Marguerite
Active Member
I mentioned on the Good Morning thread earlier this week that we had organised a special one-on-one lesson for difficult child 3 with his English teacher. It was on Tuesday (yesterday) and I sat in, as his supervisor.
The way his schooling works - difficult child 3 generally does all his schoolwork at home. He gets worksheets from different teachers for different subjects. When he completes a worksheet I sign off on it and put it in an envelope. After a week's collection, I post it all back to the school (reply paid envelopes) and there the teachers mark it and post it back. All difficult child 3's records, teacher's comments etc are all kept on computer so all teachers can access it to see how he is progressing. These teachers are available for individual lessons when required and also available over the phone and via email, if a student is having trouble with the work. Some of the lessons are done on-line. Occasionally there is a study day scheduled (optional) which is held at the school. Or a school excursion (also optional). But most of the time, it's our home routine. difficult child 3 can do schoolwork in his pyjamas if he wants to.
On Tuesday we got to the school just before 10 am. The teacher took difficult child 3 & me to the library and into a private room there (smart thinking). I'd been concerned that she seemed to be asking more from difficult child 3 than he can handle. The work currently is dealing with writing about environmental issues, especially with newspaper article writing. He has to read and evaluate such articles as well as try to write his own. This has required a level of complex understanding which is right at his limit of capability, if not beyond it. So I asked his teacher to work through a worksheet with him, so he could learn what she requires, as well as she being able to learn what he can do, and what he can't.
I really wasn't sure about her to begin with - she was joking with him a lot, pretending to be stern, and he doesn't always see the joke. But with a little more time than the last meeting (which was the first time she'd met him) I think she now understands. One other thing he has to do, with every worksheet, is write out a list of words he's found in the sheet which he didn't understand. But he says he DOES understand, at least individual words. It's collectively he has trouble understanding.
As she talked, I was asked to write down a list of words she wanted him to work on. Any word she asked him to define but which he could not, I had to write down. I also made short notes for him to use, to recall what she wants from him with his written work. And I wrote it down instead of him, because he can't physically write much. He has to use a computer.
I noticed that she often would ask, "What does this word mean?" and he would say, "I know what it means, but I just can't say it." Over and over again, this happened. He could even use the word in a sentence, but not define it. As I said to her afterwards, he seems to be lacking his own internal thesaurus. He has trouble in finding the right word sometimes. His speech is jerky, repetitive (almost like a stammer, but entire phrases get repeated).
He now has a long list of words he must define, including words he knows well (but couldn't express the meaning of). For example, "metaphoric". He knows what a metaphor is and can give examples, but can't describe it specifically.
We've noticed similar things before - his brain has developed along different lines, in terms of his language development. We now seem to have come up against this brick wall of his language limitations, and need to find another way to help him overcome this - he needs to build the connections in his mind, between words and their meanings. He can visualise meanings but not verbalise them. And of course, for the academic standard now required of him, this isn't good enough.
This evening I finally made contact with one of my best friends who is also our speech pathologist. And hey, she needs the business right now, she's been very ill and is trying to get back into her career. So tomorrow afternoon she is going to be assessing difficult child 3's degree of semantic pragmatic dysfunction. She's also supposed to be testing easy child 2/difficult child 2 at some stage, for similar problems. Not sure when that can happen, though. easy child 2/difficult child 2 is now supposed to be responsible for her own health care costs, but this is one we'll have to help her with.
difficult child 3 also has some exams coming up in two weeks, including one in which he has to do a creative writing task (still a huge order for him). He needs to be drilled in all this, but it takes time away from his other subjects, which can suffer when we put too much time into one area. And yet - he needs it, desperately.
A few years ago, we found an exercise which helped him mentally connect ideas and qualities of a particular object or concept - we bought him a 20Q game. Because the 20Q asks various questions about "what you're thinking of", and you have to think of the answers, these answers then get connected in the head of the player (if they were not already connected) and we felt it would help. For example, you think of the word "apple" and the 20Q asks first, "is it animal, vegetable, mineral or other?" You can answer, "yes", "no", "I don't know" or "not relevant" (I'm going from memory here, I might have the wording slightly wrong. The 20Q is in the car and it's cold outside tonight!)
It then asks, "Is it bigger than a house?" or similar. Each question makes you think "apple" in the context of that question, so you can determine the answer. All this helps make mental connections. (I really recommend this if your child has delayed language to any degree, especially due to Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)). Eventually you have answered enough questions for the 20Q programming to have eliminated almost all other possibilities, and it will 'guess' very accurately. It's a lot of fun especially at parties.
But the problem is now beyond the 20Q's capacity to help.
So, any ideas on exercises he could do, to help him find definitions, synonyms, anything else?
One quick digression that came up in the session with the English teacher - she was talking about context, and how a word may seem to have a different meaning in a different context. She was also connecting with with the concept of metaphor. The word "stunted" came up and she asked difficult child 3 what it means. Again, he could give an example but not define the word itself. She then mentioned "bonsai". I quietly told her that before our recent election, our national leader John Howard was called bonsai, for his short stature plus willingness to do whatever George W Bush told him to do - "Bonsai" = "a little Bush".
A classic example of metaphor. She liked it very much.
Back to topic - all ideas welcome, on how to help difficult child 3 develop his own internal thesaurus.
Marg
The way his schooling works - difficult child 3 generally does all his schoolwork at home. He gets worksheets from different teachers for different subjects. When he completes a worksheet I sign off on it and put it in an envelope. After a week's collection, I post it all back to the school (reply paid envelopes) and there the teachers mark it and post it back. All difficult child 3's records, teacher's comments etc are all kept on computer so all teachers can access it to see how he is progressing. These teachers are available for individual lessons when required and also available over the phone and via email, if a student is having trouble with the work. Some of the lessons are done on-line. Occasionally there is a study day scheduled (optional) which is held at the school. Or a school excursion (also optional). But most of the time, it's our home routine. difficult child 3 can do schoolwork in his pyjamas if he wants to.
On Tuesday we got to the school just before 10 am. The teacher took difficult child 3 & me to the library and into a private room there (smart thinking). I'd been concerned that she seemed to be asking more from difficult child 3 than he can handle. The work currently is dealing with writing about environmental issues, especially with newspaper article writing. He has to read and evaluate such articles as well as try to write his own. This has required a level of complex understanding which is right at his limit of capability, if not beyond it. So I asked his teacher to work through a worksheet with him, so he could learn what she requires, as well as she being able to learn what he can do, and what he can't.
I really wasn't sure about her to begin with - she was joking with him a lot, pretending to be stern, and he doesn't always see the joke. But with a little more time than the last meeting (which was the first time she'd met him) I think she now understands. One other thing he has to do, with every worksheet, is write out a list of words he's found in the sheet which he didn't understand. But he says he DOES understand, at least individual words. It's collectively he has trouble understanding.
As she talked, I was asked to write down a list of words she wanted him to work on. Any word she asked him to define but which he could not, I had to write down. I also made short notes for him to use, to recall what she wants from him with his written work. And I wrote it down instead of him, because he can't physically write much. He has to use a computer.
I noticed that she often would ask, "What does this word mean?" and he would say, "I know what it means, but I just can't say it." Over and over again, this happened. He could even use the word in a sentence, but not define it. As I said to her afterwards, he seems to be lacking his own internal thesaurus. He has trouble in finding the right word sometimes. His speech is jerky, repetitive (almost like a stammer, but entire phrases get repeated).
He now has a long list of words he must define, including words he knows well (but couldn't express the meaning of). For example, "metaphoric". He knows what a metaphor is and can give examples, but can't describe it specifically.
We've noticed similar things before - his brain has developed along different lines, in terms of his language development. We now seem to have come up against this brick wall of his language limitations, and need to find another way to help him overcome this - he needs to build the connections in his mind, between words and their meanings. He can visualise meanings but not verbalise them. And of course, for the academic standard now required of him, this isn't good enough.
This evening I finally made contact with one of my best friends who is also our speech pathologist. And hey, she needs the business right now, she's been very ill and is trying to get back into her career. So tomorrow afternoon she is going to be assessing difficult child 3's degree of semantic pragmatic dysfunction. She's also supposed to be testing easy child 2/difficult child 2 at some stage, for similar problems. Not sure when that can happen, though. easy child 2/difficult child 2 is now supposed to be responsible for her own health care costs, but this is one we'll have to help her with.
difficult child 3 also has some exams coming up in two weeks, including one in which he has to do a creative writing task (still a huge order for him). He needs to be drilled in all this, but it takes time away from his other subjects, which can suffer when we put too much time into one area. And yet - he needs it, desperately.
A few years ago, we found an exercise which helped him mentally connect ideas and qualities of a particular object or concept - we bought him a 20Q game. Because the 20Q asks various questions about "what you're thinking of", and you have to think of the answers, these answers then get connected in the head of the player (if they were not already connected) and we felt it would help. For example, you think of the word "apple" and the 20Q asks first, "is it animal, vegetable, mineral or other?" You can answer, "yes", "no", "I don't know" or "not relevant" (I'm going from memory here, I might have the wording slightly wrong. The 20Q is in the car and it's cold outside tonight!)
It then asks, "Is it bigger than a house?" or similar. Each question makes you think "apple" in the context of that question, so you can determine the answer. All this helps make mental connections. (I really recommend this if your child has delayed language to any degree, especially due to Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)). Eventually you have answered enough questions for the 20Q programming to have eliminated almost all other possibilities, and it will 'guess' very accurately. It's a lot of fun especially at parties.
But the problem is now beyond the 20Q's capacity to help.
So, any ideas on exercises he could do, to help him find definitions, synonyms, anything else?
One quick digression that came up in the session with the English teacher - she was talking about context, and how a word may seem to have a different meaning in a different context. She was also connecting with with the concept of metaphor. The word "stunted" came up and she asked difficult child 3 what it means. Again, he could give an example but not define the word itself. She then mentioned "bonsai". I quietly told her that before our recent election, our national leader John Howard was called bonsai, for his short stature plus willingness to do whatever George W Bush told him to do - "Bonsai" = "a little Bush".
A classic example of metaphor. She liked it very much.
Back to topic - all ideas welcome, on how to help difficult child 3 develop his own internal thesaurus.
Marg