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.

Totally going to steal this and share it with my friends. Love it, Nautigal!

Thanks! It's an analogy that came to me one day -- unfortunately, it was brilliantly phrased when it came to me, and then I forgot the rest of it and that's all I have left. Ahh, speaking of memory.

I got DS a binder pouch for every one of his binders this year, and put everything on that teacher's list in each one, so he would not have to worry about needing a pencil or marker that was in his locker or in another binder. Now, at almost the end of the first quarter, I find out that he takes his backpack to every class, and it seems to be hit or miss on the binders.

He has a planner that the school gives every student, and it's had exactly one day of stuff written in it so far.

They have gmail accounts and can share papers with teachers, and it seems to be used sporadically.

One of my son's teachers had this, she called it a BEE Book, Bring Everything Everywhere Book- he lost it within the first few weeks of school

My kid doesn't remember his homework assignments either, I'm thinking about tying a string around his wrist, so that when he is in class and looks at it, he will remember-

Then he has to remember to look at the string, and then remember what the string is for.

Hey, Lisa, the rest came back to me last night -- I was emailing one of DS's teachers and my brain reached out and found the rest of the fish thing somewhere.

"We can buy him fancy wings, and give him flying lessons, and nag him every day to practice flying, or we can stop enabling him, kick him out of the tree and tell him he just has to learn to fly by himself, but in the end he's still going to be a fish."

@Nautigal- I figure the string is right there on his wrist in plain view, not tucked away in his backpack like his homework is- the string he can't help but see, would remind him of that homework tucked away in his backpack.. and it's common to put a rubber band on your wrist as a memory tool especially when you have problems remembering things.. I don't want him to smack himself with a rubber band, so I was thinking a string would be better

Just out of curiousity does he see value in passing his courses so he can go to the next grade with his class. I mean what happens if he actually fails?

Mix of things, the biggest being special ed support. He meets 10 min. late in the day with the special ed teacher, who makes sure his binder is orderly and that everything is written in the planner. This is coaching, not doing for him, with the idea that it's just taking ages to become automatic.

The other thing is good communication with teachers and natural consequences regarding taking responsibility. Last week DS got 100 on an online test by doing the work in his head, but forgot to show the work on paper (therefore, technically a zero). We sent him into school 10 minutes early the next day, having practiced a script of what to say to the math teacher to make it right. Amazingly, he did... And he now gets the point that if you don't show work it makes a hassle later. Learning is happening...

Sorry, speaking for myself, and facetiously, there. I would forget the string was there at all, and if I noticed it, would then ask myself what the heck that was for.

In total agreement with Polarbear on this one. Unfortunately, real progress has taken years rather than weeks or months, but we are dealing with brain damage issues so likely more severe memory processing deficits. Despite the clear medical documentations, there is really a limit to what post-elementary teachers can be made to do for a particular student and I personally did not want to waste all my "currency" on this issue. It was a matter of training DS to do the exact same thing every single time. Despite the school's preference/practice, we used individual color-coded binders for each class. I always made sure work to be handed in was placed in the front pocket, where there was a label in red to remind DS to turn in papers placed in the front pocket. In the beginning, there also was a sticky note in red on each paper to be turned in. A ton of scaffolding and hard work on the parts of parents/students.

Nautigal - that is a wonderful quote. I'm saving that one! Thanks for sharing the full thing.

DeeDee - both are lacking this year; I think that is why it has been so much worse than last year. Somehow 8th grade teachers as a whole have difficulty separating out accommodating for learning disabilities and toughening up kids for high school. Quantum - this is what we'd done in the past with some success, but the teachers have been quite uncooperative this year about fitting into "our" system and, instead, demanding that my son figure out how to deal with their myriad systems of organization.

My son's gifted teacher who has been the worst to deal with by far told him last week that he really needed to work on this memory thing and "get over it, because it's going to be a disadvantage when you're an adult."

My son, without missing a beat, asked him if he gave the same advice to kids in a wheelchair about not being able to walk as adult so they should start working on it now. The teacher said it wasn't anywhere near the same. My son said it was exactly the same and that just because a disability was in the brain and not visible didn't mean it wasn't a disability.

We worked with the Special Ed chair and decided to remove my son from his elective and put him in a special ed classroom the last period of the day. He is in the class as an aide to help with the 3 D-Level students, but he spends most of the period doing his homework. The aide in the classroom then walks with him to the teacher's lounge so my son can deliver all of the homework to their mailboxes.

His stress level is down, the constant yelling from the teachers has somewhat abated, so it is a fix for this year. But, oh, am I dreading next year.

We have seen this too. When the expectations rise, they rise for everyone-- which is only a good thing if coupled with continuing support for those who are not acquiring all the skills on the standard schedule. I would like to believe most kids can get the skills, or accommodate around what's not going to click into place-- but there is no point in believing in magic here, or in telling the disabled kids to "suck it up."

We do a lot of conversation like "because he has autism, you will see that he struggles with ..." and keeping them aware of his current organizational skill levels, so that they can't say they never heard about it. We also have special ed run interference for us on this with subject area teachers, so they hear it two ways.


I would raise this with Guidance department as well. Our DS has NINE passwords for various computer accounts/subscriptions/online textbooks, plus homework both on and offline. This is a mess for all kids, not just him. (It is just an extra special mess for him.) The school administration needs to know when this stuff is badly out of joint, whether for one or for all.


I would go to the district's special ed director and ask them to do some professional development for this teacher.


LOVE HIM. I hope my DS is that composed by 8th grade.


Next year=move to high school?

I would start the conversation with the new school VERY early. They can and should place your DS with teachers more likely to foster success; they can do professional development with those teachers to foster understanding of the disabilities; they can even give your DS extra support at the start of the year if that's what he will need. All that stuff takes time. My aim would be to have a plan in place by the end of January-- even if schedules are not set, etc., having everyone up to speed and aware will help a lot.

DeeDee

DeeDee - consider this a huge virtual hug. Thanks for all the input and thoughtful advice!

Thanks. Needed the hug today, as it turns out. These 2Es can certainly put a little gray in one's hair.

DeeDee

Thank goodness middle school and high school are all essentially the same for us! It's all in the same building and has the same administrators and some of the same teachers. If we last that long without going to e-school instead, we'll at least have them broken in. And even if we do e-school, we'll still be there for extra-curriculars.

Lisa, that was awesome that he managed that response when it was needed! I would think of it five minutes after I left.... And that sounds like a workable solution, the last-hour homework and walk to delivery thing. DS could use that.