HFA 9 Year Old Struggles with WWE

[kbradfie]

My HFA son is in 4th grade. We are currently working on WWE 3, after repeating WWE 2 last year. He is really struggling with it. Any copy work he does is fine, but he struggles with dictation, recalling story details, and summarizing. 

 

With the recall and summarizing I've tried different things such as having him read it, following along with me while I read, or just listening to me read it while he keeps his hands busy. We've also tried giving him some wiggle activities to do while he reads, so that he doesn't just have to sit still while he is reading. No matter what I've tried, he still struggles to recall details from the story. Since he can't recall details the summarization is difficult as well.

 

With dictation he struggles to hold the sentences in his head. He is ok if they are shorter, but as the sentences have increased in length he is struggling more. 

 

I don't know what to do from here. Nearly every WWE lesson feels like a failure because he struggles so much and doesn't seem to be improving. He gets frustrated with himself for not being able to remember things. Does anyone have any ideas on how to help him improve with this? Are there alternative writing programs out there that would work better for a kid like him? I'm open to switching to a different curriculum if I thought it would work better for him.

 

 

[Kanin]

If he feels like a failure after every lesson, then I'd change things up big time! One thing you can do is make some "retelling cards." There are lots of them out there, but they're cards (with pictures, hopefully) for Main Character, Setting, Problem, Wish, Events, Solution, etc. The child lays them on the table and uses them as anchor points while they retell the story. They're great!

If that doesn't work, I'd back off and do something easier. You don't want him to feel like a failure with this.

[kbutton]

I wonder if Visualizing and Verbalizing would help with this. I think it's to get kids picturing the story in their head so that details stick. If he visualizes well, but can't recall, maybe it will still help attach information to the pictures.

 

Teach Me Language is a broad resource for language and kids on the spectrum. It takes you through a lot of exercises meant to give building blocks for school activities just like this, but it has more things in it as well. It's pretty systematic.

[PeterPan]

Sorry I missed this yesterday!  Sigh, this is the kind of thing that makes me so angry about WWE.  When people read WTM, WWE, etc., there's just no recognition of how out of reach or inappropriate it is for many kids or how much it needs to be MODIFIED or used as INSPIRATION rather than methodology.  Ugh.

 

Yes, WWE is a clinical (dry) approach to something that is a disability with your dc.  If you look through your evals, no doubt your dc has low working memory.  That's why it's maxing out with WWE.  It's also incredibly probable that your dc has issues with sequencing, language, etc.  Has your dc had ABA or the detailed evals like ABLLS or VBMAPP that they do for ABA?  I'm just asking.  Mine hasn't either, but we know he has holes and are working on them.  

 

So yes, depending on how many holes there are and the degree, you're going to want to back up to something MEANT for autism or MEANT for therapy to intervene on those holes.  You'll all be a lot happier, and you'll make more progress by backing up and filling in the holes to give him a good foundation to go forward.  After all, that was the POINT of WTM in the first place.  WTM wants you to have a firm foundation to move forward.  It's just some kids need more detailed work to get there, with nothing left to chance.

 

I like TML, yes.  I got some really nice 6-8 sequencing cards when I was at the SocialThinking workshop this spring.  Linguisystems has a series I've been eyeing.  https://www.linguisystems.com/itemdetail.php?itemid=10413

 

TML hits a lot of areas very cursorily.  I really like it for raising my attention to realize ok, this is an issue and this is why x other curriculum was too big a leap, because this skill/hole wasn't there.  But it hits so many things that you're going to find yourself fleshing it out.  That's why I'm saying all these other things too, because to me it's not just buy one thing, bam done, at least not with my ds.  

 

Right now I'm using the IEW fables book.  I think that's what it is.  We did the first story using a long sheet of poster paper, drawing out the scenes, writing little key word summaries.  This 2nd one went better.  I think asking them to do too many steps is confusing.  There's just an endless supply of narration material at that level.  Right now, I'm content that he listened to the paragraph and drew something.  I decided I didn't give a flip what he drew, like whether it was the most important thing, so long as he drew SOMETHING.  

 

But remember, to get to that point, he spent the summer doing Doodle books (from Timberdoodle!) with his ABA tutor.  And they've been working on getting him to listen to read alouds.  And we did a LOT of language work to get his language skills up so that he UNDERSTOOD what he was hearing.  If your language isn't there, you're not going to engage or comprehend.  You want up to date language testing.  They can't draw for academics if they can't draw AT ALL, kwim?  The doodling books from Timberdoodle are really fun, and again I have him do them with the ABA tutor.  He'll get stuck and try to draw bats on every page (because he was in a bat phase) or whatever, and she'll know how to handle that.  It was more important for him to draw SOMETHING than to have it be perfect.

 

I scribe too.  

 

So I'm saying don't expect ALL the steps the curriculum wants, even if you switch.  Teeny tiny baby steps.  Like draw pictures for the scenes yourself, read the story, and have him sequence them while you say the sentences.  Baby steps.  Or screw curriculum and get therapy materials to do that more easily.  Super Duper has sets that do that incredibly well.  Things need to be engaging.  WTM doesn't give a rip about engagement.  I'm being nasty there.  I'm just pointing that out.  Like, hello, if you're going to do sequencing and the kid has autism and isn't engaged, you're going to have to switch to something that DOES engage them or at least get them interested in the topic enough that they want to do it.  So like a 9 yo, how about comics?  Read the comic strip from the paper, then cut it up and sequence!  Way better.  Teeny tiny steps.  

Edited September 17, 2016 by OhElizabeth