Can someone help me understand or point me in the right

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direction?

My daughter's teacher has reported an increase in meltdowns at school. In talking to my daughter, some of them are due to social issues (arguing with peers, feeling like peers do not listen to her or dismiss her, etc), but something else came up.

She said a main reason she is having meltdowns is because her teacher thinks she is not trying and she finds this very upsetting. I asked her what she meant by it and she had a really hard time explaining, but the gist of it is this:

In ELA, if she is asked to read a passage and it is followed by multiple choice questions, she finds it very easy to answer them. She said she always understands what she reads. But if it is an open ended question, she says "it is hard for my brain to think of it, and hard for my pencil to write it." She said when she gets an open ended question, her mind is blank and she has no idea what she is supposed to write. She literally describes her mind as having nothing in it in response to the question. Blank. Literally. Her teacher concludes she is not trying, and it is very upsetting to her, because she cannot will her brain to think of the words to answer the question. She has always taken pride in her "academic smarts" and I think this is very anxiety provoking to her.

What causes this? What helps it? What should I be aware of? I am going to be meeting with her teacher soon to discuss this (she is mainstreamed with only social supports, is academically bright, and has NEVER had anything even remotely resembling academic issues as related to reading. She is a very strong reader) and I want to be prepared. Should I request she be assessed for some sort of LD?

How old is your daughter? It sounds like something that is very familiar to me: questions which require inference or synthesis (summary) are really hard for some kids on the spectrum. In early elementary school, this was not really an issue, because most of the questions were factual and my daughter remembers facts and details. Then the questions became more general and required a kind of reasoning she found difficult, and that is one of the things that led us to have her diagnosed.
It is often hard to get started, and sometimes just saying to start with a subject and then a verb got her going. I found it helpful to practise building simple senteces, using prompts: who did it? what did he/she do/think? I spent a lot of time watching tv with her, pausing it, and asking her questions like: do you think he seems angry? why do you think she ...? She seems pretty... ; why do you think that is? what do you think he is going to do? That helped to develop her ability to infer and read emotions in the books and stories she was reading.
Summarizing was something she also found hard. I would get her to write one sentence summarizing each paragraph, and then each page, and then each chapter, with lots of support (lots, as in, I would dictate it at the beginning and then do a bit less each time). Right now I am reading her a book with a lot of difficult vocabulary, and she often "zones out" (I think this might be what your daughter is describing about her mind going blank) but now she asks me what has been happening. Sometimes I still summarize a paragraph when she doesn't ask because I know her mind is wandering.
We also found that the structure and organization they did at the end of middle school (5-paragraph compositions with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, or 2 sentences to explain each of three separate ideas, that kind of thing) were helpful in breaking down longer compositions. She is a visual learner, so dividing a page into sections was helpful. Now she is doing fine and loving writing again.
J.

Hi, I'm not a parent. But I do live life on the spectrum (comfortably self-diagnosed)

Okay, multiple choice questions are socially safe, whereas open-ended short answers are not. For example, if a piece of writing starts off promising but the author can't bring it hone or figure out a good ending, that's a perfectly reputable thing to say. But not really. The unofficial rule in school is that they want you to give every thing you read in school enormous benefit of the doubt. And other unofficial rules.

Unstructured writing can be very anxiety provoking for a lot of kids. Supporting her with questions to get her started is a great idea, and working with her to use graphic organizers (not just handing her and expecting her to fly on her own) can really help. Once she understands the rules for how to write, she may be very comfortable doing so. Though she may have strong preferences for a particular kind of writing. But having an awareness of where she is strong should help everyone.

Too many options with regards to the answer. Too much ambiguity with regards to the question. Seeing all possible answers, and all possible interpretations, and not knowing which one is the one they're after, so that you're paralysed by not being able to choose, because people are unpredictable and you know that
A. The interpretation you choose probably isn't going to be the one they choose.
B. They're most likely going to find some way of calling you stupid for not figuring out exactly what THEY wanted you to think, when really you saw MORE possibilities than them.



Narrow it down a bit. Give her a starting point.

I wish I had an academic reference to point you to, as this is I believe a common issue with people on the spectrum. Teachers take academic references more seriously, so I hope someone else has one to refer you to.

My son has always had issues with unstructured questions, even verbal ones not relating to reading comprehension at all. If I ask him what he wants to eat (even if I suspect he knows because we just bought something he really likes, and I think I know what he wants he will often not tell me. )he will often answer he does not know. His brain kind of locks up. So I have to ask him if he wants a banana, or yogurt or whatever, and then when i get the right one he will answer, "yes." His language development has always been echolalia rooted, but he has trouble with this even when he should have a script for this, not just if it is a new food. He is improving the percent of times he can do this, but it is not close to 100%, more like maybe 80%. It has taken time and I presume practice has helped.

When it comes to reading comprehension questions like this, unless it touches a special interest or something with a pre-determined script he has sort of a type of apraxia (for lack of a better word for it.) Sometimes he will actually ask me, "What do I write here?" In addition we have fine motor skill issues (I do not know if this applies in your instance) and he draws the letters instead of writing them, which is a different thing in the brain, and I think that interferes with brain to paper idea transmission, or at least makes it harder. He also gets anxious about the lack of space available b/c he still writes pretty big. It is not an issue of trying---it is hard, and it annoys me that your teacher would assume that for no good reason.

My suggestion is that you ask for a representative reading passage to be sent home, if this type of homework is not currently sent and observe her, and see if in a more protective environment (home) she is more comfortable sharing her particular issues. She may need someone to help walk her through it to develop the brain connections and for confidence.

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:

You might want to have a look at this description of semantic-pragmatic disorder (also called pragmantic language disorder; pragmatic language is frequently impaired in children on the spectrum. Speech and language pathologists can help a lot.
http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/r ... order.aspx

Here's one scholarly article on reading comprehension difficulties in children on the spectrum; I found it very comprehensive. It goes a long way in explaining difficulties with open-ended questions:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892026/

Resources are also available from linguisystems. (I have no financial interest in this company; it was recommended by a slp and their workbooks and kit on hyperlexia really helped my daughter.)

HTH

J.

postcards57,

I will check it out. My child is hyperlexic.

Edited to add: Thank you for all the information. I looked it up, and I think this will be helpful to me, and hopefully the OP as well.

I know I bang the drum about pragmatics often (so thank you, postcards57 for mentioning it first) but I'd agree that there are signs she's showing a pragmatic speech deficit. Social anxiety is another possible indicator of a pragmatics deficit. My son has made huge (HUGE!) gains across the board...but his pragmatics are what hold him back and differentiate him from NT kids.

Your school should be able to test her for pragmatics, and she will need an IEP with pragmatic speech goals if she's diagnosed - and you may want to go outside the school for more support even after she's been awarded hours - schools are notorious for offering the least amount of support they can get away with. The gold-standard test is the TOP-L, just so you know a test name to use (there are others, but that is a common one.)

Our school actually lied to us about my son's pragmatic deficit: he scored a 52, so they told us he was "above average" and didn't need services. The reality is that what they should look at is the difference between semantic language use and pragmatics - my son was hyperverbal and used college-level vocabulary easily - he scored near the top for that: basically, what we had was a kid using a very complex phrasebook without really understanding what was being said and what he was saying on a social level.

Also, try to be there when they give the test - another point I missed on the 52% - he got 100% on half of the skills, and about 0 on the other half - so even if he tested "above average" it was clear that he needed support.

Not every school is as smarmy as ours was, but be aware that this is an area where schools sometimes try to weasel out of offering needed services for a functional skill, even though that is illegal.

My son also has this issue. I guess I do, too, because sometimes he asks me for help with homework and I don't know what answer is desired, either! Sometimes the answer is so obvious that it seems like writing it will come off as smart-alecky, if that makes sense? As if they couldn't be looking for the answer I think. Other times, I really just don't understand what the question is at all. Sometimes DS gets answers wrong and I look at his responses and they seem correct to me.
An example:
0+0= 0x0=
Will the answers be the same? Why?

I don't understand the "why" part. All the numbers are zero. Is that what they want him to write? He had this question recently, and I had to tell him I had no idea what he should answer.

I think they are trying to teach properties of multiplication and addition for zero (and probably more of those type rules) We have a math workbook that has word problems like "Johnny has $15.87. A video game he wants costs $15.00. How much additional money does he need to buy the game. You are supposed to say $0, and I guess they are testing for reading comprehension and of the kid is paying attention. I initially thought is was a typo, but that was the answer and they do this fairly often. It is annoying. My son keeps wanting to put down negative numbers.

I can try to answer. Look at it like this.



Consider that we're looking at a 1-d Cartesian plane.

Let's say 0+0=x1

Let's say 0X0=x2

Coinciding points mean that both points are (a is at n and b is at n.)

Let's say that a=0+0 and b=0X0

Will we be able to derive the same location n for both of them? Location means the distance a number is from the number 0. 1 is 1 unit distance from the number 0. 0 is 0 unit distance from the number 0.

If we add 0+0 we have a = 0. If we multiply 0 X 0 we have b =0. If you look at both answers, representing a location in this particular instance on the number line you will see that a is 0 unit distance from 0 and b is 0 unit distance from 0. Therefore when we compare numbers both are indeed the same and this is why.

Cubedemon - DS is in third grade, so I hope they don't expect such an advanced response! However, I would have loved to have had him write that, and then watch the teacher's reaction!

Oh! I did not know your DS was in third grade. The answer I gave is the only answer I could think of. I don't know any other possible answer and I do not understand how a third grader could answer this sort of question without understanding certain concepts. I don't grasp what answer they expect to receive from third graders. For me, the answer came natural and seemed obvious.

I would love to watch the teacher's reaction as well but I don't think it is a good idea. I don't want your son getting accused of cheating.

While I'm older, I'm studying at university as a mature student, I have a similar kind of problem. At times I find it impossible to put the ideas in my head into words, and actually write anything down, and I can't understand what I'm reading either.

I've found a large contributor to this is being exhausted (I've got a chronic sleep disorder, so being at college usually means I'm missing sleep), as well as being overstimulated. It seems the root of the problem is that being in a room full of 50 people, many of them talking, overloads the parts of my brain that do language processing, causing them to shut down, and as a result I'm unable to either comprehend or express myself through written language. I can still talk, but not as fluently, That tends to shut off when I'm very emotionally overloaded. What I can do while shut down though is any other work that doesn't involve language, so I plod on with something else more artistic/technical (although I'm still overloaded so not as capable as I am at home, where it's peaceful).

I was using my tablet to generate white noise, to block out all the talking, which helped a little, but it got annoying just having to hear something so loud all the time, and music, while that helped too, didn't really block out talking enough. Now I've got some good noise cancelling headphones I'm hoping that combined with music I should be able to avoid getting overstimulated to the point of shutting down.

I'm a little removed from those days and not sure if I am adding anything to what has already been written ...

Common problem. It isn't about trying, it is about honestly not having a process for taking the next step. My son had to be shown the process, by going through it over and over either with a parent or an aid in the classroom.

And please tell the teacher to NEVER assume your daughter is not trying. That will rarely be the case (although she may eventually see the patterns and know she can cop out sometimes - all for another day, not today). Usually what there is is some sort of invisible road block that is not being understand. Find the road block and work to clear it.