Dyslexia/ADHD and composition/writing

[IvyInFlorida]

I would love some direction about how to get my almost 9yo son moving into composition-type writing.  He has dyslexia, ADHD, and is very slightly ASD.  He has made huge strides with handwriting, is progressing steadily through All About Spelling 2, and absolutely loves his typing program (Touch, Type, Read and Spell).  I think it's time to start nudging him toward composition, but thanks to his quirks, I'm at a loss as to how to approach this.

Some issues: he loves worksheets.  Loves knowing exactly how much he needs to do to get done with lessons.  Any time I have ever tried to be cross curricular or Charlotte Masony it backfires horribly.  I have learned to teach language arts skills separately to minimize frustration (so I can't do anything that aims to teach spelling and handwriting simultaneously, for example).  The oral-narration-leading-into-written-narration won't work--he gets very...I guess "suspicious" is the only word to describe it...if he thinks the history lesson is in any way crossing over into language arts.  Sort of the educational version of food touching on a plate apparently, haha.  Crafts and projects are a huge NO.

Anyways, if y'all have any suggestions for programs or strategies that are streamlined and progress very step-by-step, I'm all ears and would much appreciate it.  I spend a lot of time helping him work on his personality quirks, but I'd rather not do that at the same time I'm trying to teach him to create his own sentences!

THANKS!

[nixpix5]

I would say IEW All Things fun and fascinating would be a good start. It is methodical and step wise. It can be a bit repetitive but that is within your control as the teacher. It definitely gets results. 

This is what I plan to use with my ADHD/ASD kiddo and he sounds exactly like yours. He too gets suspicious so writing across the curriculum doesn't work very well with him. He did do WWE 1 and 2 with success. 

 

What I have found that he loved 2nd semester of this year was Moving Beyond the Page. Even though it is integrated, he worked through concept 1 and 3 of 6-8 and he really blossomed in writing. It caught me by surprise. I think the writing was open but still had purpose and prompts. It worked well. 

 

 

[PeterPan]

Have you done narrative language testing on him? You might do that and then let an SLP handle it if he has deficits. You can't really divorce writing and language issues, and the fact that he's shying away from language work (and anything expressive?) may mean he has narrative language deficits. So then, if it's not something you want coming into your relationship to deal with, then you're wanting an SLP to do it. 

If you want to work on narrative language issues, you can get speech therapy materials, try what Pegs has done with Bravewriter, whatever. For my ds, I'm doing the language work myself. My ds does well with the structure of worksheets, and we're doing tons of worksheets for language, yes. For actual writing, you'll find a bit. You can look at Evan Moor, Teacher Created, Carson Dellosa, etc. and see what calls to you. For us (ASD + SLDs), we really needed to go the language route, which isn't pretty by is foundational, sigh.

[IvyInFlorida]

I'm not sure what narrative language testing is, but his evaluator said he has expressive language problems, I think is what it's called. He seems to memorize things people say, and phrases from movies and TV shows, and uses them to express himself he even when it might not exactly make sense. Does that shed any light on the issue?

[MerryAtHope]

It might be a little early for composition yet. I found with my kids that it was much easier to begin a writing program sometime after Level 3 of All About Spelling. AAS has a gradual progression for increasing the student's stamina and fluency in writing, from words and short phrases in Level 1, to phrases and short sentences in Level 2, to 12 dictation sentences per step in Level 3.  Partway through this level, the Writing Station is introduced.  For that exercise, students write sentences of their own that they make up using some of their spelling words.

Dictation and the Writing Station both serve as an important bridge between spelling words in the context of lists (where the patterns are similar), and more “real world” writing.  By the end of Level 3, students have mastered about 1000 words from the regular and reinforcement lists, and they have developed stamina and some beginning editing skills that will help them when they start a formal writing program. Before that point, I found it easiest to work on any writing through narration and/or scribing (they talked, I wrote, and sometimes I had them take a few days to recopy what I had scribed.)

You could do shorter or more informal writing (lists of favorite things, short journal entries--let him draw a picture to go with--he can probably write and draw endless movie/tv scenes, LOL!)

You may want to look for programs that are incremental or mastery-based, or programs that are specifically recommended for students with learning struggles and disabilities. I found for my kids that Essentials in Writing worked really well. It's both multi-sensory and incremental--the author describes it as a Math-U-See approach to writing. The lessons are presented in short video segments of 3 to 5 minutes and then the student works on the concept that was taught. It also has grammar included for 1st-6th grade levels, and optional grammar dvd included in Jr. High levels. The teaching is very direct (which my oldest really needed--he never did well with "discovery-oriented" approaches and appreciated knowing exactly what to do and how to go about it.)

I know "almost 9" sounds really old when it's your oldest, but I just want to encourage you that you really have time and your son will get there. Help him work on expressing himself orally. Ask him questions about his favorite shows and characters, things he plays outside, activities he participates in--the more you can help him with expressing himself orally, the more prepared he'll be for writing a bit later on.

[Mandamom]

I would start with sentences. I find it very difficult to teach writing without the ability to put together a sentence. 

  I like dictation to begin but you can also do writing from pictures. You can add in grammar components as he improves. Say..."write two sentences and they must have a strong verb (IEW)  and an adjective or whatever piece you are working on. I teach with IEW so that is my foundation of writing instruction. You can also use pictures to have him create longer stories. You can also use simple writing prompts to get started. Continue to require grammar components and sentence should get longer and more complex. 

 

 

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, IvyInFlorida said:

I'm not sure what narrative language testing is, but his evaluator said he has expressive language problems, I think is what it's called. He seems to memorize things people say, and phrases from movies and TV shows, and uses them to express himself he even when it might not exactly make sense. Does that shed any light on the issue?

Yes, this is where we are right now. So your evaluator was a psych or someone at the school? The SLP can run the TNL (test of narrative language). What you're describing is scripting and echolalia, and yes what happens is it results in gestalt language processing. https://www.northernspeech.com/articulation-motor-speech/natural-language-acquisition-in-autism-echolalia-to-self-generated-language-treatment-level-2/ I'm not saying get this course, but she does talk about gestalt language processing and scripting and echolalia. My ds did it extensively too. Jist is, their brains are trying to go whole to parts and can't break the language down into parts. So he has everything probably receptively, but he can only rearrange the CHUNKS his brain has broken language down into, rather than the individual pieces. With my ds, the way it played out was that he was using lots of language but usually the same sentence construction EVERY. TIME. 

Has anyone talked with you about getting ABA or bringing in a behaviorist or BCBA to do VBA? VBA=Verbal Behavior Approach, and they go through all the stages of language acquisition. You can also talk with an SLP. Sometimes they'll be skillful in going back to those early, foundational (VBA) stages, and sometimes they won't be. They'll also have tools for narrative language. Thing is, narrative language is like step *21* in the larger process of language development, at least if you believe the VBA people and their textbooks.

I've got a thread going over on LC where I'm detailing things I'm doing with my ds. It's not the only way, but it happens that one of the workbooks I'm using is available as a pdf online for free. It's good stuff, really good stuff. It has been giving my ds a chance to work on expressive language and foundational skills in a really precise way. The workbook I link in that thread says it's for vocabulary but it hits what your autism people will call feature/function/class (FFC). It is helping my ds get more variety. For instance, think about it. How do you DESCRIBE a character for a narrative if you can't do attributes/features?? You can't. 

And of course an SLP would be happy to work with you. You could pour tons of hours into it and not be excessive. Just depends on what you can make happen with insurance, with funding, and who you want to do what. And of course it depends on your ds' starting point and where he needs to jump in. My ds needed to back up quite a bit. I think you can go with your gut there, kwim? Like if you look at something and go wow, that would be challenging for him, then it probably will be.

What I'm trying to do is make sure that everything we're doing, all these worksheets, he has to do expressively. So he can't just circle the answer, because the concept alone wasn't the point. He actually has to make a sentence to answer it, every single time. It's really challenging for him, which my behaviorist said is telling me we're hitting therapeutic level. It's not so hard he totally gives up and not so easy he breezes through it. 

There's also the Expanding Expression Tool and Story Grammar Marker. Both are good, standard things SLPs will do with these kids. I'm just doing other stuff *first* because my ds has enough language issues that he really needed more foundation. He has tons of language, but there wasn't enough variety and it wasn't easy enough jsut to get his original thoughts out.

That TNL (test of narrative language) btw bust through his scripting, no problem, because they can't script. So if you need to get him qualified and have test scores for insurance coverage, it might do the ticket. Also the CELF Metallinguistics test can show stuff on these kids.

 

[PeterPan]

When Mandamom is saying use a strong verb, well that goes back to the FFC. Functions are verbs. So my ds was struggling to say things like "You write with a pencil." For real. He could recite whole paragraphs from books, chunks from tv shows about tanks, and he melted when shown a picture of a pencil and when told to say what you can do with it. Sigh. So his starting point was further back and he needed the therapy materials to get him there. Now he can actually use verbs and not just say "They are..." for everything. 

For pictures, yes. I'm using a main ideas/details workbook with him right now from Linguisystems (listed in that other thread) that is really good. It starts with pictures. We've done sequencing with pictures, like workbooks you'd use with typically developing kids, and he really couldn't create a lot of language for them. He'd just say some really basic sentence. So we're going to get through the FFC portion of that free 100% Vocabulary workbook and THEN go back and try to work on narrating pictures, when he can use the verbs, when he can describe, kwim? I think it will go better, lol.

Also, narrating requires significant social thinking and perspective taking, which is a whole additional topic. The Mindwings (Story Grammar Marker) people have an autism kit that will give you lessons to work through that stuff and get it applying. It would be a good jump start. I've done lots of the Social Thinking stuff separately, and it's good. But if you haven't done any, then getting their autism kit would just jump you right into it in a really specific, practical way, with lesson plans on how it applies to writing. If you get it, I'd love to hear how it is. It looked terrific. Michelle Garcia Winner of Social Thinking speaks HIGHLY of the Mindwings stuff and endorses it in her workshops.https://mindwingconcepts.com/

[IvyInFlorida]

PeterPan, thanks so much for all this info.  I'm reading through your other thread and researching all the links.  I really appreciate you giving me so much to work with!