Homework

[joybed]

Hi some of you may remember me, I havn,t been on here for a while for no particular reason than life running away with me. I have 3 children one ASD, one aspergers suspected ADHD/dyslexia and a girl with lots of ASD tendencies and some issues with writing, reading and spelling, she is very shy has low self esteem and has concentration problems.

The problems I have at the moment is homework with the twins, at the moment they are just getting reading and Piers gets key words to learn. It is extremely challenging to get either of them to do anything.

Piers crys tantrums, kicks and bites last night he was gouging at his eyes. Obviously I do not allow this behaviour but it is a fine line between him throwing a wobbly all together and calming him down enough to work. He can do it when you sound out the words but if you ask him to do it he immediately panicks and gives up before he starts. He repeated reception last year so has just enterd year one, he has a statement for 15 hours and a new LSA this year, he is really struggling with the change in LSA. His home school diary and reading record are variable they sometimes say he is coping well and trying hard and other times state he is frustrated and struggling. The first 2 hours after school are a nightmare he is hyperactive, clearly distressed and often aggressive. Likewise walking to school is still an issue and he is cajoled all the way.

Lydia was very anxious about returning to school in her words she "didn,t want to change teacher and why can,t things stay the same". She has just entered year 2. Her first day went well with her teacher praising her for good writing and she was happy to go after that. However she is always reluctant to read saying the books are too difficult she clearly avoids trying to read. She often will not look at the book and gets letters and words jumbled up, she mixes up m + n, d,p and b. She reads "no" as "on" and often confuses words she knew last year. She states she finds reading very difficult and is embarassed about it. She is very disorganised forgets her book bag at school and often appears deaf, I have had her hearing checked and their are no issues. She rarely sits still, needs touching to get her attention and you often have to shout her name loudly to get any repsonse and even then she may not understand. My husband who was so reluctant to get Piers diagnosed has suggested Lydia may also be ASD. To make matters worse we were burgled yesterday which has upset all of the children Marcus is terrifed they are coming back for his computer, Lydia didn,t sleep worried they would come into the house when she was here and Piers is just his normal anxious little self.

How can I make homework less stressful for everyone. It obviously needs to be done and I do stay calm (so far) but after struggling with one I am mentally exhausted and then have to start again with the other.

Marcus is doing well after the rocky year 8 he is now in year 10 and seems very settled at school on the whole, please may that continue.

[baddad]

Hi joybed -

Homework - Oh JOY!

Firstly, I think you absolutely need, as you are, to stick to your guns about it, regardless of any tantrums etc. All kids are experts at working away at any 'chinks' they can find in the armour, but autistic kids can be particularly dogmatic about it!

Other than that I think the best tools at your disposal are concrete expectations and boundaries, and all the reinforcers that go along with that (start charts, reward schemes, sanctions etc). With homework I found it better to have a target than a time-limit. If you try to say 'we will do homework for half an hour', chances are they'll just fuss and fanny about for half hour until the time limit is up. If you have a target - say ten spellings and 3 attempts at each - you're much more likely to get a result, especially if you can couple that result to a reward. Particularly effective for my own son with spellings was the 'decreasing workload incentive' Basically, if he could spell the word first time without prompting he didn't have to do it the other two times. An additional bonus to that was that homework zeroed in on precisely the words that caused him difficulty rather than going over ground that he'd already mastered. There were very few weeks that he wasn't ready for the 'Friday test', and that success eventually became a much bigger incentive for him than the star charts and rewards (although of course they were a lovely bonus). A similar strategy would work for word recognition I'm sure...

Another big, BIG incentive in anything like this is 'backchaining. Backchaining basically involves breaking a task (say, tying shoelaces) into its component parts and working backwards from the final stage [NB -There's an old TUBES album - for anyone old enough to remember the Tubes - called 'The Completion Backward Principle', and effectively that, in business speak, is the same thing]. So with tying a lace you'd start from the final task of pulling the lace tight, then 'backchain' when that was achived to doing the second loop and pulling tight, then backchain from that to doing the over-and-through + second loop + pull tight etc. The reason that works so well is because the child always succeeds and stays motivated, whereas working 'forwards' it's all about perseverence in defeat, which, while a valuable lesson to learn isn't a great starting point!

 

Hope that's helpful, and very best with the homework! I'm now at the stage where my son's maths homework baffles me and he's back-chaining to explain it all to me! i'd like to say that's because he's a maths genius, but truth be told it's because I'm a bit thick in that regard! If I was the type to embrace excuses I'd probably claim dyscalcula and have done with it

 

L&P

 

BD

 

NB - on the offchance there's an old Tubes fan out there... one of the few videos suitable for a

 

 

[justine1]

Hi

I agree with Baddad.It seems you are sticking to it so its just about continuing to do so.Its stressful starting a new school year for most kids,so it can often be more stressful for a child with ASD.It maybe that he hasnt quite settled in so by the time he gets back all he wants to do is relax.

 

It took me ages to find a "right time" to do Sams homework and I did finally get there,since then I have had to change it three times(over 3 years) so its always a wobble but then he does get used to it again.I try to continue some sort of "homework" over the holidays at the same time of day he would be doing his term time homework,so the continuity is there.

 

He may be tired and/or hungry when he gets back so maybe a 30min rest first and a snack with plenty to drink.We usually have a snack at the dining table and talk about what they have done at school,then they do their homework at the table after I have cleared everything.After that they can have computer or telly time or in good weather they go out to play.In the warmer mths the kids always come ring the bell and I have to tell them the boys are doing their homework, the boys get annoyed but I havent given in yet!!

[Emmet Murphy]

Every situation is different so it is difficult to offer a black/white opinion on this issue. I would though ask you what your children are learning educationally from this work? What effect is the whole experience having on you and your well-being? What effect is the whole experience having on your relationships with your children? Do not assume that the amount of work a child (especially ASD / SEN children) does is directly proportional to how much they learn - your statement "it obviously needs to be done" sits a bit uncomfortably with me. Are your children really benefitting from it?

[joybed]

Hi thankyou all for your replies. Things have got a little easier on the homework front with consistency and a good routine. Maybe it was just the transition of getting back into the school routine. Don,t get me wrong it still takes time and some days are better than others but on the whole it is easier. Lydia seems to have remembered a lot of what she claimed she had forgotten but her teacher still has concerns about her. She states she is in a world of her own most of the time and spends most of class sucking her thumb or drinking huge amounts of water. the teacher said when she is doing this she is difficult to reach and almost unteachable. We tried to talk to her about this but she refuses to acknowledge we are even speaking gazing into space and sucking her thumb. When we attempt to engage her she just shrugs her shoulders and starts a converstaion with someone else. She doesn,t really play with toys (preferring to just scatter pieces everywhere) and is extremely disorganised, her bedroom is a disaster zone. She is also very easily influenced by other children. In the past I thought maybe she was stressed by the boys behaviour but on the whole at the moment they are both relatively calm, no more destructive behaviour and self harming from Marcus and although Piers is challenging he is better.

I am feeling a bit paranoid at the moment as this is my 3rd child to have problems I feel everyone is looking at me as if i am to blame. Nobody has said this on the contrary all the professionals we are involved with say I do very well in a very difficult situation, but there is one mum at school who won,t even let her kids talk to mine and gives me a wide berth (she also has a child with ASD so should no better). The genetics team asked me if Lydia had any problems and said they wouldn,t be surprised (from the test results and history they had) if she started to show some behaviours but to a lesser severity than the boys. I don,t want to push for a referral myself as I was made to feel as if I was the problem with Piers and my self esteem won,t take that again.

Emmet Murphy when I said "it obviously needs to be done" I meant that sometimes in life we all have to do things we sometimes don,t enjoy that is the way of the world and although i agree that exceptions do need to be made for special needs pupils the way of the world is that we all have to do these things. I am trying to prepare my children for the world out there, hopefully one day they will get a job and other responsibilties and if they don,t turn up on time or do the job they are paid for they will lose that job. I believe they are capable of what is asked of them and my belief is that they are in a mainstream school and should be allowed to do as much the same as the other children as possible. If they are really struggling i don,t sit there and force them until they are finsihed but stop and discuss with the teacher. We are fortunate enough to have the twins in an extremely supportive and ASD freindly school and they both have excellent support. I appreciate your views and hope you will appreciate mine.

[baddad]

Hi joybed - glad things are coming together a bit.

Not sure what to say about your daughter, but certainly the fact that she's easily influenced by other kids is a positive, because it suggests she wants to interact and is interested in how others perceive her. Now all you have to do is find other kids who will influence her toward positive behaviours! Erm... good luck with that one

The other thing there is the stuff you say about her not listening to you or at school. This can sometimes be related to social anxiety, sometimes be related to poor concentration/distraction or sometimes just be 'not listening'. Often, a combination of two, all three, or possibly even more things going on. Probably a silly suggestion, but just in case - have you had her hearing checked?

I thing probably a good starting point would be to introduce some 'concrete expectations' in the same way that you have regarding the boys and homework. Start with little steps, but just occassionally push her for confirmation of understanding - asking her to perform a specific task (just a stage or two) or to offer some sort of comment/feedback on what you have just said. Try to build into that some sort of 'body language' signal for confirmation - eye contact if she doesn't have a problem there, or something close (chin, tip of nose?) if she does. One thing to be very wary of is her just repeating back what you've said - my son's a devil for this, and it was as a direct result of 'flawed' feedback strategies I looked for when we first started! Basically, he can usually repeat back my last sentence word for word if pulled up, but the reality is it's only gone into the first level of the 'tape' in his head, and he hasn't hit the 'save' button'. You have to watch out for that one. This is now part of my son's reading work - after reading a chapter or whatever he is asked to recall key plot elements, who said what and stuuff like that. Some school readers now include pages of questions at the back, so this must be quite common now. Obviously that's not going to apply (reading) at her reading level, but perhaps you could try the same thing when you read to her or with fave TV programmes (although not, of course, with those that come on a loop on CBBC or often watched videos where she has learnt them by rote already!).

 

Hope that's helpful, and keep banging away at it.

 

L&P

 

BD