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reuby2

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Hi,

I am starting to look at ways of helping my son at school. He is 7 (ASD). He hates school and is very withdrawn there.

I am starting to find that with ASD the proffessionals are not the ones with the answers!

I would like to help my son with his school work. We have his reading book sent home and it is changed twice a week and he reads to us so that's okay. They send spellings home every week and my son forgets how things are spelt even when he has just looked at them.Are there any special programs for the p.c or systems to help with spelling?

He is much better at maths and enjoys that. He has never enjoyed writing or colouring it just doesn't appeal to him and his fine motor skills are poor.

I feel at a loss now to know how to help him, if i suggest doing anything at home he refuses and he spends all day at school very quiet (not like him at home at all)

 

Any resources especially for autism within school or for individual lessons would be a great help.

 

Thank you.

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reuby2 does he like using the computer. I have ordered several educational games from Sherston for my daughter and they are brilliant. They have educational advisors on hand as well who are really helpful at guiding you to the right game for child's ability. There's literacy, numeracy, science, geography and history all of them are supposed to support the national curriculum. I have always hated spellings and like your son my AS son has often learnt them the night before and promptly forgotten them. I really feel for your son and wonder what they are doing to motivate him, I read something once about excellence and enjoyment in education :( ,obviously a lot of teachers haven't ;)

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Thanks lks for replying,

Yes he does like the computer and up to yet i have got him educational games such as jump ahead learning etc, I really wanted to be able now to support what they are doing in school.Do you know if there is a web site for sherston?

Thanks very much.

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I am starting to look at ways of helping my son at school. He is 7 (ASD). He hates school and is very withdrawn there.

 

Why actually does he hate school? Is it the work, or the system, or the bullying?

 

Are there any special programs for the p.c or systems to help with spelling?

 

Word processors have inbuilt spelling checkers. I think some software is available to help with spelling and grammar. Check out places like PC world or educational suppliers.

 

He is much better at maths and enjoys that.

 

I recommend taking advantage of strong subjects. Buy him some textbooks and software suitable for his ability.

 

He has never enjoyed writing or colouring it just doesn't appeal to him and his fine motor skills are poor.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about this one at the moment. He can do written work and draw pictures on a computer. If he wants to improve fine motor skills and writing then he can practice at his own pace over a period of time.

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Visuals are always good. Maybe you could have different coloured letters or something to help with spelling. Or a visual dictionary.

 

We learnt spellings by using those letters that go on the fridge and in the bath. Good luck with it.

 

Cbeebies have some good resources too :)

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We used Mona McNee's "Step by Step" to learn the rules of spelling (and reading) and combined this with "Wordshark3" by White Space to programme in weekly spelling lists. We use a microphone (bought with our voice recognition software) to record words that are not already on Wordshark, so this way we can even learn spellings of foreign words too.

 

Step by Step can be bought as a booklet, for a pittance, and just the rules and ideas taken from it if your child hates writing and doesn't want to write out the exercises. (Just go over the rules with him, verbally, every time you see a word that he wants to know. I also never expected my children to struggle to spell out a word, which is really demotivating. Rather, I would sound out the word and blend it again and again, gradually faster and faster, until the child could "hear" the word as it is perceived in speech.) Then Wordshark uses typing in spellings, rather than handwriting, using various games as motivation. One son loves the train game. Son No 2 loves catching sharks.

 

Wordshark also taught my sons dictionary skills and a very good working knowledge of the order of the alphabet. Son No 1 was v v poor at anything to do with sequencing.

 

It has taken longer to combine creative writing with competent spelling. Eldest son seems to need to drop one to concentrate on the other, and vice versa, but it is coming slowly, especially now that he uses computers more to present his work at senior level. Not having to think about how the letters are formed and where to place them frees him up to think about the content of his work and the spellings.

 

Eldest son has below 2nd centile Auditory STM and dyspraxia/dyslexia, so despite the remaining difficulties he has, nevertheless, done quite well with this approach.

 

If your son has good verbal skills then it may be worth looking at voice recognition. This helped us at home for a while, but we would warn that it can be less reliable when your son's voice starts to change as he gets older. I can see my son returning to VR software when his voice is more stable again!

 

Another tip is to write out his spellings for him putting in the "splits" strictly according to how Mona McNee would break down the word. We went one step further and used different colours, each with some sort of "significance" to small son, to help encourage a deeper level of processing in terms of memory eg "ough" says "uff" (in some words at least) and was always written in red ink as it kind of sounds red, puffy and effortful!

 

Yet another tip is to think up pictures to help your child to remember eg We drew a picture of "ti" followed by a red bed...

 

ie Tired

 

...otherwise we tended to spell "tired" as "tierd"! Chanting "Ti-red bed" over and over helped too.

 

We've made up songs to learn some spellings...

 

eg To American army marching song...

 

"He's the greatest in the land,

He is such a mighty man,

P-H-A-R-A-O-H P-H-A-R-A-O-H" etc etc

 

Not every method will work with every child, of course, but you could have a play around and see what lights your little boy's firework?

 

It is hard work when STM is so poor; I found we had to put in hours of work at home, but this needs to be balanced against a need for rest and, of course, time spent on social skills. It can seem there are not enough hours in the day! Keeping a sense of proportion and a sense of humour are crucial!

 

I'm sure others on this forum will give you excellent advice so you'll find there are plenty of choices of paths to take.

 

VS xx

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Brilliant replies thank you everyone.

 

Valiant Skylark...Thank you those ideas are great and i never would have thought of most of them !!

Those programs you mentioned sound just the ticket ,thanks. :thumbs:

Thanks opooh for your ideas too. :)

 

Canopus... My son hates being away from home, he says that school seems a long time to him. He finds writing very hard work. He dislilkes the noise on his table...the els table........he just shuts down at school and is very quiet and withdrawn.At home he is boisterous and loud so it is a real change. He isn't a problem to his teacher and she thinks he is fine but just needs reminding to do his work and not "space out". He wants to be on his own during playtime and runs around "imagining". :(

 

Lks thanks again for your time and pointing me in the right direction for software .

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At home he is boisterous and loud so it is a real change. He isn't a problem to his teacher and she thinks he is fine but just needs reminding to do his work and not "space out". He wants to be on his own during playtime and runs around "imagining".

 

This is probably the result of releasing built up pressure from a stressful day at school. It is actually quite common for kids who are really quiet at school to completely blow their top at home at evenings and weekends. They tend to revert to their "normal selves" during school holidays.

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