Free 2e Movie

[displace]

If anyone is interested in watching the 2e movie, it's free this week after signing up on e-mail.  I started watching it to make sure the links work and I'm not spamming the hive, but I haven't seen more than a few minutes.  You can only watch it this week (July 18 is the last day).  The group supporting it, Bright and Quirky, seems to have other seminars and self-educational topics but I haven't spent much time with them yet either.

Link to sign up: https://brightandquirky.com/2e-movie-signup/

[SeaConquest]

I'm curious what other people thought, after watching the film. I don't want to spoil it for others.

[EKS]

2 hours ago, SeaConquest said:

I'm curious what other people thought, after watching the film. I don't want to spoil it for others.

I watched it too and would also be interested in a discussion.

[PeterPan]

Go ahead and discuss. I don't think I watched it and can't remember why. 

I'm trying to watch it now, in my post lake, bleary state. I can tell you right off the bat with their rah-rah brief intro video that they aren't interviewing *my* kid. Let's see. I guess you could say my ds is 3E? Nobody talks about that. Even people who talk about ASD are like oh gifted plus ASD2 isn't a thing, it's more ASD1. So that's fine if they interviewed a bunch of kids from a school, when that sample is self-selected (kids who could go to a school with that support level, who had language to be able to attend that school and function at that school) and they want to engage in their 2E has great outcomes rah rah mess.

So let's watch it and see, sure. I know nothing about this Bridges Academy so maybe there are kids like mine or maybe they need a few more Es. The director is excited the kids are thriving, and I'm like I'll just be excited if my kid doesn't kill someone. We're not on the same planet.

But you know, it's debates I have, how you address that internal boredom and drive while also addressing the profound challenges and need for intervention. Or you could say not a need. We could just accept constant disability and say how great it is. Whatever, that's a rant. Just saying it's right where I'm thinking right now. But if they're going to imply that acceptance and stimulation overcomes everything, that's poppycock. Hard work, serious research, evidence-based interventions, that's where it's at. Unless these 2E are really at that quirky level. Mine is at profanity level.

So let's see if they address profanity level kids haha. It already sounds like the rah-rah is going to miss it.

[EKS]

My two cents:

Many of the characteristics they are attributing to "2e" are actually gifted characteristics.  For example, asynchrony.  It's just that asynchrony is exacerbated in 2e kids, but just how it is exacerbated depends on the nature of the second e.

They are lumping all 2e kids into essentially one basket when the fact is that the nature of the second e defines the character of the 2e-ness.

It seemed to me that all of the kids that were interviewed had behavioral/social/emotional issues.  Where were the kids with dyslexia and other SLDs?

They seem to be more interested accommodation/modification than remediation--for example, the comic strip assignments for chemistry.

In fact, their actual approach to education wasn't really highlighted, though I guess there were a few things like how they prefer to focus on strengths.  It seemed to be mostly about acceptance of quirks.

I would love to know how kids who graduate from Bridges end up doing in the real world.

Overall, a big disappointment.

[PeterPan]

I'm 30-34 minutes in and it's finally getting interesting. They're talking about the relationships between the kids, the friction and power struggles. I think that *camraderie* was a big factor. Obviously when you go from not belonging to belonging, that's big. They're also setting up their own, artificial world where everything works. Some of the skills will generalize and transfer out, but that's going to be a bump, for sure. I see the same phenomenon in the autism schools around here.

Ok, a little more interesting. 36 minutes in they're pondering depression. Having btdt with a teen, it's an interesting analysis. I don't know if it will happen with ds, because he's so all over the place. But it's interesting. 38 minutes hitting under-achievement as a comfort zone. I was just thinking they weren't ever going to PUSH a bit, mercy. 

Their class schedule (earlier in the video) was interesting too. 83X? with 18 minute transitions and a 42 minute lunch.

38:50 going into the problem when you don't read and write but are super bright

We were doing so well through 46-47, seeing the growth through the small peer hothouse. Now at 48 they're going into the look colleges accepted us mess, which we know is a rabbit trail. The kids have to survive college (or find another path) and then be employable. Now I tend to think the social skills and emotional regulation would transfer well. It seems when you look at for what they were EMPHASIZING, they were all in at this Bridges on emotional regulation, awareness, social. 

It leaves you thinking these are kids who would have been as they are with any reasonable, interactive instruction. Like the parents could have homeschooled, and the kids would have blossomed. The parents are happen, but kids blossom. We know that, that the miracle isn't exclusively US or our magic. Kids blossom. Now you can squash them down with tons of harmful experiences, sure. But just in general, when watered, kids blossom. 

Yeah, kid at 48-ish is going to go to PACE University and thinks it will be like Bridges but with more people. Seriously? That's some stellar crash and burn preparation.

I'm still chewing on the sing your own song gig at 49. I mean, think about it, that's the whole conflict we all have, how to balance intervention-driven change with joyful living. They definitely gave the kids a lot of structure. I really want to think about that time schedule and do the math on that. That's how many subjects, longer breaks. And only one of the kids they interviewed had a significant, glaringly obvious language disability. So what about all the kids they DIDN'T interview at Bridges? Those are the stories I'd like to hear.

What did you think of the pi day number recitation? It sounds like it met social skills goals for them. Kinda also the kind of thing you wouldn't talk about anywhere else, lol. 

So the final picture, at 50:05, looks like 30 kids, multiple ages, and teachers. So we could look up Bridges and see, but there's also the question of what grades they're doing it with. So you have a specific, self-selected community of kids who fit this support level, and you have the ages when they do this. Some of those classes were 9-11, etc. So if they're doing it high school, then the kids are told sorry charlie deal wth intervention and sucky life a few years. The kids are past the basic foundational levels we might be building that aren't so conducive to really open-ended explorations.

The other thing is we go back to the unfortunate DSM. It sounds like these are kids who have lots of pieces of issues and weren't quite getting to evals. So I guess we should call some of our kids 3E or 4E to be more accurate. Or 5E? Haha.

I guess the effect overall is frustrating because it's such a narrow segment. Or is it a bigger segment? I think what it shows is the DANGER of launching a kid into a situation where it's speaking to his support but not his ability.

I don't know that the camraderie is an easily solvable issue, sigh.

[PeterPan]

From here click the grades for descriptions. https://www.bridges.edu/philosophy.html

[PeterPan]

So in 4-6 they do academics 4 days a week and full day enrichment (cooking, film, newspaper, project based learning, etc.) on Fridays. Grades 7/8 they switch enrichment to twice a week classes. 

Playing with the numbers here

83+18

83

42 lunch

83+18

83

10-pack up

=7 hours

So that means they would have possibly humanities and math every day and then 2 sessions (arts, tech, fitness, enrichments) that cycle through the week. But then when is science? Maybe science, humanities, math every day and then rotating through the enrichments.

I just think with our highly scattered goals and lifestyle that they're really onto something there. Notice the rooms are entirely white, with white walls, white decor, white furniture, very chill.

Grades 4-6 it looks like maybe they do math, science, humanities daily and then supplements (art, drama, music, fitness) with Fridays for the project-based and full day projects. That seems very age-appropriate to me, very developmentally appropriate, a  path that could work for us. Thinking I might steal that...

There's also a sense in which we can make sense of our interventions by labeling them under the things they're doing. Like they do art, we go to art therapy. They do "advisory" and we have a behaviorist or go to RDI. In a way it's similar. 

I wonder if they actually publish or make available the "curriculum" they're using for math? Just curious about it.

Their "dual differentiation" is an interesting point and harder to achieve. The science teacher was kind of crazy. You can say all you want they're doing grad level work, but reality is they cna't do the rest of what goes with functioning in that environment. That's like when I told my 5 yo to say he was in college because he was listening to college lectures.

Here are the games they say they're using for drama in gr4-6. https://spolingamesonline.org

Ok, they say something really important here in the descriptions. For gr4-6 humanities and science, they're doing research and presentations. So in a way, that's the merging of disability intervention (SLD writing, apraxia, reading, you name it) and the need to interact with content and concepts on their level from their angle. It's the total opposite of the read/regurgitate thing and the heavy emphasis on narration and content-learning. Instead it's a focus on process learning and engagement to get skills. So what the IS we used this spring said was to keep him INTERESTED. She's like as long as he's INTERESTED, we're winning. So it's almost like they're saying we don't give a flip what you learn as long as you get the skills (language, writing, etc.) along the way and are engaged. 

So it's a lot to chew on. It's pretty idealistic to think my ds could go into a setting like that. I don't know. They're 1:5 support in grades 4-6, which is really telling. He'd have a learning curve. But to recreate that on 1:1 isn't so dumb. It's sort of the next step for us. We've gotten a lot of pieces that we can now pull together. Pulling together to read a textbook isn't worth much for him, because it's a distraction from the other things that need to be worked on (language, self-regulation, etc.). I know someone doing this project/presentation gig with her kids to good effect, so it doesn't seem so crazy to me. It would or could be engaging. It's not scattered at least and not oppositional.

[PeterPan]

So I'm thinking about this some more, and it's a LOT of science. Like I'm thinking about the local dyslexia school and their schedule, and I don't know if they spend that much time on enrichments. As EKS says, they seem not to be aiming for your dyslexics and typical SLDs but more the emotional regulation, social delays, sensory, etc. They mentioned SLD writing, yes. Their projects across the subjects would address it.

I think there's a sense in which ds' academic SLDs are so funky that they could almost respond better to projects.

[EKS]

37 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

So I'm thinking about this some more, and it's a LOT of science. Like I'm thinking about the local dyslexia school and their schedule, and I don't know if they spend that much time on enrichments. As EKS says, they seem not to be aiming for your dyslexics and typical SLDs but more the emotional regulation, social delays, sensory, etc. They mentioned SLD writing, yes. Their projects across the subjects would address it.

I think there's a sense in which ds' academic SLDs are so funky that they could almost respond better to projects.

I suspect that the writing issues in the school stem from many things, not just SLD, and in fact, my impression of what was going on with the girl who did the comic strips because of her writing issues was that writing itself wasn't the core problem.

I honestly don't understand how you deal with project-based output with kids who have clinically significant EF issues.  That said, my 2e (dyslexic) adult son thrived in a project-based college experience--but that was after his EF had had a chance to gel.  In high school it would have been hit or miss, and probably mostly miss.

[PeterPan]

7 minutes ago, kand said:

 How long did it take you to get the link? I signed up yesterday, but haven’t gotten anything. 

https://hub.brightandquirky.com/2e-movie-screening/

[PeterPan]

8 minutes ago, EKS said:

I suspect that the writing issues in the school stem from many things, not just SLD, and in fact, my impression of what was going on with the girl who did the comic strips because of her writing issues was that writing itself wasn't the core problem.

I honestly don't understand how you deal with project-based output with kids who have clinically significant EF issues.  That said, my 2e (dyslexic) adult son thrived in a project-based college experience--but that was after his EF had had a chance to gel.  In high school it would have been hit or miss, and probably mostly miss.

It's a good point, and I was thinking 4-6 because that's where my ds is. I didn't even look at what they're doing for high school to see how it shifts. 

So it looks like for high school they do 2-3 core plus electives and self-driven with mini-sessions for electives as well. So if that's right, they're alternating math and science or humanities and science in those 5 week blocks. A lot of compromise basically to make room for so much self-driven and interest-driven study.

[PeterPan]

If you were trying to use the ideas of the film to translate into occasional (one day a week, every other week) settings that would build camraderie for our kids like what they were getting at Bridges, what would it be, how would you do it? 

I guess the 1:5 is one good point. If it's not that, you can't get there. That was for gr 4-6, but point remains, very high, active support.

Might not even matter what it is, if the support is that high, hmm.

[Lecka]

I followed the link to the school website, and they have a quote at the top from Rudolf Steiner, the Waldorf guy.  

I remember the woman from Bridges who spoke at the Quirky Kids Conference (whatever it was called).  I thought she was great.  

I looked her up — her name was Susan Baum and this was her book: https://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Learning-Disabled-Strength-Based-Twice-Exceptional/dp/1618216449/ref=nodl_

 

[PeterPan]

I need to review Zucchini's introduction of himself. He mentioned having restricted interests and that he decided they weren't good for him, that they took him to a dark place. I don't know if I'm remembering it correctly. It's just kind of an interesting thought because on the one hand we're saying do more that interests them, and then wait is it healthy...

[Heathermomster]

DS would never be able to sustain 82 minutes straight on a subject. For breaks, we set timers of 5-10 minutes.

The behavior mentioned was interesting and is an example of everything DH and I were warned about when discussing possibly placing DS at the local dyslexia school. NO ONE that knew my son wanted him in that environment.....DS is kind and compassionate and funny.  He was the opposite of a behavior problem, and disrespecting teachers never happened.  

Project based learning (PBL) was incorporated every year that DS was homeschooled through science labs, computer literacy, and AutoCad classes.  DS taught himself 3D rendering and project design by molding plastics, working with wood, sewing, and painting in his spare time. I provided the materials and left him to his own devices.  Son’s informal logic and Spanish teachers both incorporated PBL in their classes.  DS created and presented his own business brochures, t-shirts, and advertising PPTs. PBL was one facet of teaching.

I don’t know what I think of that movie because I don’t see my DS in those kids except for the PE element.  DS remains uncoordinated but loves bike riding, playing air soft and paint ball, fishing, and hiking.

 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Heathermomster

[EKS]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

If you were trying to use the ideas of the film to translate into occasional (one day a week, every other week) settings that would build camraderie for our kids like what they were getting at Bridges, what would it be, how would you do it? 

I would make the social stuff primary--camaraderie, like you mention.  Then I would have high input/high discussion/low output academics.  I would also open it up to carefully screened gifted NTs (if that isn't an oxymoron) to increase the neurodiversity.

[EKS]

17 minutes ago, Heathermomster said:

DS would never be able to sustain 82 minutes straight on a subject. For breaks, we set timers of 5-10 minutes.

Exactly--this is why I don't think that their target population is dyslexia or other SLDs.

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, Heathermomster said:

DS would never be able to sustain 82 minutes straight on a subject.

Fwiw, I'm thinking those classes are very low key, not intense, not barreling. Like when you go in an autism school around here, the world slows down. Now dyslexia schools, they're a bit different, much more up tempo, busy. But the autism schools (and what I see of the video seems similar) is very quiet, slow pace, really promoting calm and engagement and making sure you're present.

1 hour ago, EKS said:

Exactly--this is why I don't think that their target population is dyslexia or other SLDs.

The people profiled in the movie are also in the book (at least some, I was skimming amazon samples) and it seems pretty obvious most would get or had what would be ASD under DSM5.

Actually, it's finally making sense to me. Like I said, almost none of them had language disabilities. One dc in the whole movie, and even with his he had enough language he might have skimmed by in the ps. So in the book the principal points out that these are kids who qualify under ASD medically but would not get an IEP because they don't meet the federal definition. That's what we hit on for several years, trying to demonstrate and find a way to show that ds met the legal criteria in our state. 

So because the kids have significant needs but can survive academically, they get squat in the ps. This is the plight of ASD1 in our county, so apparently that's what was happening there. No IEP but not flourishing in the system. So you pull them out and work with them and they blossom. And that explains why they're not having to do the interventions the ASD2-3, language disability kids need, because these are kids that don't have it or at least not on the level my ds does. You could show something on a CELF-metalinguistics maybe.

So yeah, that's the thing. If they're not dealing with what we're dealing with, it's still not good enough. Basically for these kids it sounds like engagement plus social/emotional intervention was enough. So it's really cool they have the option, just not quite as far as what my ds needs. But it gives you a picture of what it would look like without the language issues. It's just when you add the language and significant SLD issues, that's a lot trickier to have so much time to spend on interest-led. Unless we can somehow harness interest-led. Sigh. 

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

I would make the social stuff primary--camaraderie, like you mention.  Then I would have high input/high discussion/low output academics.  I would also open it up to carefully screened gifted NTs (if that isn't an oxymoron) to increase the neurodiversity.

Taking the output low is probably the key. Normally people are looking for output help, but that's basically the big differentiation. So eliminating that makes sense.

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, Heathermomster said:

I don’t know what I think of that movie because I don’t see my DS in those kids except for the PE element.

I would totally agree with that. He didn't have the layers of social-emotional issues these kids have. In that sense their use of 2E is inaccurate and hiding the real issue. 

[PeterPan]

So then the best question--would your dc do well at that school? Could concepts from there transfer over to your homeschool setting?

[EKS]

35 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Actually, it's finally making sense to me. Like I said, almost none of them had language disabilities. One dc in the whole movie, and even with his he had enough language he might have skimmed by in the ps. So in the book the principal points out that these are kids who qualify under ASD medically but would not get an IEP because they don't meet the federal definition. That's what we hit on for several years, trying to demonstrate and find a way to show that ds met the legal criteria in our state. 

So because the kids have significant needs but can survive academically, they get squat in the ps. This is the plight of ASD1 in our county, so apparently that's what was happening there. No IEP but not flourishing in the system. So you pull them out and work with them and they blossom. 

I wish they would have specified that the school was for gifted kids with ASD and ASD-like behaviors rather than using the blanket term 2e. 

 

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I wish they would have specified that the school was for gifted kids with ASD and ASD-like behaviors rather than using the blanket term 2e. 

 

Do you think maybe it's unfashionable to say your dc is ASD? After all, in the movie you have the mom saying to the dad that he is like the ds. And yeah, they're dancing 30 ways around it. There are communities where it's not cool to say it or to say you have any disability. We have an autism school near us that is also in sort of a bizarre autism denier camp. They don't say that, but it's how they function. They do tons of things to look typical (prom, trips, blah blah) and view ASD as this problem you can solve with volition and choice. So those are pretty high functioning kids who can play the game and the parents don't want ASD to be the discussion.

And who's to say it's unhealthy for these kids? By simply saying what they need, they're doing better than if they use the labels as an excuse. I'm not saying either way, just thinking through why they might do it that way. And for my ds, I've said this, but the label wouldn't be helpful. He has to realize what he needs and self-advocate, which is the pivotal part of what they're doing.

[Runningmom80]

I am going to watch the movie this morning, but I’ve listened to a number of podcasts with the director, and looked up the school when I first heard about it so I think I can add my 2 cents.

My oldest would be a great fit. He’s, IMO, “borderline” ASD. I’ve asked any professional who has come in contact with him what they think, does he need an evaluation? They all said no. One psych did say to me, “Labels are tricky. Most of the time they open doors for services and that makes them valuable, but sometimes, and especially when a kid is on the edge of being diagnosed and it could go either way, they aren’t as helpful. If the kid doesn’t need services, or maybe if you can get them with out the label, then all your adding is the stigma.”

i realize that could be pretty controversial, especially among ASD families, but to me, for my DS, I picked up what she was laying down. We’re seriously considering doing the full evaluation at this point because there are things I’m realizing I always assumed he’d eventually get, and he’s not getting them. I think sometimes the gifted community is quick to write off a lot of things as gifted quirks and I wonder now how helpful that really is. Not that I want to pathologize everything...

Anyways, I agree with all of the above, it seems like it’s for high functioning ASD gifted kids. That’s my DS, even if he doesn’t come down on the side of a diagnosis, he’s got enough quirks that he’d fit right in. I would say I wish it was closer but at this point I’m not kidding myself that there would even be a chance we could afford it. 

I can’t see my dysgraphic/dyslexic DD there from what I know about it. They don’t talk too much about services and remediation and that’s what she needs. (By the bye, She wants to go back to public school and I’m agonizing over that. That’s a post for another day.) 

 

Ok off to mix up my iced coffee and watch. 

[PeterPan]

21 minutes ago, Runningmom80 said:

i realize that could be pretty controversial, especially among ASD families, but to me, for my DS, I picked up what she was laying down. We’re seriously considering doing the full evaluation at this point because there are things I’m realizing I always assumed he’d eventually get, and he’s not getting them. I think sometimes the gifted community is quick to write off a lot of things as gifted quirks and I wonder now how helpful that really is. Not that I want to pathologize everything...

Ok, so I went to a school for the gifted my last couple years of high school. It was a full bore, all the way, by application only, residential school for the gifted. At the time there were about 8 in the country, not sure now. So at a certain point in the movie I paused mentally and asked whether the school I went to looked like Bridges. It really didn't. Now you had me there, so who am I to say? LOL And you had people maybe with some *slightly* quirky social. Like one guy just walked out, had amnesia, no clue where he was when they found him. And I look back and some of my double degree (physics plus xyz) kinda friends and they're a little little odd socially. 

But really, just in general, it was a hypersocial, well-connected school. You didn't hear a lot of oh my sensory, oh he bugs me, withdrawal, all this crap. You just didn't. They had proms, smoked, did drugs, slept around, cared about social justice before social justice was a thing, did sports, played lots of ultimate frisbee. They were more on the social, doing things end of things, not so much this spectrumy, into yourself kinda side. Even the introverts were pretty socially typical. Like one right now is an editor for a major publisher and she's just an introvert, not ASD, not socially delayed. Other of my friends have phds in chemistry, one works at NASA, another is a prof at MIT. These were the people I graduated with. It didn't look like Bridges.

So I read books like Bright, Not Broken, and I think in a way they're a copout. The issue is always the fallibility of the DSM. It's trying to tease apart and make things separate and create these lines of brokenness. Now most of the kids at that school were not functioning well. The support level for grades 4-6 is NOT 1:5 anywhere else, lol. I mean that tells you a lot right off the bat, lol. 

So in a way, this hyper-emphasis on broken vs. not is what makes for this scenario where we can't be honest. And that, in a way, is maybe what the books are saying, like if the kid is functioning a certain way (gifted plus a list) just be honest. And that is what they nailed. But almost all those kids could have been labeled on the spectrum, which would have changed the title of the book and wouldn't have been so sexy. (Gifted ASD Kids Who Don't Thrive in the PS but do Thrive When You Drop the Support Ratio and Actually Interact with Them Meaningfully) 

It may also be these kids have labels and know them, who knows. It's not like everyone talks about their labels.

35 minutes ago, Runningmom80 said:

We’re seriously considering doing the full evaluation at this point

How old is he? Is he asking the question? The truth is the evals are really fudgy. There are kids you can take to a spread of psychs and get a spread of answers. The dc may realize he has differences and want answers. The intervention is the same no matter what the answer (ASD or ADHD with social delay), so in that sense in doesn't matter. Reality is you should be intervening now for what you see because the diagnosis makes no difference. That's what the communication profiles tell you. https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles?name=social-thinking-social-communication-profile

Depending on his age, it would be interesting to get something like the new CAPS pragmatics testing. There's an age range for it, and pragmatics testing is just flat unrealiable till about age 10. My ASD2 ds "passed" the SLDT at 6, snort. So if you could get the CAPS as a baseline, that could be intriguing. I don't know anyone doing it (should be an SLP), but it is out there. You could be brash and offer to buy it for them to run it. Make sure it's a person (SLP, psych, whatever) who is into pragmatics, social thinking, etc. anyway, but yeah it's the one to look for. Otherwise you're left with the SLDT, which is all language. The CAPS uses videos and I think might be easier to score.

So if you're seeing stuff, you should be intervening. If you want to know what is going on, look at the DSM and decide for yourself. You know him and know whether he fits the criteria or not. Let it be that simple. There's also the issue of significance. Autism behaviors are HUMAN behaviors, so it's the combination, the whole package, and the significant effect that pushes you over to the diagnosis. For the criteria, they'll say ASD1 requires *support*. ASD2 requires *significant support*. And those terms, while sorta simple, actually really quantify it. Does your ds require SUPPORT? My ds requires SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT. That's literally the most discrete summary of him you could find. In anything he's doing, he's going to require significant support and flounder when he doesn't have it. He'll get overwhelmed, not be able to problem solve, struggle with the language or social thinking dynamics. They tell us that some of the social thinking profiles are connected to low cognitive, that my ds, with his need for support, shouldn't really be. Like a gifted should be ASD3 or 1, not 2. And yet here he is.

Anyways, it's something you can look at as a parent and say he fits the criteria and requires support. You already have all that data. Your worst case scenario is when some idiot hands you a GARS. You already have the data.

45 minutes ago, Runningmom80 said:

I can’t see my dysgraphic/dyslexic DD there from what I know about it. They don’t talk too much about services and remediation and that’s what she needs. (By the bye, She wants to go back to public school and I’m agonizing over that. That’s a post for another day.) 

What I find is that sometimes people think that what works for their dc/situation (hands-on, interest-driven, etc.) would work for ALL kids if only the ps were more enlightened and would do it. They might view it as better teaching. There's a sense, when you think about it from an ASD angle, that it's actually a developmentally delayed teaching. We're continuing to use methods appropriate for younger learners because the students are developmentally delayed and not ready to move on to more abstract methods that don't involve what they're interested in. Woo, not allowed to say that. But my kid IS delayed, so I can say that. It's not rocket science. It's not like development is so random. You go from more hands-on and concrete to more abstract, from interesting to less related. So if you take someone who is functioning multiple years behind in their learning level and plunk them into a more complex setting (which is what those graduating Bridges kids are doing when they go to college), they MIGHT be able to deal with the jump or they might not. But even if they jump (which is what my dd did) and survive, there's a sense in which they're still functioning younger. So why were these kids rushed? Because it's expensive? Because we don't want them to appear not normal? So ASD2 can be held back with IEPs till they're 20 or 21, fine, but ASD1 + gifted gotta shove 'em out, maybe even early. And I left home at 16, so who am I to knock it? I was living on a college campus, in a dorm, taking college and high school classes, ending up in bars and who knows what else, lol. That's a rabbit trail.

I think the answer is always hard work, so I don't know that it's like oh wait and it poofs. Waiting does not change reality. The dc will simply continue to need support in the next setting and people will continue to work to help the dc succeed. I don't know that the movie even implies the kids are fine. Anybody watching would have an I hope that works out for you kind of response, I would think. Maybe not? Maybe they're really implying it's going to be seamless? They've made an alternate universe for them, and sometimes it works and sometimes the kids are going to continue to require support.

So your more typical aspergers-ish presentation should, theoretically, not have a significant language disability. The book says one of those kids was pdd-nos diagnosed. But most of them were using original language, not scripting, and were able to get their thoughts out. One had obvious language issues, word retrieval issues. Maybe even count him as a fail of their system, because he's not getting enough language intervention to get to a functional side of that. His mood is good, mental health good, but language not so good. And for a double SLD writing/reading, that's really your language disability. And you think about an dyslexia school and the effort they would make there, the amount of time they would spend. Story could say because her dd has been in one. When I toured, there wasn't this hyper-emphasis on science and hands-on. If you look at their schedule, writing, reading, history all get shoved into humanities. So they're basically saying screw the social thinking aspects of literature, we're gonna make the kids happy. That's 83 minutes a day for writing, reading, spelling, penmanship, dictation, poetry memorization, whatever else, and history. And then 83 minutes for science. Hahaha. So that's fine if the kid doesn't have outlandish language needs and if his biggest need is to be engaged.

The dyslexia school here will take ADHD and ASD. So there is that overlap and you see it when you tour that they have supports, even while focusing on dyslexia, that are necessary for ASD/ADHD kids. The irony is, my ds reads too well for their school. He could use the emotional supports, but they don't have enough *structure* for him. (support too low, physical structure too low, etc.) So I don't think it's that all kids function in the same setting or that if we were open-ended and flexible and interest-driven and engaging enough all kids could work together. It just means some kids will be super stressed trying to survive there. My ds' current IEP is mainstreamed with pullouts, and it's just crazy. He would be SO stressed in that. What you notice about Bridges is they get that support up high enough (hello, 1:5) that the kids aren't stressed. My ds does better with that stress reduction. I'd like to dream that he could function in that environment. It would be interesting to see.

You saw kids in the video saying they were on meds and doing better off, using their cognitive to get them there. It's something I talk with my ds about and I think it's a really important factor in how all this comes together. I see people online (FB) who are like oh my kid does this, I need another medication. If you medicate out EVERY PROBLEM, you're going to have a zombie on kids like mine. He has GOT to come to a point where he can use his maturity and his cognitive. I think that's something Bridges is doing exceptionally well, and in a way it's the biggest win. It's way bigger than whether they used a textbook or not. Once you have that cognitive, self-control piece there, then they can work toward their goals and accept help and get there eventually.

[hepatica]

I watched much of the bright and quirky conference (and some of the video) and I agree that it was predominately focused on gifted/ADD/ADHD/ASD issues. There wasn't a whole lot of new info for kids like mine who are dyslexic with highly superior verbal comprehension and fluid reasoning. When I first came across the 2E label I thought it was useful because it captured the dilemma of struggling with some academic skills like reading and writing but also needing the intellectual stimulation of honors level academic work. But, I do think some of these types of schools have coopted the term to refer to primarily the ASD/ADD and gifted group, which as everyone has pointed out is a somewhat different set of issues revolving around emotional and social behavior. My kids have some ADD traits, as is typical for dyslexic kids, but would not likely be diagnosed as such. My kids also suffer from anxiety, but I think that is a function of being smart enough to recognize and be aware of the fact that they are struggling with things most kids find rather simple, like writing a paragraph. Most of the 2E newsletters and podcasts and such that I have found really do have a strong focus on ADHD and ASD. I have yet to find something like Bright and Quirky that is focused on language based disabilities. 

[PeterPan]

I think I'm saying I'm torn. I'd like to think my ds could function in that environment. I think intellectually it's the right fit. Their goals for self-awareness and self-regulation are so spot-on and their 1:5, the focus on engagement, etc. It's just interesting to ponder what remains that is more intensive and how close we could get to that. I think maybe they're sneaking in some of that more intensive intervention stuff. Like did they show computer use somewhere? Maybe on the website? My ds learns so readily that I think some holes could be filled that way when he's ready/motivated. And I think the flipside is true that too much time spent on disabilities and not enough spent on things that are engaging is just not fun to wake up to. But I don't know if I can stuff all of our reading, writing, and history into one 83 minute humanities slot, lol. 

[PeterPan]

2 minutes ago, hepatica said:

I have yet to find something like Bright and Quirky that is focused on language based disabilities. 

That's more like the work of the Eides. 

[hepatica]

Just now, PeterPan said:

That's more like the work of the Eides. 

Yes exactly. 2E becomes a less useful label when you are grouping all these kids under that one label.

[EKS]

47 minutes ago, hepatica said:

I watched much of the bright and quirky conference (and some of the video) and I agree that it was predominately focused on gifted/ADD/ADHD/ASD issues. There wasn't a whole lot of new info for kids like mine who are dyslexic with highly superior verbal comprehension and fluid reasoning. When I first came across the 2E label I thought it was useful because it captured the dilemma of struggling with some academic skills like reading and writing but also needing the intellectual stimulation of honors level academic work. But, I do think some of these types of schools have coopted the term to refer to primarily the ASD/ADD and gifted group, which as everyone has pointed out is a somewhat different set of issues revolving around emotional and social behavior. My kids have some ADD traits, as is typical for dyslexic kids, but would not likely be diagnosed as such. My kids also suffer from anxiety, but I think that is a function of being smart enough to recognize and be aware of the fact that they are struggling with things most kids find rather simple, like writing a paragraph. Most of the 2E newsletters and podcasts and such that I have found really do have a strong focus on ADHD and ASD. I have yet to find something like Bright and Quirky that is focused on language based disabilities. 

This. 

But what's interesting is that back in the day--say 15 years ago--there was more of a focus on the LD and ADHD varieties of 2e and ASD was something of an afterthought.  For example, I was introduced to the idea of 2e back in 2005 when I read the 2004 edition of Baum and Owen's To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled and in that book there is exactly one mention of Asperger's syndrome and no mentions of autism.  Baum was interviewed extensively for the film, and the new 2017 edition of the book is filled with stuff about ASD.

While the school seems to be great in many ways for these kids, I have to wonder what the exit plan is.  It seems to me that the weak point in dealing with ASD issues everywhere--in schools, in private therapies, and in homes--is planning for the transition from school/home into the wider world.  If the kid who is going to Pace University actually thinks it's going to be like Bridges, the school has dropped the ball big time.  In fact, I honestly don't see how an ultra-accepting, ultra-accommodating environment like the school can coexist with what needs to happen to prepare a kid for unsheltered/unaccommodated success in the outside world, not just in college, but more importantly, beyond.

[PeterPan]

22 minutes ago, EKS said:

While the school seems to be great in many ways for these kids, I have to wonder what the exit plan is.  It seems to me that the weak point in dealing with ASD issues everywhere--in schools, in private therapies, and in homes--is planning for the transition from school/home into the wider world.  If the kid who is going to Pace University actually thinks it's going to be like Bridges, the school has dropped the ball big time.  In fact, I honestly don't see how an ultra-accepting, ultra-accommodating environment like the school can coexist with what needs to happen to prepare a kid for unsheltered/unaccommodated success in the outside world, not just in college, but more importantly, beyond.

Exactly. It was so idealistic and laughable that surely everyone in the audience knew. It made you wonder why the people producing/promoting the video didn't quite get it. I mean they were literally rah-rah on their promo clip, which was absurd.

I think the school needs a transition year (or three) for the kids to bridge them through. If they go from high support to no support, they're going to have issues. Now maybe some of them can, but if so why didn't they stay in their old schools? 

There's sort of this perverse idealism, like being NT and going to college will assure their futures, when their path so far has needed to be so non-traditional. You would think their outcomes will be non-traditional as well.

I knew someone who lamented that people write books on schooling disabilities and STOP at the end of high school, when that's not the point or the end of the story. You have to follow it through and say how did this actually prepare them for life? 

So we see this, but apparently the producers of the film don't, lol. How old is Bridges? Maybe they don't have the track record to realize?

[PeterPan]

37 minutes ago, EKS said:

But what's interesting is that back in the day--say 15 years ago--there was more of a focus on the LD and ADHD varieties of 2e and ASD was something of an afterthought.  For example, I was introduced to the idea of 2e back in 2005 when I read the 2004 edition of Baum and Owen's To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled and in that book there is exactly one mention of Asperger's syndrome and no mentions of autism.  Baum was interviewed extensively for the film, and the new 2017 edition of the book is filled with stuff about ASD.

I watched a video a bit ago                                             It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success                                       that's the book but there's a video where he presents everything, and pretty much you spend the whole video (which is very outdated btw) saying ok why weren't these kids labeled as ASD or at least ADHD + Social Delay? So the info carries forward, but the intervention at that time, just 10-15 years ago, because it was considered a LEARNING problem, not a DEVELOPMENTAL problem, was just very explicit and in your face direct and directive. Like you're doing this, it bugs people, stop it. Something like that, lol. And now we would want them to get there naturalistically and generalize it across settings so it's not a list of rules but more like something they've figured out. 

But yeah, they were viewing it as part of the learning disability, like you're too messed up to read, too messed up to realize your social ignorance. And like Bridges this guy was running a school marketed as for SLDs and dealing with LOTS of social issues. And really when he describes them in the video, they're closer to ASD or ADHD with social delay.

So then, flip that. If you look at our local dyslexia school, they do some time (from what they said) every day on social thinking and emotional regulation as part of like a morning community time. And there's instruction. But it's not this oh my lands if we don't talk to our kids about it they come in dressed inappropriately and messing up the whole world socially. (what LaVoie describes) It's a different level of intervention. And it seemed they were dealing a lot more with emotional regulation (life is hard, I'm frustrated, how do I stay calm and tackle it) than anything.

So changing attributions for the cause of the social/emotional issues maybe. And personally I think it makes more sense to call it a developmental delay (which it is) than to say it's just a learning problem. That's how we ended up with the NVLD kids having the same symptoms as ASD but being told their issues were because they had some kind of mysterious learning problem and the ASD was because it's developmental. 

And 15 years ago ASD was a pretty tight, dreaded label. You had Rain Man and that was your ASD and the impression that it meant you were headed for an institution. Then you had your Aspergers. But now we have this range, rainbow, umbrella, a spread. So those kids wouldn't have identified with any of those labels. Except during that pi digits contest. I mean, my lands, that was so, so like label me with a pocket protector weird... They clearly made it a social gig for them but the ability to memorized 325 digits or whatever is just so out there, definitely not just a gifted thing. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by PeterPan

[Runningmom80]

7 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Ok, so I went to a school for the gifted my last couple years of high school. It was a full bore, all the way, by application only, residential school for the gifted. At the time there were about 8 in the country, not sure now. So at a certain point in the movie I paused mentally and asked whether the school I went to looked like Bridges. It really didn't. Now you had me there, so who am I to say? LOL And you had people maybe with some *slightly* quirky social. Like one guy just walked out, had amnesia, no clue where he was when they found him. And I look back and some of my double degree (physics plus xyz) kinda friends and they're a little little odd socially. 

But really, just in general, it was a hypersocial, well-connected school. You didn't hear a lot of oh my sensory, oh he bugs me, withdrawal, all this crap. You just didn't. They had proms, smoked, did drugs, slept around, cared about social justice before social justice was a thing, did sports, played lots of ultimate frisbee. They were more on the social, doing things end of things, not so much this spectrumy, into yourself kinda side. Even the introverts were pretty socially typical. Like one right now is an editor for a major publisher and she's just an introvert, not ASD, not socially delayed. Other of my friends have phds in chemistry, one works at NASA, another is a prof at MIT. These were the people I graduated with. It didn't look like Bridges.

So I read books like Bright, Not Broken, and I think in a way they're a copout. The issue is always the fallibility of the DSM. It's trying to tease apart and make things separate and create these lines of brokenness. Now most of the kids at that school were not functioning well. The support level for grades 4-6 is NOT 1:5 anywhere else, lol. I mean that tells you a lot right off the bat, lol. 

So in a way, this hyper-emphasis on broken vs. not is what makes for this scenario where we can't be honest. And that, in a way, is maybe what the books are saying, like if the kid is functioning a certain way (gifted plus a list) just be honest. And that is what they nailed. But almost all those kids could have been labeled on the spectrum, which would have changed the title of the book and wouldn't have been so sexy. (Gifted ASD Kids Who Don't Thrive in the PS but do Thrive When You Drop the Support Ratio and Actually Interact with Them Meaningfully) 

It may also be these kids have labels and know them, who knows. It's not like everyone talks about their labels.

How old is he? Is he asking the question? The truth is the evals are really fudgy. There are kids you can take to a spread of psychs and get a spread of answers. The dc may realize he has differences and want answers. The intervention is the same no matter what the answer (ASD or ADHD with social delay), so in that sense in doesn't matter. Reality is you should be intervening now for what you see because the diagnosis makes no difference. That's what the communication profiles tell you. https://www.socialthinking.com/Articles?name=social-thinking-social-communication-profile

 

He's 12.5, 13 in the fall. He's not asked any questions at all, he's oblivious for the most part. He did mention that he thinks it's sad that he doesn't have good friends, just acquaintances. I talked to him extensively about it, his therapist has talked to him about it too. We have him in multiple activities and I think the problem is twofold, one, he's picky about friends, and two, he just hasn't found his "people." I could go into it more but I don't know that it really matters to the conversation. 

He did a social skills class a few years ago, it was aimed at kids on the spectrum, His ped recommended it because of the friends issue. At the end of the session they told us "He knows how to make friends, maybe he just doesn't want to?" I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? 🤣

Thank you for that link, it's helpful!

7 hours ago, PeterPan said:

 

Depending on his age, it would be interesting to get something like the new CAPS pragmatics testing. There's an age range for it, and pragmatics testing is just flat unrealiable till about age 10. My ASD2 ds "passed" the SLDT at 6, snort. So if you could get the CAPS as a baseline, that could be intriguing. I don't know anyone doing it (should be an SLP), but it is out there. You could be brash and offer to buy it for them to run it. Make sure it's a person (SLP, psych, whatever) who is into pragmatics, social thinking, etc. anyway, but yeah it's the one to look for. Otherwise you're left with the SLDT, which is all language. The CAPS uses videos and I think might be easier to score.

<snipped>

 

The dyslexia school here will take ADHD and ASD. So there is that overlap and you see it when you tour that they have supports, even while focusing on dyslexia, that are necessary for ASD/ADHD kids. The irony is, my ds reads too well for their school. He could use the emotional supports, but they don't have enough *structure* for him. (support too low, physical structure too low, etc.) So I don't think it's that all kids function in the same setting or that if we were open-ended and flexible and interest-driven and engaging enough all kids could work together. It just means some kids will be super stressed trying to survive there. My ds' current IEP is mainstreamed with pullouts, and it's just crazy. He would be SO stressed in that. What you notice about Bridges is they get that support up high enough (hello, 1:5) that the kids aren't stressed. My ds does better with that stress reduction. I'd like to dream that he could function in that environment. It would be interesting to see.

You saw kids in the video saying they were on meds and doing better off, using their cognitive to get them there. It's something I talk with my ds about and I think it's a really important factor in how all this comes together. I see people online (FB) who are like oh my kid does this, I need another medication. If you medicate out EVERY PROBLEM, you're going to have a zombie on kids like mine. He has GOT to come to a point where he can use his maturity and his cognitive. I think that's something Bridges is doing exceptionally well, and in a way it's the biggest win. It's way bigger than whether they used a textbook or not. Once you have that cognitive, self-control piece there, then they can work toward their goals and accept help and get there eventually.

Thank you for the advice on the testing. DH is supposed to be in charge of checking with insurance, but you can guess how far he's made it into researching that. 🙄

I completely agree with the bolded, if anything my DD would need some structure to keep her on track. I tried to be unschooly/project based/whatever with her and while it was great for content subjects, I had to switch to more structure for reading & spelling, for obvious reasons. 

[PeterPan]

2 hours ago, Runningmom80 said:

"He knows how to make friends, maybe he just doesn't want to?" I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? 🤣

Does he have meaningful relationships with SOMEONE? Aunts, an older couple in the church, etc? You might nurture those relationships.

I started doing better at friends when I started looking for people who needed me. Maybe he's not at that point yet? I find the most fringe person, the one with no friends, the one sitting alone, and BOOM I become their friend. It's actually advice they give as a strategy. But if he's not there yet, maybe just give him the more natural, mentoring relationships...

I do agree the pickiness can be a thing btw. I would sort of miss opportunities or worry too much, so I'd stop talking to a boy (who was sitting with me) because he had big ears. Like for real I did this! And later I regretted it, but at the time I don't know, I was just so in my hole that I didn't realize how precious it was to burrow out and connect. And it can change. I mean now I just barrel in, lol.

Does he identify with any Disney characters? I really think people are mystifying and sometimes people just need more help to understand what's going on. Or maybe he doesn't. I did (do, continue to) and certain people around me were like OHH, CAN'T DO THAT, THAT'S GOSSIPPING!!! I'm like good night, it's not gossiping. I just haven't got a clue why they did what they did and I need to process. And Disney, movies are sort of a way to do that. Maybe more processing the world via movies, maybe connecting that to life, maybe just letting him see where he's ready to shift or try a new strategy. I don't know, just tossing that out.

The other thing is for my ds that he doesn't really identify with ANY spectrum people. Like he never walks in the room and goes oh best buds because you're ASD. That's not true, he made one ASD friend. But that's like out of a zillion exposures, kwim? If you want the guaranteed winner? Put him in with dyslexics. Like seriously, put him in with some nice crazy ADHD dyslexics, people who are energetic and creative, and he's perfect. Now he might bug them, lol, but he'll enjoy them. He co-regulates, so he's using their energy and stability to help him coast and stay stable. And their brains are creative and ready to keep up with him. And they have language and social skills to cover up his lacks. He also does really well with kids who've had trauma. But mainly dyslexics. 

So no, I don't expect my ds to make friends in the autism-filled social skills classes or at the autism school and he doesn't typically gel with the NT. He's definitely niched like that, for now, with the skill set he has. 

[EKS]

26 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

I find the most fringe person, the one with no friends, the one sitting alone, and BOOM I become their friend.

Oh my goodness!  I used to do this as a kid/teen!  I even remember being aware that I was doing it.  I was never interested in the popular crowd, and they definitely weren't interested in me, but apparently I somehow figured out that I could find friends--truly *amazing and interesting* friends--on the fringe.

I had no idea it was a strategy.

[displace]

On 7/13/2019 at 5:02 PM, kand said:

 How long did it take you to get the link? I signed up yesterday, but haven’t gotten anything. 

It took less than a day, I think, so still time!

[EKS]

Has anyone watched the sequel?  There is a screening this week (sign up here).  I'm only 15 minutes into it, but so far it seems better than the first one though maybe my expectations are lower this time around.

[PeterPan]

17 minutes ago, EKS said:

Has anyone watched the sequel?  There is a screening this week (sign up here).  I'm only 15 minutes into it, but so far it seems better than the first one though maybe my expectations are lower this time around.

Thanks for sharing! I'll try to watch it today!

[EKS]

I finally finished watching the sequel and I thought it was much better than the first one.  

[PeterPan]

Watched it last night but the link still works this morning. 

So I'm not sure if it was *better*. The tone was less upbeat. It seemed more of an explanation of some of the funky/unique things they're doing as part of their junior high and high school approach, so I thought that was useful. The 100 Days project to work on perseverance was smart. Their badges projects to develop a skill that might actually be hirable or get the dc somewhere made sense too.

I guess I'm back to reading comprehension being dependent on prior knowledge and language comprehension, and I'm not sure what they're doing addresses either of those. It's pretty ahrd to go into college classes without that, and they had said in the other video that was a goal for some of the kids. They continue to demonstrate strengths in self-esteem and understanding their challenges and strengths accurately.

I guess that was the thing I thought was most instructive as that they don't hold back in being honest about the right words for their strengths/weaknesses. My ds is finally showing a bit of maturity and I think that's the kind of talks we're going to have to have. 

Their strengths days opening was interesting. We already know our kids well enough to know strengths, but I was watching a project my dh had my ds doing (writing a list of things in a town, drawing the town, building the town) and realizing I STILL have not understood how to teach to his strengths. Bridges is definitely nailing that. Like the gap between ds randomly doing something with his strengths and me provoking him into a stretching project using his strengths.

I thin that 100 Days thing was really, really smart. The teacher makes the point that the dc starts off interested and after a while realizes sticking with it is just WORK, giving the dc the chance to get over the it's work, I don't think I want to do it anymore hurdle.

[EKS]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

So I'm not sure if it was *better*.

You're absolutely right.  In fact, I just came back here to qualify my statement from yesterday.  

I think I was so relieved that they were finally talking about what they actually did academically (to some extent) that I didn't notice that they still weren't talking about how they deal with deficits.  

Do you remember if there was supposed to be a third installment?  If so, maybe that will be where we find out about the remediation piece.  And in fact, if you think about it, the order they have presented things *is* the order of importance for dealing with 2E issues.  First you have to ensure that the student is in a social-emotional space that allows for learning, then you engage their strengths and make cultivating them a priority, and finally, you work on remediating--and if all else fails, accommodating--weaknesses.

So if we get that third piece, the rest of it will fall into place.  But if not, well...I'm not of the opinion that the first two pieces are enough on their own.   

Edited August 9, 2019 by EKS

[EKS]

1 minute ago, EKS said:

You're absolutely right.  In fact, I just came back here to qualify my statement from yesterday.  

I think I was so relieved that they were finally talking about what they actually did academically (to some extent) that I didn't notice that they still weren't talking about how they deal with deficits.  

Do you remember if there was supposed to be a third installment?  If so, maybe that will be where we find out about the remediation piece.  And in fact, if you think about it, the order they have presented things *is* the order of importance for dealing with 2E issues.  First you have to ensure that the student is in a social-emotional space that allows for learning, then you engage their strengths and make cultivating them a priority, and finally, you work on remediating--and if all else fails, accommodating--weaknesses.

So if we get that third piece in a final installment, the rest of it will fall into place.  But if not, well...I'm not of the opinion that the first two pieces are enough on their own.   

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I've watched both and overall enjoyed them, but I felt like they were really just a big advertisement for Bridges, which is fine if that was the intention.

I was hoping to learn something new but didn't really, except that Bridges seems pretty amazing.

I did of course find myself caring about those children and wanting to know more about them. I could see myself working somewhere like that.

[PeterPan]

4 hours ago, EKS said:

they still weren't talking about how they deal with deficits.  

Just to be cynical, either they were selecting kids who's deficits were not as severe in language, etc. OR they weren't. We have feel good schools for autism in our state too, and sometimes feeling better about yourself doesn't get you there. You can't milk a turnip, can't get out language that isn't there.

4 hours ago, EKS said:

if you think about it, the order they have presented things *is* the order of importance for dealing with 2E issues.

I'm not even confident of that. With my ds it seems more the opposite, that addressing what's actually seriously deficit calms him enough to be ABLE to do those swankier things. You can't have collaborative work experiences when you're flipping out because of language and self-regulation issues. And my ds isn't at the "sit quietly in the group if you're not ready to contribute" stage, which they imply is what those kids will do. Haha, not happening.

I mean, I thought about it and got wistful, like what would happen if we really DID that. And I do think there are some BIG TALKS we can have as a result of what I saw there. I think this is THE YEAR to begin to do these strengths/weaknesses conversations. I agree it's not doing him any favors to leave his diagnoses and intervention seemingly random attacks on his freetime in his mind. I agree with Bridges that this is a thought process we could finally make cognitive and apparent.

I want to think more about the strengths thing. My dh had ds doing something this week that was really insightful. Ds has very conscripted play, and dh was like why don't you design a town? So dh broke it into parts (make a list of the things you want in your town, draw your proposed plan, build the list). Ds worked really well with that structure, and he was doing as much writing as he does for OT but with his own, self-motivated projects! He can't structure that and make it happen for himself, but *I* could do that with good tasks. And I think that's working to his very clearly recognized VSP strengths while pulling it into the context of other goals. 

4 hours ago, EKS said:

Do you remember if there was supposed to be a third installment?

They were advertising something else, but I think it's more interviews of teachers. The Bridges series clearly has the issue of not following the students to profile honestly what happens after they graduate.

I have no clue what would happen to my ds in that environment, lol. It's interesting to ponder. I think *some* of that thought process would be good, but we still have arduous intervention level stuff to do that they don't seem to be doing there. And they may just not prioritize certain things. I mean, they're not SCERTS, Ruth Aspy, etc. I'm not sure the kids are getting conversation work, for instance. And talk about something so fundamental to social, to hireability, etc. If they talk with an employer the way they talk in that video, they may be toast. Your school can accept you, but the outside world doesn't want to deal with it.

[PeterPan]

1 minute ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

I did of course find myself caring about those children and wanting to know more about them. I could see myself working somewhere like that.

Oh that's funny, because that didn't even cross my mind. What a sucky place to work at, where everyone has to cow-tow and constantly ogle and say how gifted you are and how it will all work out if you stick with it, mercy. I'm a little too blunt for that. I don't know, the NTs don't see themselves that way. Just saying I couldn't do it, lol.