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So it looks like "we're" failing most of our classes this semester - all for zeros, not for lack of knowledge. I've worked with the school to pull our son out of his elective and have him meet with a resource teacher that period to help him keep his assignments organized and turned in, and I'm hoping this helps. But before he gets to high school next year, we've got to find some better helps that he can control without someone else having to intervene.

He takes an iPad to class, takes excellent notes, has an excellent grasp of the material, and he does his work. He just loses it, forgets to turn it in even if it is in his backpack or forgets to email it to the teacher if he did it on his iPad. The teachers in 8th grade are not at all willing to prompt him - despite this being part of his IEP - and say that even when they prompt him outside in the hall or at the beginning of class, he still forgets. I am not surprised - he forgets verbal directions in the time it takes him to get to the top of the stairs.

For any of you dealing with memory processing issues, do you have any suggestions for what has worked for you?

ABQMom,

I'm so sorry your son is having a difficult time. I was just watching a video posted on Blackcat's Processing Speed post, in which the lecturer made a brilliant point about teachers not willing to provide the necessary scaffolding for children who need it. One reason they cite most often is that it's not fair to the other kids, but he argues the definition of fair isn't that everyone receive the same, but rather, that everyone receives what he or she needs. As illustration, he said to the grownups in the room, if one of you were to fall to the floor with a failing heart I wouldn't deny you help because it wouldn't be fair to the other adults in the room. Why do we do this to our kids?
Have you heard of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-but-Scattered-Revolutionary-Executive/dp/1593854455

It may be of some help if you don't already have it...

KADmom, I actually own that book and had forgotten about it. Mine is an older edition. I'll update it! Thanks for the reminder. And funny enough, I was just reading the other processing speed thread and was going to watch the video, so I'm off to do that now. Thank you!

LMAO at this!

I'll have to check that book out, myself. I'm hoping you get some fantastic answers to your questions here, because my DS is in nearly the same boat. He isn't failing, but he has a fine collection of C grades going, and all because of homework assignments that he can't hang onto long enough to turn them in. I keep pounding it into his head that it really stinks to do the work on time and then get points taken off because it was turned in late.

I haven't talked much with his teachers yet about it, but I am afraid I'll get a lot of "he needs to learn organization" tough love stuff. And for him, I really don't think it is likely to happen. They can teach him all the finer points of how to fly, all they want to, but in the end, he's going to remain a fish anyway.

Some of his assignments are sitting in his backpack, waiting for the football coach to bring it home tonight because he left it there during the cross-country meet last week. Along with his gear bag and his Minecraft creeper jacket. This, after he lost his coat and jacket at the end of the last school year on a three-day field trip.

OK, I had to LMAO at this too - this is sooooo so me lol!

Anyway, Lisa - my ds was so danged scattered and disorganized for so many years that remembering to turn in assignments was a constant challenge for him and if he hadn't been in a school situation where teachers accepted his work late then I'm sure he would have been kicked out of school at some point, it was soooo bad. When I was desperately looking for answers, I read something somewhere online from a parent who had hired a college student to pick her son up after school each day, and before they left school the college student helped her son go through his list of daily assignments, check his backpack to make sure everything that he needed for the night was in there, check to be sure he'd turned in all of his work for that day etc. Basically take over and micro-manage the missing organizational skills, with the goal being that all the daily repetition would, over time, sink in and her son would eventually get it. And he did - it didn't happen overnight, or even during that first year, but by the end of high school he was in control, in charge, and not missing out on turning things in etc.

I couldn't hire a college student but I did pick my ds up each day after school, so I started going into school, going through each class with ds, asking if he had homework in that class and what was it and what did he need to do it, making sure he had what he needed in his backpack and that his locker was organized etc. DS *hated* it at first, then accepted it, and eventually got used to it. Since he didn't particularly like it, he proposed that if he kept on top of his assignments and wasn't missing anything, got everything turned in on time for x number of weeks, would I let go and only check in after school once per week. I agreed, he met his goal, and then eventually he got to where this year he's doing it all independently and apparently doing a good job of it.

The end of the day review and locker check weren't the only things I helped him with. He emails assignments to turn them in, so when he was doing homework I'd ask him after something was finished, did you email it to your teacher.... and made sure he got it done. In the morning before we left we'd make sure everything was in his backpack as well as reviewing what assignments were due, and had he emailed them in - if not, he had to email them then. It was a lot of micro-managing, and again, it seems to have worked. I don't micromanage any of that this year and things are going well.

What you can and can't manage/oversee of course depends on your ds' school situation, but I would just try to think through his day and see if there isn't a way you personally can't step in and help with his organization steps for awhile until he starts finding it routine.

polarbear

I am going to share what helped me get organized when I was a kid. I was awful in elementary school about forgetting things at home.

When I was in middle school (grades 6-8) the principal decided to start of school wide focus on organization. It was a little crazy at first but it really seemed to work.

All students in the school were required to have a black three inch three-ring binder. The binder had to have a cloth or plastic pencil bag, a divider for each subject and a slim hole punch that was kept in the binder. The pencil bag had to have pencils, pens, a small pencil sharpener, hole reinforcer stickers, erasers, and a small pack of map pencils - basically all the supplies needed for middle school.

It had to be taken to every class and every piece of work had to be put in the binder. So if worksheets were handed out, they went in the binder. If graded tests were passed back to the students, they went in the binder. After a few weeks, the teachers would do a quick binder review or put it up on the board "You should have these ten papers in your binder in this order"

At the end of a grading period, you cleaned it out and started over.

It was a big undertaking and I think it was a rocky start but the principal made it a big deal, the teachers were behind him on it and I think it helped a lot of kids.

My guess in looking back, it seems like it might have been an "intervention" strategy for kids with organization problems but this guy just thought it would be good for everyone.

I remember when moving into high school we were all so excited to not have binders anymore. They were SO uncool. After a while a lot of people (including me) went back to them because it helped so much to have all our school supplies, homework and graded papers for every class in one spot that went home every night.

Thanks for posting about this! We had a similar organizational training experience... from elementary school on, a folder color was specified for each subject. In upper grades, this was both a folder and a tabbed binder. Supplies in a pencil bag inside the tabbed binder... a place for everything, and everything in its place. Occasional classroom checks for compliance.

Your MS principal's preference for one binder sounds good too... a bit larger to carry, but there's not a risk of a student bringing the wrong binder to any class.

This organizational practice is something which I took for granted... maybe thought everyone was doing some form of this. Definitely something which more schools could adapt and implement... lots of students and families may benefit.

We did something like that at university. Every assignment sheet was dated and put in a folder then removed when completed. Every printed handout was actually glued into the book I took notes in. The books had holes so when they were full they went into a folder. If I didn't I lost stuff all over the place and couldn't keep track.

The binder is what is being done at my DD's school. Love it!

I just got a smartphone (I know...I am really with it) and found myself wondering about the many reminder/productivity apps out there. I know...you have to create the reminder first, but...

Some excellent advice - thank you.

We were doing the binder, and it worked well last year. This year he is allowed to bring his old iPad from home and use it for note taking and doing some work. He forgets to email it. Because he has no intrinsic need to please or show someone else his work is finished, doing it is the task he is interested in. He easily forgets to turn it in, because he has no personal value in anyone else seeing it. And so he forgets to email the assignments.

The binder seems to have fallen apart, partly because some teachers decided if he was doing work on the iPad, they would expect him to download the pdf files from the website while others wanted him to keep their special pattern of binder instead of what worked for him. It became convoluted, he got confused, and basically has been resistant since it no longer makes sense in his head.

Being assigned to be a student aide in a special ed classroom will give him class credit for basically doing his work in the class and then having the educational assistant in the classroom walk him through the process of turning every assignment in every day. So, in theory, it should change his grades from F's to A's.