Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional need help covering (another) base

eco, does your ds ride the bus to/from school or does someone pick him up? If someone picks him up, I'd seriously have that person not just pick him up, but go into school, ask him to tell them what he did in each class that day, show him what is on his homework list for each class (and be sure he's got it written down), and then check his backpack and locker to be sure he has all of the books/etc he needs to do his homework, as well as a clear understanding of what his homework is before he leaves school. Also double-check to make sure yesterday's homework was turned in and not still hanging out somewhere in his backpack or locker. I know that this will sound like a lot of time and way-helicoptery to parents of kids who don't have organizational challenges, and also may sound like a crutch *plus* it may sound like it's exactly what the school should already be doing but..... I'll explain why below


He *might* have learned these things years ago *if* he was a neurotypical kid with no challenges. OTOH, he might not have. Organizational demands increase with middle school and it's not unusual for even nt kids to have challenges with the increased demands of different expectations in different classes. It's a really tough challenge for kids who have organizational challenges. The reason I suggested what I did above is because my dyspraxic ds is extremely challenged with the organizational demands of *life* (not just school :)). When he was transitioning from elementary (where he'd had organizational goals on his IEP and was still not handing in homework etc) to a different middle school I was where you're at, wondering how the heck he was ever going to make any progress as opposed to just drowning in the increased organizational demands. Somewhere around that time I read a post online from a mother of a student with significant organizational challenges who'd hired a college student to pick her ds up from school, do all the things I mentioned above every single day before they left school. It took them I think three or more years (most of high school) before her ds really "got it" - but he did eventually get it. My ds was not happy about it - he hated having me check his locker - but that also gave him an extra incentive to work extra hard at figuring it out for himself. I set goals based on increasing levels of responsibility - if we didn't find anything left behind in his locker check for x # of weeks, I agreed to pul back to a once-per-week locker check etc. Things like that. It took my ds about one year with a bit of refresher just to make sure the next year, but his homework organization did "happen". It just took a lot of repeating and showing him how to do it. I don't know if it makes a difference "why" the challenge - I know for my ds that dyspraxia interrupts a person's ability to develop automaticity with certain life skills, and for my ds organizational skills was a part of that, so he needed lots of repeats. It might not be the same for your ds, but fwiw, the person who'd posted the note about this online originally had a ds who had Aspergers and ADHD (if I remember correctly).


RTI stands for "Response to Intervention" and is the process schools use to implement instruction *before* a student falls far enough behind in a challenge area to require an IEP. I'd start with the IDEA/IEP contact in your school's SPED department.


I suspect it's a true challenge that would be present with or without meds. I mentioned my ds is dyspraxic (not ADHD or ASD), and I've also mentioned here before how our neuropsych has a venn diagram that shows the separation and overlap in symptoms between dyspraxia/adhd/asd - and the overlap is significant. Organizational challenges are right there in the middle of the overlap. It might not be possible to sort out is it the ADHD or the ASD - and it might not matter - in either case your ds most likely needs, as DeeDee mentioned, direct instruction and support. If the meds he's on appear to be working otherwise, I wouldn't second-guess and think would another combo/dose/whatever of meds help, I'd start with stepping up the instruction.


This has been very true for my ds, and continues to be true. He's in high school and doing much better with keeping track of his work, but he still does better with keeping up with organization in classes with teachers who are very structured and repetitive in their work expectations. One part of that is simply that it's more structured - I think in reality a more repetitive structure is easier for *any* of us to handle, no matter how well organized we are For a student who's challenged with organizational skills, having that structure is a built-in form of support. For my ds, it was great that he had one teacher like that each year of school from middle school on (it's usually been his math class because math is always taught from a textbook, relies heavily on homework for each topic, and doesn't require projects or a lot of deep introspective work lol!). The great thing about having at least one class like this is it gives the organizationally-challenged student one place to be successful and realize that *yes*, they CAN do it. It also helped, I think, eventually, my ds start to understand how to approach other classes by building in some routine of his own to his organizational approach.


I think the teachers probably understand it more than you realize. They aren't going to *tell* you they understand it, and they are most likely (in their minds) too busy with too many students to deal with it, but I'm fairly certain that every secondary school teacher out there has at least 2-3 students per year who are seriously organizationally challenged.

I totally understand how crazy this can make a parent feel - I've so been there! Still am many times!!! The thing that I do when it starts to really get to me is to remember how frustrating it must be for my ds, because it really and truly does not come naturally to him and is something that he has had to have taught.

Hang in there!

polarbear