in twelve-hour marathons more often than not. Sometimes I start cleaning a room and don't stop until it is white-glove clean--every little speck gone, everything perfect. I don't know where "good enough" is located, so I often do things perfectly just because I don't know when to stop. This is time-consuming and can be problematic when I have a lot to do.

I've had some success with programming a cell phone to ring whenever I need to eat or sleep. I've got regular mealtimes and a regular bedtime now ("regular" meaning I usually do these things within two hours of when I was supposed to do them). Homework is still difficult. Currently, I'm "experimenting" with Concerta, which helps ADHD people with executive dysfunction and is often used for autistic people with similar problems. The psychatrist put me on a very low dose, because she thinks I may be unusually sensitive to medication (not unusual on the spectrum). It seems a little easier to start and stop things when I'm on stimulants. Coffee also helps me get it together and get started on things, which is why I got the idea to ask a psychiatrist about stimulant medication (caffeine is a stimulant, and also helps a lot of people with ADHD, except that it's more of a general stimulant and will give you the jitters much more quickly than the specific stimulants they use for ADHD). I've only been on Concerta for two weeks, so I don't know how much is placebo effect and how much is the medication helping; but the concrete evidence is that I've caught up over the past two weeks, when I was behind before; so maybe it gives me enough of an edge to be able to use all the strategies I've learned to get myself organized and moving.

If your boy's very smart, he may like more challenging work, but be frustrated because his executive dysfunction (if he has it like I do) prevents him from properly using his smarts. It's very easy to become defeated and stop trying because it's so painful when you try and fail. What looks like laziness can often be the fear of failing yet again... and it's extra frustrating when you know that somewhere in your head is the ability to do the work--only you can't figure out how to access it.

I can totally relate. I have a 14 yo AS in middle school, and it sounds like the same situation. I'm very concerned about him passing classes and moving to the next grade with his peer group. He's a very intelligent person, and quite capable of doing the work when he is motivated, but he just doesn't seem to be self-motivated. I have no answers. I've tried many different strategies and combinations of incentives and disincentives, and nothing seems to work. So I'm commiserating. Let me know if you find the "silver bullet." Best of luck.

Thank you everyone sooo much. I knew this was the right place to go for answers. I am a single mom and always have been. My son and I are extremely close and he tells me how he is feeling most of the time. He tells me when someone is bullying him and I take care of it. I hope he always feels that he can tell me anything. He has been on ADD meds since he was 5. I have ADD as well so I can relate to that aspect, but I know there are much more issues for him that I will never be able to relate to. He totally hate to write, but draws constantly. His teachers let him type everything so he doesn't have to right. They let him circle answers instead of writing them. They only assign him a few vocab definitions until he finishes those and then they give him more. I sit down with him when he wants me to help him. In the past I have even written out his answers as he has told them to me. They have done this for him at school as well. It may very well be that he has anxiety at starting projects. I know he hates to do things unless he can do them perfectly. I have always stressed that he doesn't have to be perfect at everything. He really doesn't want to do anything if he can't do it perfectly.
Hearing from all of you is really helping me see things through his eyes better. Please give me all the advice you want to. I want to understand him as much as I can. He does need to understand the way things are in the real world. We had a huge discussion today about how things will be if he doesn't do things the way he should in school, in a job, with a family. I am hoping I got through to him. I so want him to be a success. Please keep the advice coming.

Ahh another ADDer that likes to draw. Most of my school books were full of little drawings. How I loved to draw.
I used to have a problem with getting started on things. These days I can get started but I can't get much further than that. I'm trying to write a book, but it's not looking good.
I didn't understand what school was. I didn't understand that I needed to do schoolwork to prepare me and make it easier for me to get a job. Even if I had I still wouldn't have been able to do it. I was undiagnosed back then and would be told I wasn't putting enough effort in. I was still like that in college because I was undiagnosed too. And I'm still not diagnosed with ADD, just AS.
I never talked to my mum about feelings until I was 22. We were close though, or maybe it was that I felt attached to her.
People with AS don't do well in groups. I'm usually a follow directions type of person so don't take the role as leader. I try to contribute to groups but it never seems enough. I once got in trouble because my peers complained I wasn't putting in enough effort in the group. You know what they did the whole time we were meant to be a group? Talk to their friends. So I wandered off on them because I felt uncomfortable around their friends. I suppose it was good in a way because those years were my self discovery years. I had so much trouble with organising my work, reading, comprehension, doing seminars......the list goes on.

Good luck with your son. I wish I got the help he is getting when I was at school. I think failing is something a lot of people with conditions such as AS and ADD will learn from, then they will know that they must study and do better next time.
Does your son do any ADD therapy? I heard that you need to take meds as well as therapy or work on ways to improve themselves.

Take away his/her privileges

In high school I too eschewed homework. For me it was just a big waste of time, it felt like jumping through hoops. I figured I was already proving that I had learned the material on the test, so what was the point in practicing something I had perfect on the first try?

So I spent my time on my special interests: music and computers. Really the only thing I regret about public school was what felt like the glacial pace. I was so damned bored! I could tell it was spring because it was time to learn about similes and metaphors again. So I was just there because that's where I was supposed to be, only really engaging in band and French class (because it was always new).

I don't have any advice, really. I think that the public school system as it was when I was there (83-95) was fundamentally unfair to people on the spectrum, just because we are expected to work at the same pace as everyone else. Just as unfair as it would be to expect NT kids to keep up with ASD kids. I would have been much happier just to learn the whole grade/high school curriculum in five years from a computer and learn how to socialize in an artistic curriculum.

Anyway, since I focused on music and computers I'm now a professional musician and audio engineer (got an AAA in audio production) and have never been happier. Not all of us are cut out for 9-5 jobs or the full run of academia, even if we do score in the 99th percentile Of course there is the caveat that the only way I can afford to do this right now is to live in the basement on my parents' farm. Since I found out I'm on the spectrum they have cut me a lot more slack, thankfully.

Have you talked with your son about why he doesn't do the work? I don't mean explaining to him why he has to, I mean finding out why he doesn't. There are several thoughts that come to my mind, some of which have been mentioned: difficulty getting started, difficulty with writing (this can be either the physical act, which the computer would address, or the issue of getting his thoughts into words and the words onto paper, which the computer may not), difficulty with the group work aspect, total boredom with the content of the work, not seeing any point in the work (i.e., he's learned what he was supposed to learn, why have to regurgitate it).

All the explanations about how he's going to fail or not have a career are unlikely to be terribly motivating. My son is totally unmotivated by grades, so failing would not matter. The concept of a career is one he can't imagine - he's older that your son, but his imagination doesn't work like that. He's not twenty-something now, so he's not supposed to have a career now, so he can't project himself into some hypothetical future. Besides, he says, who knows if the world will still exist after 2012?

My son was refusing to do any work at all in two classes last year. An FBA (functional behavioral assessment) was done. The result? He was bored. The class wasn't challenging enough for him. When he was moved to a more challenging class, he immediately started doing his work. For years, I had been trying to explain to him that if he doesn't do his work, the teachers won't know what he knows, so they can't tell that he's learned things. It didn't make any impression. At some level, even in his mid-teens, he expects them to just "know."

If your son has difficulty organizing his thoughts in writing, there are several computer programs that help with that. One is Inspiration. There are also others - they are computer based graphic organizers and can be very helpful for people who have trouble getting thoughts on paper. The school may have a program they use, and if so, they should be trying it with him. It can also help with the "getting started" issues.

Does your son have an IEP? If not he should. It's great that the teachers are accommodating him so well, but without an IEP, it's being done at their good graces, and that may not follow him to his next set of teachers. With an IEP, the next teachers will have a "roadmap" of things that work, and your son will have built in, legally binding supports. You should also ask for an FBA, to help figure out what is getting in the way of him doing his work. A good one (done by a certified behavior analyst) will include talking to him, his teachers, and possibly you, to figure things out. It will also include classroom observation. This is NOT something that is done by the classroom teacher or even by the special ed teacher. From it, there should come a BIP (behavior intervention plan) that addresses the identified areas of behavior that need to be worked on. The plan should use positive, not punitive behavioral supports.

Since the teachers have said they don't know what to do, they shouldn't be averse to having an expert come in to help them help your son.

If his scores are as high as they say, he may not feel challenged enough. Try to find some material that would be a bit more advanced. Or, using my parent's method, my brothers and i could only play/do what we wanted when our homework was done . . . which we had to start on immediately after we got home from school (so playing on the computer or with friends had to wait until it was done, and done right).

I have another idea, why not just let him do what he wants to do?

If you start to force the issue, you'll turn your son into the typical "autistic monster" that can't be controlled. I see it all the time.

His teachers, which are the state, which in turn are the federal government, will need to learn to assess him differently than the other students, as he's different to the other students, so the same can't be expected of him. If he goes to special school, they'll probably do this, but that has its own problems; he'll be lumped in with people who're different to him too, who they themselves need their own methods.

Master and apprentice is the perfect way for those who're different, but society is so large, it's broken from this mould and now panders to the majority that are all alike (for good reason, as it creates more productivity).