ADHD/SPD/ODD and possible spectrum...Math?

[MommaRox]

My daughter is in the process of an official diagnosis. She is 6 and will be 1st grade in the fall. I'd like to follow a classical model. 

 

I'd like advice on what to use. I tried Saxon Math k and 1...we were bored with both. I don't think Singapore would work for her (what I use with my older son).

 

She absolutely loves worksheets.

[PeterPan]

Daily Warmups Math Search Results « Products | Teacher Created Resources

 

Well we did Saxon K5 and liked it, but we did it when he was 3, kwim?  It sounds like she's very bright. My ds is gifted with ASD with SLDs, so for him it's taking a mix of things.  We use Ronit Bird for conceptual instruction.  I just gave his ABA tutor worksheets from the Teacher Created Resources (link above), and they're working out VERY well.  They have books on lots of topics, lots of levels, so I can mix things up.  The Daily Warm-Ups Problem Solving Math really makes them think and is good for collaborative work.  Even if she likes working alone, she needs that interaction of working together for something, collaborating.  The Daily Warm-Ups Math is more straightforward, with tiny amounts of writing.  It's just enough to balance out the almost exclusively hands-on approach I use with him in our sessions.  They also have some topical books like 

 

Cut and Paste: Math

 

Graphs & Patterns Grades 1-2

 

How to Work with Time & Money, Grades 1-3

 

Simple Graph Art

 

I haven't done the Cut & Paste Math.  They have it on multiple topics, and it looks fun.  We just started the Graphs & Patterns, and it's really fun.  It would be very accessible for her.  Obviously look at it.  Maybe it's too simple.  Remember my ds, though gifted, is working hard to do basic things like read the instructions, stay calm, and write or draw the answer.  Some of the worksheets in some of these books will suggest they write a sentence about the activity.  They're going to sign their names on the pages.  The graphing/patterns book has them draw small shapes.  There's a lot of skill there BEYOND the actual concepts.  For us, these are things he'll learn to do independently with the tutor.  We like having an independent work system of bins he can work through independently.  So you could have some worksheets she does with you, some that are independent.  

 

The Time & Money book is REALLY cute.  It has 12 units, each with a short (often hands-on) lesson and 3 worksheets.  None of this is like super-overwhelming stuff.  It would all just be fun.  The Graph Art books are fun, really fun.  We did the Holiday Graph Art this year and liked it.  I suppose some kids can do it independently.  We did it together.  If you're wanting to get in some fine motor, work on finger excursion (like we need to!), etc., then you might be looking for things to color.  I was just realizing we should print those pages 1/2 or even 1/4 size, hmm.  That would be good for his fine motor.  I like when I can hit multiple goals with my materials.  Score.   :D

 

If you have access to an ABA tutor or some funding to make that happen, I'll tell you that bringing in a behaviorist and an ABA tutor has been the greatest thing ever.  Lots of things we've done have been good this year.  OT was good, music therapy was good, gymnastics and swimming were good.  (And we're talking tons of those, like 3-4 days a week each).  But this ABA tutor thing and the behaviorist, WOW, WOW, WOW.  I was so stressed, so overwhelmed, buried so deep I couldn't paddle anymore.  They come in fresh and they only have 1-2 things to work on, where we are bogged down with everything.  It has been JET FUEL for us. 

 

Homeschooling doesn't allow certain skills to have enough experiences to generalize.  The ABA tutor is a way to get MORE people saying things, more people doing it, so that things generalize.  Huge, huge, huge difference here.  And he loves it and I love that things are calming down.  There's really kind of this impression with homeschooling, like oh if you just try hard enough it will be fine, you can love them through this, home makes it better, blah blah.  I'm saying the dirty secret is we need help.  Our kids are better when we get help.  And we sacrifice some things to get that!  Like it means he's not getting Ronit Bird every day but instead only 2 days a week.  Oh well, because now he's getting direct social thinking instruction 4 days a week and carryover from me the rest of the time.  My boy SHARED a ball!!!  And he UNDERSTOOD WHY he was doing it!!!  That's huge.  That's good stuff.  It's more important than academics, in reality, because their ability to hold a job, to engage with others, etc. is going to be limited by their social skills, not their academics.  

 

If she's not getting services from a behaviorist already, the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT thing you could be doing right now (aside from dealing with language disabilities and challenging behavior) is Social Thinking.  She's the perfect age for the Incredible Flexible You materials.  All her reading comprehension in later years will be limited by her social thinking skills.  I do *not* recommend strict classical to you, because it's not MEANT for this situation.  Now to be INSPIRED by it?  Sure.  But to do it strictly?  No.  Even to say well SWB is the guru and we're going to follow her writing progression.  Still worthless.  Because her autism is going to bring in all kinds of holes that WTM has no way to deal with.  I can't tell you what those holes will be.  I know I'm beginning to see what my ds' are.  I know at age 6 those holes *weren't* the things on our radar but that they glitch up his academics now.  

 

Your evals will (hopefully) look at language.  Make sure she gets a speech eval or at least the CELF or CASL.  Make sure they run a pragmatics.  Make sure that she begins Social Thinking materials after her evals and gets whatever amount of intervention your people consider appropriate.  My ds is getting 10 hours a week, and that's a really nice amount for us.  But definitely some kids would need more.  

 

Are you using visual schedules, etc. ?  I like Christine Reeve's stuff at Autism Classroom News.  She sells the kits inexpensively on Teachers Pay Teachers.  

 

Well that was a rant, hehe.  Really though, with my ds, easy things are hard and hard things are easy.  He started listening to Teaching Company lectures on his kindle in K5.  Who needs classical education when your mind is like that?  It's just silly.  So sequencing, telling you what comes before 8, that's hard for him.  College lectures and adult books on the history of science, easy.  So I make sure he gets that enriched environment and lots of exposures, sure.  He gets lots of History Channel and Smithsonian.  We've done a variety of things for science.  He did a grade leveled video science a couple years ahead and that was nice for him.  But what does it matter if he can't have appropriate behavior or understand what he's feeling or self-regulate, kwim?  He couldn't sing, and I wanted him to be able to sing!  We've spent a whole year going to music therapy, and now he can sit down and sing a song with me.  That's HUGE progress!  So you'll pick things that are important in your family and that improve her quality of life and her ability to interact and participate and enjoy people.  I want to do more art with him.  I'm concerned about the rigidity and anxiety showing up there, so I want to get him some experiences to work on that flexibility.  You can have fun with it.   :)

Edited May 12, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

Btw, the ABA tutor rips pages out of books and doesn't want anything stapled in packets.  Maybe that's part of what you're thinking with Singapore, that it's in thick, overwhelming workbooks instead of just one page at a time? I know they're not thick, but maybe to the dc they're thick, hard to bend, etc.  And it's a lot of language.  The language testing by the psych or SLP will give you some clues there.

Edited May 12, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Storygirl]

Take a look at CLE. It's a workbook based program with instruction written directly to the student. The student can work independently as much as they are able, but the teacher's manual includes good information for parents who need to provide additional direct instruction. It has worked well for all of my children, who have a variety of special needs. It is a spiral program with a lot of review.

 

www.clp.org

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree, if she likes worksheets then CLE might be more appealing, especially if you use the suggestions in the TM for more hands on stuff.  Lots of scaffolding for math fact practice separate from the concepts/algorithms.  The flash card set up for CLE is brilliant.  

[kbutton]

Do you know why she likes worksheets? We use worksheets here for lots of things, but not all worksheets are alike or are effective for the same reasons. I don't think that worksheets are incompatible with a classical model--doing FLL is kind of like building a worksheet as you go, step-by-step. :-) You can do worksheets that way as well. Anyway, I am not sure from your post if YOU like worksheets or are looking for an alternative, so I'm trying to cover a couple of possible viewpoints.

 

If she likes them for independence, independence is great...as long as she's learning to accept instruction at some point. (You can have a behavioral goal of accepting instruction at some point and get help working on that!)

If she likes them because they have a defined beginning and end/predictability, you can use other means of providing structure, so don't let that overly limit your math choices.

If she likes them because they are easy or give her a sense of "I can do this," then you might be able to find other ways of doing that too.

 

Basically, if you can find out what she likes about worksheets, you can apply that to get MORE curriculum options, not FEWER. 

 

You aren't going to know all that works and doesn't right out of the gate, but if you are getting a diagnosis, you need to also pursue practical help for the challenges, and that help should open up options, not make you feel hemmed in. (It can take some time to understand the options and feel like they do that! It might mean feeling more restricted at first to get greater freedom down the road a bit.)

 

We like Miquon (worksheets, but discovery-based) and Singapore here. If mine preferred worksheets and needed more spiral review, I would probably be looking at some version of Math Mammoth. My ASD kiddo would have been okay with Miquon if scaffolded a certain way and used as a supplement. I didn't know about it until he was past that stage, but he did some similar types of math in a Montessori preschool and did fine with it (as fine as he did with anything--he was undiagnosed at that point, so everyone who worked with him was flying blind).

[MommaRox]

OHElizabeth, Thank you for the great information. We are literally just starting her evaluations. We had an appointment this week but had to reschedule because they didn't tell me no siblings and that it would take 3 hours! (it was supposed to be an ADHD evaluation.) I will be able to read through your post and respond better at a later time...so much great information!

[MommaRox]

She likes all kinds of worksheets. She really enjoys writing. We're still working on reading/spelling, she is starting to write sentences on her own. Spelling is clearly not her strong suit and it is giving me a visual representation of how she is hearing words...ex: "mag" = make; "ples"=police; "firsday"=thursday. She would also draw/color all day long if she didn't have other things she needed to do.

 

I have no preference on worksheets, I want her to learn how ever she needs to learn and in a way that is enjoyable to her.

 

Do you know why she likes worksheets? We use worksheets here for lots of things, but not all worksheets are alike or are effective for the same reasons. I don't think that worksheets are incompatible with a classical model--doing FLL is kind of like building a worksheet as you go, step-by-step. :-) You can do worksheets that way as well. Anyway, I am not sure from your post if YOU like worksheets or are looking for an alternative, so I'm trying to cover a couple of possible viewpoints.

 

If she likes them for independence, independence is great...as long as she's learning to accept instruction at some point. (You can have a behavioral goal of accepting instruction at some point and get help working on that!)

If she likes them because they have a defined beginning and end/predictability, you can use other means of providing structure, so don't let that overly limit your math choices.

If she likes them because they are easy or give her a sense of "I can do this," then you might be able to find other ways of doing that too.

 

Basically, if you can find out what she likes about worksheets, you can apply that to get MORE curriculum options, not FEWER. 

 

You aren't going to know all that works and doesn't right out of the gate, but if you are getting a diagnosis, you need to also pursue practical help for the challenges, and that help should open up options, not make you feel hemmed in. (It can take some time to understand the options and feel like they do that! It might mean feeling more restricted at first to get greater freedom down the road a bit.)

 

We like Miquon (worksheets, but discovery-based) and Singapore here. If mine preferred worksheets and needed more spiral review, I would probably be looking at some version of Math Mammoth. My ASD kiddo would have been okay with Miquon if scaffolded a certain way and used as a supplement. I didn't know about it until he was past that stage, but he did some similar types of math in a Montessori preschool and did fine with it (as fine as he did with anything--he was undiagnosed at that point, so everyone who worked with him was flying blind).

 

[prairiewindmomma]

Have you looked at samples of Horizons? There's lots of color, circling, and each segment of the lesson is visually distinct so it's easy to do a short section, take a break, and come back again. I like the spiral review.  I think the key to overcoming the boredom would be do to some of the games mentioned in the IG if she's open to that and incenting to do a small bit, take a break, and come back to it.   

[kbutton]

She likes all kinds of worksheets. She really enjoys writing. We're still working on reading/spelling, she is starting to write sentences on her own. Spelling is clearly not her strong suit and it is giving me a visual representation of how she is hearing words...ex: "mag" = make; "ples"=police; "firsday"=thursday. She would also draw/color all day long if she didn't have other things she needed to do.

 

I have no preference on worksheets, I want her to learn how ever she needs to learn and in a way that is enjoyable to her.

 

Well, that opens up your options and is good!

 

It sounds like you might want a screening for auditory processing. Most places won't do full testing until age 8 (or kicking and screaming at age 7), but they can do a SCAN III screening that might tell you some useful things about that aspect of things. Auditory processing issues can absolutely translate to behavior and sensory issues, but not all auditory processing profiles look the same. If you google APD/CAPD, I would caution you to think "which symptoms does she have," not "does she have enough symptoms to think this is going on." Things like ADHD are going to be "number/intensity" of symptoms-based, but a person can literally have one problem with auditory processing (say, hearing in background noise), and have SERIOUS trouble with auditory processing. This is kind of the definitive book on the subject, but the field is changing all the time. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1KYPB_enUS597US601&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=when%20the%20brain%20can%27t%20hear 

 

You might look into books by Tin Man Press. They are very unconventional worksheets that promote some interesting ways of thinking. 

 

You might also look into Scholastic stuff--they used to have some great dollar days sales on e-books, and I would print a page here and there as needed. It appears that they've moved to a subscription service. They have a variety of workbooky things that can be fun, including little books that I think they call "Read and Write" books. Each little foldable book covers a concept like desert animals. The kids read, label things, answer questions, write a bit. I think they are meant to be independent with say 2nd-3rd graders, but for younger kids with a little help (and not being nutty about spelling), they can be a great little project for a kid who likes to write and draw and learn little snippets at a time.

 

I don't have a lot of mathy workbook suggestions other than what I already mentioned.

[PeterPan]

Three hours if awfully short for an autism eval.  If you can make sure you get complete testing done, it's going to give you a LOT more information to work with.  If you were going to an autism clinic, they would run SLP, OT, psych, play observation, etc., all in one long day.  Now sometimes a neuropsych will run tests that an SLP can run (CELF, etc.).  With what you're saying about her spelling, you'd like to know how she's hearing sounds (phonological processing) which takes a CTOPP.  Depending on IQ, they may go ahead and diagnose dyslexia.  She is NOT too young to get an SLD diagnosis.  My ds is a bonus boy like that, with SLDs + ADHD + ASD.  :)  

 

Have you had her hearing eval'd?  If you have time and coverage or a way to get it done affordably, you could think about whether it's warranted.  My ds has speech problems *and* was not responding to people, so between the two we felt like an audiology eval was wise, just to make sure we weren't missing anything.  He was fine, but somethings that's part of the picture too.  Our university can do an eval AND run the SCAN3 for $35.  It's quite the deal!

 

I would be cautious about a spiral review approach.  Find out her IQ and propensities before you do that.  If there's spectrum, you're going to have challenging behavior any time they're bored.  Life provokes that enough without additionally provoking it with a fixed workbook.  Just saying.  So that's an approach that works for some kids and not others.  And the things I listed were not so much instructional materials.  They're more the types of pages teachers in school would use at math stations, morning warm-ups, etc.  

 

Yeah, the no siblings thing will be par for the course.  Hopefully you can get it rescheduled.  Hopefully you'll learn a lot more even than you anticipate!  

[PeterPan]

Oh, I just saw Kbutton mentioned audiology!  :)  It's really true though.  Don't even overthink it.  When you know they're presenting with phonological problems and not responding, it's just one of those reasonable explanations to want to eliminate.  Our uni won't run the full screening portion of the SCAN3 on a 6 yo but they did a little with my ds.  You can at least have that conversation.

 

You know another super good resource is Timberdoodle.  Their curriculum stuff is not necessarily *perfect* for ds, but I find myself going there a LOT these days.  The FLAVOR, the tone is PERFECT for him.  Does that make sense?  Like the whole flavor of WTM (top down, do it because I told you, summarize this and care because I said to) is just SO not where he's at.  The happiness of Timberdoodle, the idea of oh we'll be interested in this at some point, it's ok to have fun, take a deep breath, do some doodle books, this is really where he's AT, kwim?  If I HAD to buy one set, I would be buying Timberdoodle.  Seriously.  

 

And fwiw, drawing is on the list of things the ABA tutor wants to do with ds, so she's really happy with the doodling books Timberdoodle recommends.  They're actually really valuable to our kids from a therapy standpoint, a social thinking perspective, because they're having to take perspectives, imagine the scenario from the elephant's point of view, etc.  It's really good!  So don't discount the value of happy things, kwim?  Those things are EASY for NT kids, but for our kids they're actually work!  And to me, I'm not worried about whether he can do history.  He can enjoy college lectures.  He's got history nailed.  I want him to be able to relate to other kids, play with toys, have a playdate where he is appropriate, draw/sing/silly dance, that kind of thing.  What does it MATTER if I nail history but he doesn't have QUALITY OF LIFE because he can't participate in those other things he wants?  I think it enriches his life to be able to sing.  I'm looking into getting him art lessons.  The autism charter is also adding some kind of drama program, so maybe in a year we can add that in!  I see him with his peers, and his socially typical peers HAVE these skills and it gives them PLEASURE to have these skills.  So, to me, that's where I'm putting my money, not more history.  

 

But you know, walk your journey.  That's just how we're walking ours.  :)

[KSinNS]

MUS is a big hit here for math (ASD with one, ADD with 2 kids). Big, wide open, reassuring worksheets. Nothing cluttered or scary looking. Repetitive lesson structure. They are dull and the word problems are not too challenging, but they have worked great for us. I am supplementing with BA now and with MM in the past. Also, it is easy to speed up or slow down as necessary. I teach the lesson rather than Steve because he was too chatty for us. Alpha was not my favourite book, so I'm not using it with my current 6 yo, but I like the rest of the elementary series. My 11yo has moved on to AOPS with little trouble.