Learning How to Learn

 

It’s taken the second semester of grade 7 to feel like I’m finally understanding how to reinforce what J’s learning at school at home. I feel like we’re starting to get a good system going with J’s paras and teachers in how to modify assignments, tests, and practice assignments that will help J learn the best.

J’s strengths lie in memorization, and he does really well with flashcards (homemade ones or through Quizlet. Are you familiar with Quizlet? It’s a wonderful free little app that lets you practice through flashcards, matching, definitions, etc). He’s funny with the memorization though. You give him a map of Africa and he can fill out all 55 countries in 2 min or less, but you give him a human body and it’s a lot harder for him to label that “map.” One thing I’m learning with him is that all skills aren’t equal. If it’s a subject he’s interested in, then you’ve hit the memorization jackpot (think superhuman skills–I’m not exaggerating on this). If it’s something he’s not interested in, he can still memorize it, it takes more time and diligent practice. That’s one thing that we’ve been working with his teachers and paras. Trying to get notes and terms and concepts home ASAP so we can start working on them weeks before the test (not a few days before). I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds. It takes a lot of coordination, and a lot of stuff being sent home and sent back to school. I’ve been really excited this last month, however. I feel like we’re getting into that back and forth groove.

J came home with some AWESOME practice sheets his para made for him to help him study the human body. BIG versions of the traditional 8 1/2 x 11 computer printouts and laminated so he can use a dry erase marker to do that repetitive practice (also to accommodate his handwriting issues!). He also has flash cards to practice the functions and definitions of certain things (mechanical digestion, chemical digestion, arteries, etc). His science teacher has modified the amount of content J has to know (he has to label 10/16 bones on the skeleton, 4/11 parts of the heart–right/left ventricle and right/left atrium, etc). Enough to give him an introduction of the human body and practice a way of learning and studying without overwhelming him.

Labeling the ventricles on the heart

Identifying bones

Practicing the definitions through handwriting and modified paper

J is also a nontraditional learner. His body language can fool you into thinking he’s not paying attention, tired, or checked out. This first video shows him practicing Latin numbers. With his head on the table, it looks like he’s checked out, but if you listen to him, you can tell he’s really concentrating (and trying not to look at the answers on the table). Don’t judge my Latin pronunciation–the only language I know besides English is French, and J has already corrected me a few times of my French-ish pronunciation of Latin terms. This is one of a million reasons why his paras are so important–they can undo any damage I do when I don’t teach him things exactly right.

J earns jellybeans for studying masses of words or definitions. Since he has to learn his colours in Latin, I make him tell me what the Latin colour is and the Latin number of jelly beans before he gets it. Whether we’re studying Latin or the heart. It’s good “not studying” studying.

Sometimes we use Quizlet, and sometimes I make a homemade version. Here’s J practicing his Latin colours through matching.

I also try to mix up the ways we practice things (like the jellybeans). Here’s J identifying body parts by just touching his body.

It’s taken a lot of coordination and a lot of organization (personally–I am not an organized person by nature). I try to get as much of my work and writing done before the kids come home so we can focus the rest of the night on studying. Sometimes I have to multitask and make dinner, but we make sure we do the daily practice DAILY. I admit there are some nights where I just don’t want to do it (and think his paras can do it during resource) but in order for J to really learn (and understand what he’s learning is important) we need to reinforce at home. Sometimes it’s a fight. Most times he’s willing to practice.

It’s not Pintrest worthy, but here are my binders for J’s practice sheets and studying. That way I don’t have piles of papers on our counters and I can keep copies of practice sheets and Ziplocs for flash cards and other study helps with each separate subject. This has made my life a million times easier.

The funny thing about this whole study experience, is that I’m learning all of this over again as I’m working with him. I don’t know exactly where my trachea or small intestine is, and I get along just fine. I always Google things when I need to. I have a basic idea of what an artery is, but I don’t remember the exact definition. I know that blood flows in and out of our heart in different directions, but I don’t remember how or where that happens until I start reading his textbook again. J’s teachers and I go back and forth a lot on what exactly will be helpful for J to learn and what won’t matter in the end. But the more I work with him I realize, that the content he learns now isn’t the only thing that matters. Most of us forget at least half of the content (or more) learned in middle school and high school by the time we graduate. It’s the practice and discipline and thinking skills that are the most important for J to learn, because those are the real life skills most of us develop in our public school experience. It’s those skills that take us into our post secondary education or job sites and it’s those skills we practice daily that get us the knowledge that’s most applicable for us.

So on the days I’m frustrated when J forgets where his gastrocnemius muscle is (ps, it’s not in your stomach like you’d think) when he absolutely knew where it was the day before I try not to get discouraged. Because in the end, learning to learn is a process. And that’s a whole lesson in itself.

That Physical Piece

Before a run during Christmas break. It’s great to see J adjust to different weather conditions in running. It actually dovetails quite nicely with some of the mindfulness exercises we do before bed.

Growing up, I remember an old man with a toque and big boxing glove mittens, jogging down the sidewalk along Riverbend Road in the dead of winter. Shirtless. Each year I’d watch him as we drove by in our warm car just shocked–and amazed, thinking that this had to be the year he caught pneumonia and died. My parents would just shake their heads in unbelief as they watched him too. But even though we thought he was crazy, we really, really admired him. We didn’t really know why he did what he did every winter, but we knew he must have some sort of iron will–some incredible motivation to do it.

Mr Chan looking exactly how I remembered him. He has an amazing story himself. You can read about it here. Photo Courtesy Connelly-McKinley Funeral home.

I had to channel Mr. Chan today to get myself psyched up enough to run with J after school today. Fargo winters are much like Edmonton winters. Today wasn’t really cold at all, only -4 C (25 F), but there was a killer wind from the south which made it feel MUCH colder. I’m a fair weather runner. I’ll run, but it’s got to be under the right conditions. And I don’t run outside from the months of January-March. It’s too dark and cold, and really all I want to do is hang out in a blanket on the couch and watch Netflix. But this past year has made me realize how important it is for J to get out and run, play, burn energy any way he can. J needs that physical outlet (probably even more now that he’s hit puberty). He needs it not just for his physical health, but for his mental/emotional health as well. No matter what time of year or what the weather is like.

I mentioned J and medication in last week’s post. Even though he’s on medication for both his anxiety and ADHD symptoms we consider it just a piece in J’s regimen. Medication doesn’t solve all of his problems–and we don’t expect it to. We’re hoping that with the right dosage, it can quiet his brain down enough so he can hear his body, understand what it needs, and help him interact appropriately with the world around him.

Exercise helps J interact appropriately in the world around him. J typically goes on a run before school, then at school he has other opportunities to participate in physical activity. Of course there’s PE, but he also has movement breaks associated with occupational therapy which can include yoga. There’s also an additional time during the day where J goes to the weight room, does a circuit there, and then races on one of the video bikes. Then after school, J and I usually try to get in a 2-2 1/2 mile run before homework.

It’s crazy how much energy this kid burns–how much time of his day revolves around physical activity. But he needs it. He’s happier and works harder when he gets it. When we sit down to read or work through homework this body just feels calmer beside mine.

Over Christmas we tried to throw a few other things in the mix. We went sledding a few times and even made it out skating. My poor kids aren’t the best skaters around (every other kid their age seems to have been born on skates) but I’m really proud that they stick it out every time. Especially J. I know he’s making important connections in his brain when he’s trying to coordinate his body on ice.

It’s been fun to see him grow into this. He’s starting to run faster than me now (and I’m just hoping I’ll be able to keep up until it’s warm enough so I can bike beside him if I have to). Steve’s convinced him the treadmill is an okay option and we can get him to run 3/4 of a mile on that–our only option when it’s too cold and dark to go outside before school. Yes it can be an ordeal–if we’re sledding or skating it’s the whole snow pants, scarf, toque, waterproof mitts, loading up the car with sleds or skates routine. If we’re running outside it’s the whole find a few layers of long-sleeve shirts and see what fits under a windbreaker as well as putting on snow cleats on top of running shoes. For a kid with fine motor skills it’s a lot of work, but an essential part of having a “good” day. And it’s great that he’s starting to realize it too.

 

Prepping for an IEP

 

J and W at J’s early intervention preschool in Lawrence, Kansas.It’s hard to believe J has had regular IEPs years before this!

J’s IEP is coming up this week.

It’s something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember.  I have binders full of Assessments, Evaluations, Re-Evaluations, Progress Reports, IFSPs (an IEP for kids under 3), IEPS (an Individual Education Program once a child turns 3),and behavioral  assessments. I even have copies of “my rights” as a parent of a child with disabilities from three different states.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a parent without all of these binders. To just send your kids off to school and collect report cards a couple of times a year.

Over the years, I’ve learned some things along the way—things that go past the anatomy of an IEP. There’s plenty of websites out there that explain that like this one here. But I’ve learned some things about the mental/emotional aspect of the IEP meeting. And sometimes that’s a little harder to navigate than the goals and objectives and the construction of the IEP itself.

Here are seven things I’ve learned:

1. Be objective—as objective as you can. I know it’s hard as a parent. You have to leave all your emotional crap at home. If you really have a gut feeling that your child isn’t understanding, doing, learning, something, don’t hide it. Bring it up. The good, bad, and the ugly. Just because your child is struggling, doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. Be willing to admit that your child is having a hard time keeping up or behaving him/herself. If you’re frustrated with how things are playing out at school, don’t lash out on staff. Look at the current plan and see how you can improve that instead. It sounds very clinical because in some ways it has to be. Doctors can’t let their emotions overcome their thought processes when helping their patients.
2. Make sure to bring up your child’s strengths: I think any parent—those of neurotypical kids as well—can say that their child behaves differently at home than they do at school. Often, with kids on the spectrum they feel more comfortable in their home environment and can show strengths in learning and talents that might not show up at school. Make sure you notify the team of these things. They may not be seeing them.
3. Be an advocate for your child: If you feel like your child isn’t getting the services they need, tell the team. Hopefully you’ve been in constant contact with the team before the IEP (and so your concerns don’t seem like they’re coming way out of left field), but if they still aren’t addressing your concerns, make sure you bring them up and hold your ground. If there is something your child really, really needs, make sure that it’s included in the IEP.
4. Come prepared. Review past IEPs and assesments. Look at the progress reports of past goals. Which goals were the most successful and why? Which goals were the least successful and why? This will help you gauge where the best place/level to challenge your child and encourage the best success. Sometimes goals are too lofty and have to be revisited for the next IEP. Sometimes they’re too easy and they need to be revisited for the next IEP. Sometimes they’re too specific or too general. If you’re receiving services outside of the district, make sure you include any information from those services that might be helpful.
5. Prep the team before you get to the meeting. Write a little summary of what you’ve been seeing at home (both the positive and the negative) and send it out. I find there’s limited time in an IEP meeting and there’s always so much I want to say. If everyone’s read the summary before the meeting, I feel the team knows better where I’m coming from, and hopefully we can be more efficient with our time.
6. Be a good listener. There’s a lot of group dynamics happening in an IEP meeting, and different people have different sets of information/perspective that others in the group don’t have. Try to be fair and make sure you listen to everyone’s voice. It’s really easy for one person (yourself included) to dominate the conversation.
7. Remember that this is one moment in your life and your child’s life. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you’re drowning on all the things that need to be “fixed.” But every child is constantly evolving. That’s why your parenting strategies become obsolete in a few short months, weeks, or even days after you’ve come up with some brilliant plan, and you have to figure out something new again. As J would say (reciting one of his mindfulness apps), “It isn’t always going to be like this. Thoughts (substitute hard things) come and go like leaves on a river.” Tap into those mindfulness strategies. It will also help you with #1.

As I’ve prepared for this round, I’ve had some new insights through looking at J’s past IEPS. I understand J’s behavior goals will be important to discuss in this next IEP meeting, but I’m also anxious to talk about his academic goals as well. While going through these documents (all the way back to 2005) I’ve noticed that over the years the IEP goals have focused heavily on behaviors (appropriate class behavior, reducing outbursts, and using language to communicate needs). These goals have been on every IEP J has ever had in some shape or form. In fact, on one of J’s eligibility assesments (under “background information”) it states:

“Records indicated he entered school with a tremendous base of concept knowledge and age-appropriate pre-academic readiness skills. J’s weaknesses have consistently been in behavior. His records show IEP goals attempting to increase prosocial interactions with peers and decrease disruptive behavior. J’s previous district stated ‘He displays a high level of stereotypical repetitive behaviors that interfere with his learning’ (November 2007).”

J has been able to “muddle through” academics over the years. He has an incredible memory so math has been historically a strength for him, as well as spelling and grammar. In fact, he came into kindergarten being able to spell at a second grade level, read basic sight words, and new his basic math facts. Over the years, modifications have been made for him in other areas (such as reading comprehension). But now I feel like we’re hitting a turning point. He’s been slipping in the academics category. Now that we’re in middle school he needs to learn how to “take tests.” He needs to learn to study for a test to if he’s going to be able to “muddle through.” Last year he was dismal in these areas, but this year we’ve been seeing glimpses of progress at home. We’re starting to figure out how to get him to “study.” How to get him to work “independently.” Not at grade appropriate levels, but he’s learning the concepts. And I can’t help but think that in the end, knowing how to “do the task” and consequently, eliminate half of the frustration, might improve behavior and attention at the same time. Give him something to encourage prosocial interactions with peers. We’ll see.

I have a love/hate relationship with IEPS. I’m excited to see how J’s grown and at the same time I can get discouraged that he’s always behind in something. That’s why #7 is probably the most important for me personally. I have to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Math Update:

Steve marked this. The American system of marking makes me smile. In Canada, you put a check beside the correct ones, an “x”by the wrong ones. In the States, you just put a check by the wrong ones. Steve added stars to the correct ones to make J feel good about himself.

The last two weeks we’ve been working on adding and subtracting integers with J. Every day. I decided to suck up all my math phobias and to try to figure out how to get J to learn this. I printed off free worksheets from mathdrills.com. Easy EASY integer problems he could do in his sleep. I wanted to make sure he REALLY knew the rules of integers. After a week and a half, I decided that it was time for J to do the whole sheet on his own. It took him 8 min. Alone in his room. No hovering to tell him to focus and do the next question. No talking through the steps with him. He felt confident (and proud enough) to do them ALL ON HIS OWN—FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. NOT ONCE DID I REMIND HIM TO SIT BACK DOWN AND DO HIS WORK. He got 22/30 right. 72%. And the next day doing his real integer homework, with larger computations, was SO MUCH EASIER. Because he can do the larger computations without the integer mumbo jumbo. He was doing larger computations in grades two and three, and yet for the past few weeks in school he’d been bombing every worksheet because of the addition of integers rules.  It really confirmed to me that he needs to practice the steps as simply as possible—over and over and over again—he’ll have no problem applying them later.

See? Like I said, they’re constantly evolving!

 

Bringing Autism to a Rock Concert

I should start off by saying that there probably isn’t one right way of doing this. In fact, initially, we weren’t sure if there was any real way of doing this. If you do the math, taking J to see Imagine Dragons looked like this:

autism + travel 3 hours to Winnipeg + alternative rock concert late at night = pure insanity

So we decided to go ahead and buy 4 tickets despite of all that. YOLO, right?

We were banking on a few things. This was Imagine Dragons. J is absolutely obsessed with Imagine Dragons, so there was a chance it might work. And J is fresh off his first year of middle school so we have maturity (HA! sort of) on our side. J’s always up for a car trip, so the three hours to Winnipeg wouldn’t be a problem.

But there are plenty of potential “hiccups” when it comes to autism, and the fact that we would be technically out of the country if any meltdowns occurred and hours from home was a little unnerving to both me and Steve. You just can’t turn back and go home after 5 min of a failed attempted when it’s three hours back to Fargo. As Steve’s dad would say, we were “working without a net ladies and gentleman.”

These were the potential anxiety hot spots we anticipated:

1. Crossing the border

2. Waiting. Waiting through the first act. Waiting for the right song to come on.

3. The Sensory Overload Extravaganza of strobe lights, lasers, smoke machines, 120 decibels of distorted sound, and much, much, more.

Crossing the Border: We checked the wait times at the Pembina/Emerson border online the hour before we left. When we left at 2 pm the wait time was 40 min. This was bad news. 40 min to wait in a parked car was 40 min to fuel anxiety for the rest of the night. I couldn’t think of anything but, “If any meltdowns happened while we are waiting or talking to the border patrol I will take away all privileges and turn the car back to Fargo.” You know, your standard parenting threat. J was motivated. He didn’t want to lose privileges or the concert and told me he would have no problems. Luckily, by the time we got to the Pembina crossing there was no wait. First hot spot averted.

Waiting: Steve and I have been to enough concerts to know that even though your ticket might not say it, there is ALWAYS AN OPENING ACT. The concert tickets stated that the concert started at 7, so we timed our departure from Fargo to get to the MTS Centre around 7:30 ish to catch the tail end of the opening act and make sure we were there at the start of the Imagine Dragons opening number. Once we crossed the border, we heard via a radio station that the opening act would end at 8:15. Steve and I quickly changed our strategy. We would eat dinner, hang out, and take a walk around the Forks to kill time and then show up at the MTS Centre around 8:15. J is a clock Nazi, so he soon discovered our change in schedule, but conceded that it was “just a glitch” (thank you SLP Amy and Social Thinking jargon) and he was fine to eat at the Forks. However, when we arrived at the MTS Centre at 8:00, the ticket scanners told us there was ANOTHER opening act and that Imagine Dragons wouldn’t be on until 9:30. Another “glitch.” We tried walking around the MTS Centre downtown, but if you know Winnipeg nothing is open after 8:00 pm. The only thing open was Dollarama. We bought J a $3 hat. We killed some more time. Finally at 9:30 we were in our seats ready for the show to start.

Sensory Overload: I tried to prepare J for this a few short days before the concert. Most kids with autism benefit with knowing exactly what is going to happen before it happens. Unfortunately, with J this backfires. You have to find that sweet spot where you give enough info but not too much (and not too far in advance–his anxiety will have a heyday discovering everything that will go wrong if he knows too much). I YouTubed pirated cellphone recordings of Imagine Dragons concerts. Thank you YouTube user XE53 for your recording of the 2014 Seattle, Washington concert. J was able to see all of the pyrotechnics and poor audio in all its glory in anticipation for the real concert. I explained to him that the concert would be very loud, have lots of flashing lights, and maybe fireworks. I told him it would be fun and asked him if all of the lights and sound would be okay. He told me it would be “just fine” so we decided to bring his sound reduction headphones, “just in case.”

At around 9, we sat through the last few songs of Metric, the very last opening act. It was a warm-up–a test for us. J closed his eyes tight during the first few sets of strobe lights and I thought, “this is it–we’re headed home,” but his eyes flickered open. By the time Imagine Dragons opened with “Shots” J’s nervous system, J’s anxiety seemed to settle down. For the first time since 2pm, I felt I could settle down and just be there in the moment too.

I’m so glad we risked it. The tickets, the time, the travel. You never know what will happen with autism. You can plan everything right, and everything can still go wrong. The look on J’s face was just priceless when his favorite songs came on. It’s an enormously powerful experience attending a live concert. You feel the music in an entirely different way. It was exciting for us to see J experience that.  We made it to the second to last song (nearing 11:00 pm), when J said he was done. A total success for the Beck history books.

Today J woke up at noon, singing the lyrics to “Shots” to himself and announced to everyone with great enthusiasm, “I’m awake and I’m okay.”

Glad to hear J. I’m glad we all made it through last night.