X-Post (w/K-8): Advice needed re: my 6 year old son's math struggles. Trouble focusing on details. (ASD parents please chime in too!)

[pehp]

I just posted this in k-8 but I realized not everyone, especially maybe not more seasoned homeschoolers, might read that regularly.  So I'm cross-posting it here, if that is alright.  If not--just let me know.  Thanks!

 

I am looking for some advice from seasoned homeschoolers on an issue I am having with my son.  He's almost 7 and I suppose we are at the end of 'first grade'.  I feel like he's struggling right now in math a little bit, and I can't pinpoint exactly what the issue is. He's a very analytical child and will spend HOURS drawing pictures (he's a very good artist), designing sets/backdrops for play, designing and building a small lake with dam/spillway, etc.  He's on the spectrum, which mostly manifests for him in LOTS of talking about his current 'passion'. Uber-focused on the things that grab him.   He is doing well in reading (we do ETC and OPGTR, and he does fine with both; he's also sort of 'taking off' in reading now, finally, which may account for some of his math struggles--his brain is language-focused at this time?).  He enjoys the other things that we do for school.  But math is giving us some issues.  He seems to understand concepts just fine (addition, subtraction, simple multiplication, balancing equations) but at times it's like there's a WALL or a BLOCK and he just can't get around it; this results in wails of frustration or even crying.  For instance, today I asked him (as a preliminary to a problem we were doing) "so, fifteen minus what equals zero?" He totally understands this concept, but it was like he had a fuzzy brain.  He just couldn't seem to figure it out.  He puzzled for a second and then just got frustrated and started to get weepy. He even asked to use his c-rods. It was as though he couldn't focus, couldn't think straight or clearly...on a problem that is fundamentally simple. 

 

I can't determine what the problem is here.  He eats a decent breakfast (maybe he needs more animal protein at breakfast, EVERY day.....).  I'm not sure if the lesson is too long (more on that in a minute)--although he seems to have this issue of focusing at the beginning of a lesson just as much at the end, although I need to pay closer attention to that to be 100% sure; if he's somehow getting the concept but getting lost or confused when it comes to the 'details' (I'm a big-picture person and I am not interested in minutiae, so I sort of get that); if he's just being lazy (he typically doesn't want to start school, though once we get going he's okay); if he's just tired, or what.  I am not sure of the signs of learning problems--I wish my mother were alive because she was an LD specialist and a pro at figuring out children's needs.  I'd give anything to talk to her about this!

 

Today I timed the lesson and we spent 40 minutes on math. I was surprised at how long it took (this was for 2 pages of Miquon, Red book).  So I am pondering cutting it down to about 20 minutes per day for a while to see if we 'perk up' on this amount and are able to handle it better.  I don't want to fatigue him when he's already seeming to have problems focusing.  I also took the pencil and wrote the answers for the second page today; I am trying to streamline it for him so that his job is thinking, not writing (or ERASING--he'll dawdle!).  

 

I bought Muggins Math Knock-Out game and he and I played it last Sunday for the first time.  We loved it and he really enjoyed it (we played 2 games, just the 2 of us)....when we finished the second game he was ready to move onto something else.  But he did pretty well with figuring out the concepts (adding combinations of numbers to get to a number). 

 

I think math is vitally important and it is also fun, but it sure seems painful here lately and so I'm trying to figure out what the issue is and how we can solve it.  Any suggestions would be MUCH appreciated.  TIA!