Eco, I just finished
The Learning Habit last week, and one point it makes is that it distinguishes between creative screen time and consumer screen time, and that kids tend to binge excessively on consumer screen time, not creative screen time. (No one stays up all night making Powerpoints - at least not for fun.) It sounds like he is doing a fair amount of creative screen time, and I'd avoid taking that away.
I like DeeDee's idea of the bright tape flags. If you can find enough colors, I'd do it like this:
Each class has a color. Finished homework gets a tape flag of the appropriate color. If a class has no homework to turn in, a tape flag of that class' color goes on the front of the planner (or a designated page inside if they tend to fall off the front). As he turns homework in, he is to take the tape flag off and put it on the front of his planner. At the end of the day, if he doesn't have a flag of every color on his planner, he should look for missing homework assignments to turn them in (he can do this while he is getting his planner initialed).
Places where this could fall apart - he forgets to take the tape flags back off his homework, he (or you, at the start) forgets to "reset" the flags at the start of the day, he forgets to look for the tape flags at the end of the day. Possible solutions - he could ask the teachers if he left the tape flag on his homework when he goes to get their initials at the end of the day, you could set some kind of timer in the evenings to do the "reset" for he next day, you could arrange for his study hall teacher to help/remind him to check his flags.
One system worth looking at is
HOPS - it's a very structured school-based intervention aimed at disorganized middle school kids, one that is supported by research. If you could get the school to implement it, that would be great. Even reading what it says about the order of steps and how long it takes to implement would be an improvement.
Good luck!
I will look at the HOPS program. I don't hold out much hope that the school will implement anything, especially since it's been communicated that sending DS to gather initials during study hall is a problem.
I like the color coding, etc., ideas but there's no way he could do that at this point. Right now, it's that he can't remember to do anything--nor can he explain why not, just that he forgets. He knows where things are and I've been putting sticky notes on them but still...nothing happens.
Repetition was also key for our ds (still is). It might not be for your ds - with our ds it is related to his disability - there are things that don't come to him automatically without a *lot* of repetition. If this were our ds, I'd guess that there must be something going on in the class he's having trouble with that isn't consistent - i.e., different types of homework assignments or homework not assigned consistently everyday, perhaps the teacher doesn't leave a list of the day's homework assignment on the board etc.
It was also always easier for our ds to turn in homework if there was an obvious place that was always the same to turn it in, and if other kids were also turning in homework, or if the teacher asked everyone to turn it in when they were all at their desks.
I see a couple of other red flags (short responses to questions that don't explain enough), but when I walk him through "what the teacher expects," he is willing to go back and elaborate.
I wonder if this isn't a component of his disability - do you have any indications he has issues with expressive language? My ds has an expressive language disorder, and sometimes it's really subtle in how it shows. Your description of your ds giving the short responses that don't explain enough but elaborating when you question in detail sounds very much like my ds. The gotcha for my ds is he doesn't really understand what is expected in the response to open-ended questions. You can see it in his writing, too. However, when you give him a structure, lead him through the specifics of what you are expecting in a reply, he's fine. And there *is* a lot of information in his head that is worth taking the time to pull out!
ALL of this.
He can't explain the class procedure. He states that it is different from day to day, when I ask for very concrete information (what do you do when you walk in class? etc.) I asked him where he is supposed to put assignments--he said "hand them to Mr. History Teacher." When? He's not sure.
I asked if assignments are on board--he originally stated NO, but now says they are, but in a "different section" and what he's been writing down is under Agenda. That's why he's been writing "Genghis Khan Stuff" in his "agenda" instead of actually copying the assignment. (This is maddening.)
As for expressive language--I don't know, but there is something going on with language. I don't know if it's purely pragmatic. Here is an example:
Q: How did Japan's geography influence the diet of the people?
DS writes: They ate fish.
When I asked him to elaborate, he said: it's an island. I asked for more, he said: because it's an island, they are surrounded by water, and fish are plentiful. When I told him that's what he needs to write, he said that is dumb, anybody would understand what he meant when he said "they ate fish." I told him that makes him look like he's being lazy and he had no idea why that would be.
Another one, that I can't remember exact words:
Q: Why would Ruler So-and-So use X (a God) in his laws?
DS: Because the people were idiots.
Seriously! I told DS first, he should never use "idiot" in a class assignment because it is rude and judgmental. Then I asked him what he meant. He was able to explain it was because the ruler could use the belief system of the people to manipulate them, but it was like pulling teeth to get that answer. All he could think was "those people were so stupid" and that's all he really had to say about that.
His answers are so bizarre.
is there a reason that particular teacher can't ask him for his completed work at the end of each class period? When he gets initials, she says "where is your work?" and he goes through his stuff to get it? Then put in the 504 that he has additional time to get to the next class?
There is no way they will put this in the 504, because it is DS' responsibility (and mine). There is no accommodation in his 504 that goes beyond good teaching practice (keeping up gradebook, answering my emails), with the exception of initialing planner--and now that is a problem. I don't think they want to give him any real accommodations. I think this is about culling him from the herd. My friends' 2E son who is not in FT gifted has all kinds of accommodations--but that is in regular ed, not special programming.
As for the scanning/emailing bit: I had every intention of making DS do that part--but now we are spending way too much time just figuring out what is in his planner, doing assignments, and now (this new problem) trying to figure out what he was SUPPOSED to have turned in *during* class (not homework, but in-class assignments are coming home, completed) that is now in his backpack. There hasn't been time, yet, to teach him the whole scanning piece. It's very time consuming, because each page has to be scanned separately and then pasted into MSW, then exported as PDF and emailed. Because sending the scans as separate jpegs confused the history teacher and he wasn't seeing the full assignment (and was grading it as incomplete).
We are really starting from scratch. He is doing his work and is not losing handouts but that is about all I can see has improved.
I really don't think it would be possible for him to be less organized. He is always several steps behind everyone else (literally and figuratively). I think this is a really complex problem--maybe it's all EF related, probably. But it's like pretty much every area of EF is impaired.
