helping an older child with spatial problems

[rose]

I'm not sure how exactly to ask this question but I'll give it a shot. My oldest dd (13yo) has a terrible time with her sense of direction and struggles to find her way around an unfamiliar area alone. She's getting to an age where I'd like to let her explore more but I don't want her to get lost. She understands the concept of a map but struggles to actually use one to get around because she can't visualise herself in the map. She also struggles with spatial math problems like questions about which "net" will produce a cube or the volume or surface area of an irregular block structure (we're using MEP if that helps anyone). With the net questions she'll go so far as cutting out 20 nets to see if they'll make cubes. She had a terrible time learning left from right (she's left-handed). Has anyone else worked with a child like this? Do you have any ideas for how I could work with her?

[Rosie_0801]

Not directly, but learning to sign (well, the non-vocab, non body language parts) should help strengthen those skills. Not exactly a small investment though...

[Tanaqui]

I was the child like that, though I'm not sure I can remember how I learned to navigate. (My girls would say I still haven't. I do rely on them an awful lot...!)

 

You should try asking on the learning challenges board as well.

 

Let me think a bit. I do have some tricks, though I don't often verbalize them. Some might not be applicable to your kid, as I'm also compensating for my (relatively mild) topographical agnosia as well. (Yeah, that's fun.)

 

When I was that age, I didn't much look at maps. Instead, I had all my directions written down very carefully - and they started at a very small set of origins. Like, my mother worked very near to the World Trade Center. If I planned to go to the WTC and then go somewhere else from there, I'd ask her to give me directions from her office. I couldn't navigate to new places from the WTC (and often got lost navigating to familiar places) but I could go places if I started by standing in front of her office.

 

I have very little intuitive sense of left and right. I still have to "make the L with my fingers" or else pick up a pen to know which hand is which, and I often realize midway down a staircase that I'm walking on the wrong side. And don't talk to me about cardinal directions! Even "uptown" and "downtown" can be somewhat shaky unless I happen to see the new WTC building! Instead, I ask directions using landmarks. "Okay, so I get out of the train and walk in the same direction as traffic for exactly two blocks, until I hit the playground. Then I look around and turn towards the McDonald's. I walk that way, and the next street should be Chambers Street. If it's not, I'm going the wrong way."

 

Nowadays, after much careful practice, I can generally follow maps without completely screwing up... so long as I have my directions to refer to. Thankfully, GoogleMaps will write out your directions for you, and they also have Street View. For some reason, the agnosia doesn't generally kick in very strongly with places I've seen in pictures, only with places I've actually been. Don't ask me why. So I can look at the street view, and I can ask myself as I'm walking "Does this look remotely familiar, or do I need to ask somebody for help?" But also, I think my facility with maps has increased for the simple reason that I practiced with subway maps. They're pretty darn simplified, and once I more or less got the hang of using them for the simple business of making transfers I was then able to slowly see how the map related to the real world, and then I was slowly able to bring those skills to street maps, which are a bit more complex. You might not live in a place with good public transportation, but you should be able to make some modified, highly simplistic maps for your kid that are basically just "you are here".

 

I also spend a lot of time asking people for directions - and I always ask more than one person if I can! If I can follow the directions for two turns, then I'm two turns closer to my destination and somebody else can help me for the next leg.

 

As for nets in math, I'm pretty sure we didn't do that when I was that age, or I would've failed that section of math. (Maybe I've blocked it out of my memory.) Since you're working at home, I'd continue to let her cut out the nets. That won't do her any harm.

[Rosie_0801]

Is that related to crossing the midline problems, Tanaqui?

[Ausmumof3]

Does she have a mobile phone? How would she be at using something like google maps and directions? I'm not good at maps but I do find it easier when I can see myself as a little blue dot on the screen actually getting closer to the destination.

[Arcadia]

If you have a spare smart phone, does not need to be activated, you could install here now and let her use the phone as a walking GPS offline.

 

Link is to the app for Android phones

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps

[sweetpea3829]

My daughter is somewhat like this.  She's 10 1/2 and STILL puts shoes on backwards.  I haven't done nets with her yet, as we're still trying to get a handle on number sense.  Her weak spatial skills terribly impact her ability to picture numbers on a number line.  As a result, all of her math is impacted.  Mental math?  Can't do it.  Counting backwards?  Yeah, no.  

 

I don't have any solutions...just listening in to see what others offer.  

[Rosie_0801]

My daughter is somewhat like this.  She's 10 1/2 and STILL puts shoes on backwards.  I haven't done nets with her yet, as we're still trying to get a handle on number sense.  Her weak spatial skills terribly impact her ability to picture numbers on a number line.  As a result, all of her math is impacted.  Mental math?  Can't do it.  Counting backwards?  Yeah, no.  

 

I don't have any solutions...just listening in to see what others offer.  

 

The CSMP minicomputers have been bloody brilliant for number sense and place value for my dd. But it isn't spacial skills that are her problem, so perhaps they won't work for yours? 

[sweetpea3829]

The CSMP minicomputers have been bloody brilliant for number sense and place value for my dd. But it isn't spacial skills that are her problem, so perhaps they won't work for yours? 

 

Tell me more, because perhaps it isn't so much spatial difficulty that causes DDs number sense issues.  It certainly SEEMS to be...but that doesn't mean it is.  

 

I've not heard of these minicomputers...

[Dmmetler]

I have visual-spatial processing that tested in the <2%. I am the exact opposite of a VSL.

 

What helps me the most is walking and developing a mental map of landmarks. Since I really don't have an internal sense of direction, I rely heavily on external cues, so the more I build up that map, the better. I also use my phone GPS extensively (and one reason DD got a phone was so I have a backup GPS on a different network.)

 

The 3D visualization stuff never worked well for me. I got good at guessing correctly and recognizing patterns. I was the kid who could do proofs better without seeing the figures, and for whom a set of steps to bisect a line or create an angle were a Hd Given gift. I could do. I just couldn't see. When I was doing math education grad courses, a lot of things finally clicked because we were learning how to teach the skills in multisensory ways, and the things that I'd learned how to do by rote and by partial recognition finally clicked. Basically, I needed those 20 cubes and to actually build the figures so my brain could understand them, because I couldn't see them. I needed to build them, color them, draw them.

 

But I would say, lots of hands on. Lots of experience. Lots of building those mental maps in large and small. Legos. Step by step instructions that take 2D to 3D. Because, honestly, that's what helped most-building up the skills I have around those I'm weak at, to compensate for them.

[Rosie_0801]

Tell me more, because perhaps it isn't so much spatial difficulty that causes DDs number sense issues.  It certainly SEEMS to be...but that doesn't mean it is.  

 

I've not heard of these minicomputers...

 

Have a read of the primary entry supplement at the bottom of the page here:

 

http://stern.buffalostate.edu/CSMPProgram/Primary%20Disk/Start.html

 

They took dd ages to get the hang of, and she still makes careless mistakes because her logic isn't so great so she isn't very methodical. However, they are basically bits of paper painted in quadrants to correspond with the c-rods. Bottom right is white (1), bottom left is red (2), top right is purple (4), top left is brown (8). So that not quite base-ten-ness really strengthened dd in ways I don't understand. Carrying and borrowing that requires movement from one piece of paper to another adds a kinaesthetic element that you don't get just from pen and paper. It really highlights that numbers are just pieces of other numbers and can be broken up and put back together again. It also got the concept of simplifying fractions into dd's head before we even began learning fractions because I was always telling her that maths likes to be tidy so she needed to simplify the mess of tokens on the minicomputers. She struggles with the arithmetic of simplifying fractions, because dyscalculia, but she has no problem with the concept at all. When we started doing vertical addition, she already knew where to carry to because of all the work with the minicomputers.

 

I'm going to proselytise about these forever. This and Dilmah rose and vanilla tea kombucha are my two most pet topics. :p

[katilac]

I would focus on safety and work-arounds in the short term.

 

If I had waited on improved spatial skills to explore the world, I'd still be waiting! Seriously, it's that bad.  

 

The absolute best thing for me has been GPS, for both driving and walking.

 

I was driving for well over 20 years before I got GPS, so it's not like my map skills were improving with practice, lol. I could not just look at a map; I had to 'translate' what I saw on the map into written instructions for it to be useful. I could do that on my own sometimes but needed help quite often. 

 

Detailed, written directions that I could refer to repeatedly were very useful to me. Even with GPS, writing or verbalizing the steps is required if I want to internalize the directions and not use GPS every time. And this takes a while (like over a semester when I started driving dd to DE three times a week). I would say that it was the single most important thing. 

 

I used to keep a notebook in my care with these detailed directions to various places. Perhaps your dd could do the same, and keep it in a small backpack or purse? She may need directions even for nearby, frequently visited places. She may need directions that go both ways (how to get to the store, how to get back home). Mine was like: how to get home from the store/the park/the zoo/the mall  :lol:

 

 I'm laughing at Tanaqui and the WTC, because I did the same thing for years: I had to go back to my known reference point in the city to successfully make it anywhere else, lol. Mind you, this was the city I'd grown up next to for most of my life. 

 

What doesn't help: 

 

People saying, you can't miss it. I promise you, I can. 

 

People saying, you need to be able to read a map, all you need is practice. Dude, I have practiced, it's not like I enjoy getting lost in sketchy parts of the city or spending an hour driving in circles! 

 

If she can find some activities to strengthen those skills, I think that's great, I just wouldn't put off age-appropriate exploration waiting for them to develop. 

[GoVanGogh]

Has she been tested for dyspraxia? Or had a visual-spatial OT eval done? That might give you some insight.

My DS has dyspraxia related to his neurological condition. He doesn't feel or sense where his body is. He struggled for years to grasp left and right. Oddly enough, the way his brain is wired, his visual processing is on overdrive. He excels at maps (using east/west/north/south, not left/right) but walks into doorways or walks over people's feet all the time.

[sweetpea3829]

Have a read of the primary entry supplement at the bottom of the page here:

 

http://stern.buffalostate.edu/CSMPProgram/Primary%20Disk/Start.html

 

They took dd ages to get the hang of, and she still makes careless mistakes because her logic isn't so great so she isn't very methodical. However, they are basically bits of paper painted in quadrants to correspond with the c-rods. Bottom right is white (1), bottom left is red (2), top right is purple (4), top left is brown (8). So that not quite base-ten-ness really strengthened dd in ways I don't understand. Carrying and borrowing that requires movement from one piece of paper to another adds a kinaesthetic element that you don't get just from pen and paper. It really highlights that numbers are just pieces of other numbers and can be broken up and put back together again. It also got the concept of simplifying fractions into dd's head before we even began learning fractions because I was always telling her that maths likes to be tidy so she needed to simplify the mess of tokens on the minicomputers. She struggles with the arithmetic of simplifying fractions, because dyscalculia, but she has no problem with the concept at all. When we started doing vertical addition, she already knew where to carry to because of all the work with the minicomputers.

 

I'm going to proselytise about these forever. This and Dilmah rose and vanilla tea kombucha are my two most pet topics. :p

 

Thanks so much!  I was going to "Like" your comment but...you don't have a "Like" button!!!  

[Farrar]

Dh is like this. When we were first together it often shocked me because he's so intelligent, but he does things that would astound me like forget how to get home from somewhere he'd been dozens of times. He can't play Tetris or Chess or do visual puzzles at all. He just throws his hands up and laughs at them.

 

Overall, I don't think it's a huge hindrance to life once you figure out how to navigate. And GPS on our phones had made that dramatically easier. Some people struggle to work up a map of their surroundings, but honestly, if you have to have Siri tell you how to get where you're going 24/7 it won't kill you these days. She probably shouldn't become a graphic designer or anything, but overall I'm thinking she'll be okay. I'd also just skip the nets in math and go light on any visual math.

[Tanaqui]

Is that related to crossing the midline problems, Tanaqui?

 

In my case, I shouldn't think so, unless I had this problem when I was much younger. I could ask my mother, but I'm honestly not sure she'd remember, and anyway, today it's definitely the opposite - I'm so strongly lefthanded that I'll do bizarre things like take things out of my right pants pocket with my left hand, or will reach all the way on my right side to pick up things lefty. I usually scratch both sides of my back with my left hand too, and now I'm itchier for saying that. But it might be the case for other people.

 

 I'm laughing at Tanaqui and the WTC, because I did the same thing for years: I had to go back to my known reference point in the city to successfully make it anywhere else, lol. Mind you, this was the city I'd grown up next to for most of my life.

 

SO GLAD IT ISN'T JUST ME. I've gotten better over time, but I still prefer to start someplace familiar. (And all I can say is thank goodness for the grid system. If I go from 45th to 46th street, at least I know if I need to turn around or not!)

[barnwife]

I am so this person. To say I have no sense of direction is an understatement. I live in a small town...and I can still get lost here. I have to drive somewhere frequently and often for things to stick. We've been married a handful of years. I lived in a different city for a few years beforehand. When we've gone back, I get lost going to places I went all the time then. DH, who never lived there, but just visited me can remember how to get everywhere.

If I am going somewhere new, I try to get meticulous directions ahead of time. As far as getting lost, get her a cell phone! 


 

[Kalmia]

Grid cells and place cells. Some people have rely on place memory and navigate by landmarks. Others have a good grid cell system working and can easily place themselves in relation to other things in their enviroment. I can get lost inside a building. Always go the wrong way after exiting an underground subway. Have no idea how my house is oriented in relation to the main street of our town... All I can say is that I really appreciate a long detailed list of landmarks! And your child might like to request landmarks when she is asking for directions. (As long as it isn't a Maine list of landmarks: "Turn left where the Allards used to live and then turn left again by the closed Hathaway Shirt factory, the sign's been down for years, but you can't miss it, then drive by the Zayre, oh right, that hasn't been there in 20 years... don't know what it is now... but it's a strip mall sort of thing, then...)

 

http://www.webmd.com/brain/features/why-do-you-always-get-lost

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sense-of-direction-grid-cells-brain-_n_3708972

 

My son has dysgraphia and a proprioceptive motor disorder. Not being able to tell left from right is one of the minor symptoms.

[AmandaVT]

Oh this is me. So much me. 

 

I went to Charleston SC with my aunt a few years ago and every single morning when we walked out of the hotel, I forgot which direction we had to turn to get to the downtown area. 5 mornings in a row. 

 

DS has helped me navigate on more than one occasion. :-)

 

When I got to high school, it was much bigger than my grammar school. I got lost for months. I made a new friend who walked me to every class until I learned the routes. I think by senior year, I still struggled. 

 

GPS helps. In general, my life hasn't been that affected. Mostly, I just get teased in a good natured way on occasion.

[Guest]

What helped my son was multi sensory orienteering lessons. Start with just the body at sunset, stretch both arms out, pointing the left arm at the setting sun. That is west. Next morning at sunrise, do same with right arm pointing at sunrise. When that is internalized, use your pictorial view of the circle (perhaps chalked on the sidewalk), and bring the student to the realization he is facing north if right hand is stretched out to east, and left hand to west. Let the student work out south. Proceed with street map making... walk the route from home to destination, draw the map on the way. Take the route again, eventually going from paper map to mind map. Or join a running club and learn routes from other runners.multisensory plus effort to develop mind map is key. They should not memorize verbal directions, but should see landmarks and eventually the route in their mind.

Additionally, teach the memory technique of method of loci, linking or peg words to give visualization practice.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Heigh Ho

[Tiramisu]

I'm wondering if this is related to nonverbal learning disorder. ??

[kbutton]

I'm wondering if this is related to nonverbal learning disorder. ??

 

Me too.

 

I do think that a lot goes into visual and spatial processing (and those things can be different from one another).

 

You've gotten much more BTDT advice than I can give, but I would suggest getting a developmental vision evaluation by a COVD optometrist for starters (if you haven't already). I think these things can be layered, and sometimes something on a lower level can be fixed with a ripple effect on the others.

 

I have a kid who seems strongly VSL and seems to have visual processing issues at the same time. I am not sure how spatial stuff is--we've not done a lot with maps. I suspect he'll have a bit of a challenge switching between visual representations and hands-on stuff, but IDK for sure.

 

I do know that his profile of odd things means that visual and spatial are not necessarily the same!

[Deee]

This sounds very much like non-verbal dyspraxia to me. DS15 has it. I ignored the geometry section of maths until year 8 when he was ready for it. Its still the weakest part of his maths. Online map making for gaming, 3D drawing on various programs and lots of patience have helped. On really difficult days, we throw a squishy ball around for a while. Fortunately, he has my husband's fabulous sense of direction. My mother, on the other hand (who also has dyspraxia) couldn't find her own backside with a map and compass. She also struggles to tell left from right at 77 and swears someone has wired the world upside down. She blames it on being left handed. We don't use left and right for directions. We just point and say "go that way". She continues to have an amazingly productive life, has travelled all over the world, has been a brilliant nurse and is a fabulous mother and human being. But she has no sense of direction at all. None!

[Emba]

I was the child like that, though I'm not sure I can remember how I learned to navigate.

 

I liked your post because I too was a child like this, and I still haven't learned to navigate well.  :)  It's a disability, I keep telling my husband, who thinks it is pitiful/hilarious that I can't tell north from south, east from west, etc.  I wear my watch on my left hand and I have to look at it sometimes to make sure that what I'm calling left is actually left.

 

I don't know if I can explain this, but for me, learning to navigate by map didn't happen until after I got my driver's license, and it required a LOT of getting lost.  I had to learn to find my place on the map, then hold the map so that it was going the same way I was, not the north/south orientation that we generally see for maps in books.  Nope, not doing a good job explaining.  It was really hard to wrap my head around, still is sometimes.  I have to keep very careful track of each street as I pass it to connect the imaginary dot moving on the map with my progress in the real world.

 

I would start small, with hand-drawn maps of the neighborhood/areas that she knows VERY well, and slowly move up to areas she doesn't know well.

 

Not sure if I'm helpful.  This is still not an area I have really gotten skilled in, though I can make it.  I've traveled internationally without ever getting mugged, anyway.  But I get lost a lot.

[MistyMountain]

I think I have dyspraxia and I struggle with a sense of direction, maps and 3D spatial skills too. It is good to hear about others who need to go to a place lots of times before you know how to get there and who need directions and the steps written out there and back. I also need the directions from the same spot or else I cannot follow them. I used to not be able to use maps at all. Now if I do I need to hold it in the right direction and say each direction verbally. Geometry was very difficult for me.

[Deee]

"I had to learn to find my place on the map, then hold the map so that it was going the same way I was, not the north/south orientation that we generally see for maps in books."

 

Anyone who tells you that good navigators don't need to turn a map or that only women turn maps has no idea of navigating. I'm a former soldier, as is DH (who is an amzing navigator). The first thing soldiers are taught to do is to "orientate the map", that is, to turn the map so that it reflects the direction you are travelling in or so that north on the map aligns with true north (on a compass). Then you find where you are and hold the map so that map reflects whats on the ground and the direction you want to travel. Its called "map to ground" navigation and good navigators can walk for miles in difficult country without looking at a compass. Its not a fault, its a skill that reflects common sense.

[Terabith]

I have horrific spatial skills and honestly what helped the most was 1) playing video games and 2) GPS and printed directions to places.

[Tita Gidge]

Oh there are so many people here like me! :lol:

 

I still have to make 3D models out of paper. I was trying to describe a bed I want my brother to build. He's drawing as I describe it. What he drew is not computing so I cut out a bunch of paper and fold it and color it and show him in 3D exactly what I want. He's like, "Uh, yeah. Just like what I drew." Oh. Okay LOL.

 

I recognized myself in Tanaqui and dmmettler's posts. I, too, still make the "L" shape with my fingers to determine left from right.

 

I have to do drive-by practice runs.  Like, last week my auntie had to see a specialist. Two days before her appointment I drove the 40 minutes to the hospital so I could practice and time the drive. Then I drove to Starbucks for a tea, and home. The day of her appointment, my car drove itself to Starbucks on the way home. That stop got programmed into my auto-pilot LOL. I do this for the kids' activities, too, tournaments in different counties, etc. I did it for my first jury duty. My son's graduation. My other son's scout camp drop off. My daughter's friend's birthday party. My family doesn't understand it. But if I don't do it, the pressure of NEEDING to drive somewhere I've never been proves too much for me to process. Then I'm spatially-challenged AND anxious.

 

One of my sons has been doing some geo-caching and says it'd be good for me - kind of a low pressure way to build up confidence and learn how to use a GPS. I don't know how to use one with map. I use the one on my iPhone and just read the list rather than follow the map or listen to the voice. I keep detailed lists in the car, as described by other posters. The more detailed it is, the more confidence I have and the easier it is for me to get around - even if those extraneous details aren't used.  For example, here's how people give me instructions (and how I'd rather they be):

 

turn left (at the old oak tree, turn left)

go straight for a bit  (go for six miles and look for the yellow one-story house on the driver's side)

turn left at the stop sign (when you get to the four-way stop just past the yellow house, turn left)

 

Two of my sons do this geo-caching, and keep asking me to go with them. I wonder if something like that might help? (I haven't wanted to see for myself, but maybe your daughter does :lol: ). My son says it'd be low pressure and good for me to learn how to use the GPS. I'm thinking I'm an old dog and the GPS is too new a trick.

 

[Tanaqui]

My son says it'd be low pressure and good for me to learn how to use the GPS. I'm thinking I'm an old dog and the GPS is too new a trick.

 

I read an article on a study a while back that asserted that people who use GPS to navigate unfamiliar places rather than maps have less recall and navigation ability of those same places later, probably because they weren't interacting with their environment as much.

 

So if your goal is to increase your recall, trying to use GPS with a map probably won't hurt, especially if you can switch to the "give directions" GPS if you get lost. (Of course, let's be serious - some of us have poor recall no matter what. It's no crime to use a crutch if you need one. Hey, it's no crime to use a crutch if you don't.)

Edited July 25, 2016 by Tanaqui