We are a family living on the Autism Spectrum. We are all from the same gene pool--the deep end. Bring your towel, you may just get wet.
Sep 22, 2011
Homework: Teaching Organizational Skills to Individuals with ASD
As Appeared in the
July/August 2007 issue.
www.autismdigest.com
Reprinted with permission of publisher.
(Sorry about the format...)
By Michelle Garcia Winner, CCC-SLP
Our daily lives are made up of
an endless stream of thoughts,
decisions, actions and reactions
to the people and environment
in which we live. The internal and
external actions fit together, sometimes
seamlessly sometimes not,
largely dependent upon a set of invisible
yet highly important skills we call
Executive Functioning (EF). These
skills, which involve planning, organizing,
sequencing, prioritizing, shifting
attention, and time management
can be well-developed in some people
(think traffic controllers, wedding
planners, business CEOs, etc.) and less
developed in others. They are vital in
all parts of life, from making coffee
to running a profitable business. The
skills develop naturally, without specific,
formal training, and we all have
them to some degree – or at least, we
all assume we all have them.
Things are never quite as simple as
they seem, and these EF skills are no
exception. They require a multitiered
hierarchy of decisions
and actions, all coming
together within the
framework of time, knowledge and
resources.
Imagine trying to navigate life when
EF skills are impaired or nonexistent, as
they are with individuals on the autism
spectrum. For most of us, our imagination
won’t stretch that far. Therefore,
we assume all these kids – especially
those who are “bright” - have EF skills
and we act and react to our spectrum
children or students as if they did.
Nowhere does this EF skill deficit
cause more turmoil than in the area
of homework, producing monstrous
levels of anxiety and dread in students,
parents and teachers alike. The myriad
of details that need to be accomplished
in a student’s class, school day or week
can overwhelm even the healthiest student;
it can shut down our ASD kids.
I am regularly asked: if tasks are so
overwhelming to their EF systems,
should we just avoid having students
deal with them? The answer
is an unequivocal emphatic “NO!”
Organizational skills are life skills, not
just school skills, and even though they
are “mandatory prerequisites” for succeeding
at school, like social skills they
are rarely directly taught. Few states
include explicit teaching of EF skills in
their “standards of education.”
So where do we start? First, by understanding
how complex organizational
systems become by the time students
reach middle school. We can only be
good teachers if we appreciate the
demands the skills we teach place on
our students.
Second, by understanding organization
as a skill set, which involves static
and dynamic systems.
Static organizational systems and
skills are structured: same thing, same
time, same place, same way. Static organizational
tasks are introduced in kindergarten,
first and second grade. We
break down tasks and ask students to
explicitly complete very defined units
of information, at a certain time and
place. Write your name at the top of
the page, read the instructions, complete
the work, when done turn the
paper over and sit quietly until time
is up.
Dynamic organizational systems and
skills involve constant adjustments
to priorities, workloads, time frames,
tasks and places. They are less teacher directed
and more student-directed.
By 4th grade, teachers are introducing
dynamic assignments to students
with moderate levels of support. Soon
after that we expect students to be
able to manage increasingly dynamic
workloads with little extra support or
direct teaching. By high school, almost
all school and homework has dynamic
components requiring students to use
EF skills to allocate time, resources,
places to work, etc.
Here’s the good news: most of us
understand that to tackle a dynamic
task we have to break it down into its
static elements. The dynamic part of the
task requires thinking; the static part
of the task requires doing. A dynamic
assignment such as writing an essay
requires a significant portion of the
task be spent thinking about the topic
before the static tasks of actually writing
the paper at a table, at a specified hour,
etc. One of the great challenges for our
spectrum students is learning to break
down dynamic tasks into more concrete,
static chunks of work.
Fostering organizational skills in
students with ASD requires an evolutionary
approach towards teaching
students, one that is ideally started at
an early age. Students hone organizational
skills starting in preschool, when
we first ask them to clean up their toys.
Teachers can accurately identify organized
versus disorganized students as
early as kindergarten. By 4th grade
teachers expect students to be proficient
with EF skills.
However, the reality is that the majority
of our ASD students of all ages desperately
need help with homework,
specifically, and EF skills in general.
Help is available. The following 10
steps illuminate specific aspects of EF
skills that increase students’ static and
dynamic organizational coping mechanisms.
While these steps are interrelated
and synergistic, avoid trying to
teach them all at the same time. Each
may be difficult to grasp and master for
the student with ASD; allow learning
to take its own pace. Keep expectations
realistic, talk things through regularly,
and probe for misunderstandings or
miscommunication. Learning EF skills
is a dynamic system of its own, with
its static components. Make sure your
child or student experiences success
and feels competent at each stage of
the process.
10 Steps to Foster
Organization Skills
1. Clearly define what needs
to be done
Too often, parents and schools view
organization goals too simply: “the
student must write the assignment in
his planner.” Clearly this is not nearly
enough detail for most tasks and may
not even be the best starting goal for
a particular student. Adults must be
organized in their own thinking if they
are to effectively teach students with EF
deficits this skill. Go beyond giving out
assignments; help the student understand
how to also approach the task
from an organizational standpoint.
Adults must be organized in
their own thinking if they are to
effectively teach students
with EF deficits this skill.
2. Move it with motivation
Almost all students with weak organizational
skills also struggle with motivation
to accomplish homework tasks.
Parents and teachers often don’t realize
this lack of motivation can stem
from feeling overwhelmed by the task
demands. Students with the greatest
motivational challenges are often our
most intelligent students (e.g. those
with high IQ scores). We often assume
“smart” means “organized” and say
things like “come on, I know you can
do this, I know you are smart.” Yet,
they may have the hardest time motivating
themselves when overwhelmed
because they have never had to work
at learning. Learning just happened if
they stayed attentive.
By adolescence, students need to
appreciate that completing work - even
work that seems somewhat ridiculous
to them – has its rewards. It establishes
them as hard working in the eyes of
others, improves their grades and
increases feelings of self-worth through
meeting their grade level academic
expectations. However, as obvious as
this sounds, this level of cause-effect
can still be too overwhelming to some
spectrum students because it requires
delayed gratification. Many students
need to start at a much more concrete
level of motivation, with very small
work steps combined with reward
early in the task completion process.
For example, if a student cannot easily
work for an hour, have him work
successfully on a single part of the task
for just 10 minutes before he gets to
pause and congratulate himself. Self motivation
increases when students
feel confident in understanding and
accomplishing the task before them.
It doesn’t matter how “well” you teach
students these EF skills; if they are
unmotivated, they will not implement
the ideas. Work directly on helping students
tackle and overcome motivation
challenges.
3. Prepare the environment
Most adults familiar with helping students
“get organized” understand this
point. Establish a dedicated workspace
for homework that includes the essential
tools: pen, pencil, paper, etc. Color
coding tasks, making sure the student
has an organized binder, possibly access
to a time-timer (www.timetimer.com)
create structures that promote success
during homework time.
4. Chunk and time it
Assignments that sound coherent and
structured to teachers can still overwhelm
a student with EF challenges.
For example: “write a report focusing
on the economy, culture, weather
and climate of a specific country.”
Clear enough, you think? Maybe to us,
but not to them. Make sure the student
understands how to “chunk” an
assignment (break it down into smaller
pieces) and how the individual parts
create the larger whole. For example,
not all students will know their report
needs four sections, essentially “mini-essays”
worked on separately and then
joined together.
Furthermore, once they “chunk”
the project students also need to predict
how long each chunk will take to
complete. The majority of our students
with poor organizational skill have a
resounding inability to predict how
long projects will take across time. In
fact, they tend to be weak in all aspects
of interpreting and predicting time.
Consider this: Is there anything you
do without first predicting how long it
will take? We “time map” everything,
gauging how the task will or will not
fit into what we’re doing now, an hour
from now, later in the day or later in
the week.
Homework functions in much the
same way. Students are more willing to
tackle homework when they can reliably
predict how long they will have
to work on the task. For example, a
student will usually calmly do math
if it should only take 5-10 minutes.
However, for those spectrum students
who can’t predict time, the nebulous
nature of the activity incites anxiety
such that they may cry 45 minutes over
doing a 10-minute math assignment.
When the student does not – or cannot
- consider time prediction as part of
his organizational skill set, he is likely
to waste a lot of time rather than use
time to his advantage.
5. Use visual structures
As the school years progress, homework
shifts from mostly static tasks
doled out by one teacher to mostly
dynamic tasks assigned by many different
individuals. We expect students to
self-organize and know how to juggle
the many pieces of learning that make
up each class, grade and level of education.
Yet, this valuable skill is never
directly taught!
Visual long-term mapping charts,
such as a Gantt Chart, (www.
ganttchart.com) can help students
plan and monitor
multiple activities.
These bar type
graphs allow
a student to
visually track
multiple projects
across
time, determine
when
they are due
and how
much time is
available to work on each. For example,
a history paper may be assigned in
February and due in late March; a line
would run from early February to late
March to indicate the time allocated to
the project. A math project assigned in
early March is also due in late March;
another line would represent this project.
Visually the student can see that
two big projects are due at about the
same time, and both are worth significant
grade points. This then helps the
student understand why he should not
wait until the last minute to start one
or both assignments. Gantt charts are
frequently used in business, but have
yet to make it into student software for
school/homework planning. However,
they are easy to create and use at home
or in the classroom. For students with
ASD, they are invaluable tools for
organization.
Visual structures can represent entire
projects and then also be used for individual
chunks, creating the visual organizational
framework students with EF
deficits need. Once assignments are
understood as needing to be worked on
across time, we can encourage students
to chunks tasks to be worked on during
specific weeks, then make related lists
of things to do on specific days.
6. Prioritize and plan daily
Learning to prioritize is a valuable
skill and helps the student get things
done. Keep in mind that many of us
make daily lists but don’t always complete
all tasks on our list, and that priority
is largely based on the value we
place on the assignment. Within the
school setting, “value” is often dictated
by the teacher. Priority is a factor
of the task’s value overall, its deadline
and the time to complete it. However,
just because a task is due does not
mean a student needs to make a decision
to complete it, especially if it is a
low priority or low value task to the
student or the teacher. For example,
during her sophomore year in high
school my daughter was looking at
her math grades online. I looked over
her shoulder and saw she had mostly
A’s and B’s but noticed she had two
F’s. I exclaimed, “Robyn, you have two
F’s”, to which she replied, “Mom, they
were each worth one point. They were
hardly worth doing.” Robyn realized
that in light of the many assignments
she had to juggle for all her classes,
projects with the least point value
were not worth doing; she’d rather
save her time and effort for the larger,
more important projects.
With a prioritized plan in hand,
many students will still struggle with
actually working on the tasks. Even
students with high intelligence may
have difficulty getting themselves to
work on projects not of their liking.
Their baseline attention span may be
no more than 7-10 minutes. (Test one
of your student’s baseline attention
span by observing how long he can
attend to mundane projects without
self-distracting. You may be surprised
by how short it is!)
Help students succeed with their
daily schedule by teaching them to
take frequent small breaks at the end
of their baseline attention span. For
example, a graduate student in theology
found he could only push himself
through 10-minute work cycles before
feeling overwhelmed or internally distracted.
He used a visual time-timer
and gave himself a short stretch break
every 10 minutes. Once he completed
a number of these short work cycles
he gave himself a larger reward. The
key to using self-reward is to make
sure the small reward isn’t likely to be
distracting or absorbing (computer
games, TV, reading a book). Instead
make these small breaks quick and
refreshing, just to refocus attention:
sensory based activities (stretching or
movement), a small snack, a quick trip
to the bathroom or pencil sharpener.
7. Hunt and gather
Simply put: students need to plan
time into their schedule to locate different
resources to complete a task.
For example, research at the library
might be a “chunk” they plan for
on their homework list (don’t forget
travel time!).
Keep in mind
that many of us make
daily lists but don’t always
complete all tasks
on our list.
8. Consider perspective
Homework is more effectively completed
when students start by considering
the teacher’s perspective before
diving into the assignment. An assignment
done well is one that meets the
teacher’s expectations and follows the
teacher’s instructions. A high school
student went to great lengths to develop
a computer program for his computer
programming class. His teacher came to
me exasperated, explaining that while
well done, the project was totally unrelated
to the class assignment.
Parent perspectives enter into the
homework plan also. Many parents
expect children to finish homework
before watching TV. Even though children
may have accomplished a great deal
of homework (in their mind “enough”),
trouble can still erupt because it wasn’t
“finished” in the parent’s mind.
Perspective taking can be quite overwhelming
to many students with social
learning and organizational problems.
A strategy called “social behavior mapping”
(Winner, 2007) can help students
understand how expectations, actions
and reactions affect not only how we
are viewed by others, but how their
responses ultimately impact the way
we view ourselves.
9. Communicate and
then communicate
some more
Homework assignments often result
in students needing help from others.
Knowing when and how to ask for
help can be challenging for students
with social learning and organizational
weaknesses. Avoid assuming students
– especially “bright” students - should
intuitively know how to ask for help,
clarification or even how to collaborate
with others on assignments. These
skills are not nearly as simple as they
seem and may need to be explicitly
taught by the special education teacher
or speech language pathologist at your
school. Tip: as students age into middle
school and beyond, most are turning
to their peer group rather than their
teacher for help. This fosters peer support
networks desperately needed for
success in college and later life.
1r0e.w aCrodm pletion and
Having a clearly defined “end” to a task
is important for the concrete thinking
minds of students with ASD. Be
sure the child knows what “finished”
means, both at school and at home. For
instance, a homework assignment is
not truly “done” until it is turned in to
the teacher at school. While homework
turn-in boxes (static) are commonly
found in elementary school, they all
but vanish during middle and high
school years when even the act of turning
in homework becomes dynamic.
Make sure your students know where
to turn in homework. Also, parents
should save big celebrations for completed
projects until the assignments
are actually turned in. Some students
may need reminder systems set up to
make sure work is turned in on time.
Visual notes, PDA messages or watch
timers can be used to help.
At home, “finished” homework yields
its own rewards when students can
engage in more personally pleasing
activities, such as a computer game,
watching TV, reading for pleasure, etc.
Even our favorite activities have a finite
time frame attached to them before it
is time to go to bed. Many of these
organizational strategies can be used
to help a student learn to shut down a
favorite activity and get his brain ready
for bed.
“Planning takes time!” This is a message
we need to constantly reinforce
with our spectrum students. “Teaching
organizational skills takes time, across
months and even years!” This is a
message we need to reinforce to parents
and teachers. Whether students
are using organizational skills for
homework, doing chores, preparing
for a weekend activity or something
as simple as getting a snack, as children
grow and develop, tasks become
increasingly complex and dynamic
with each passing year. Teachers and
parents need to work together, while
children are still in elementary school,
to identify and teach any or all of the
10 steps mentioned in this article that
are problematic for the spectrum child.
In doing so, we give children the tools
not just to handle homework, but to
be successful in all areas of life.
Michelle Garcia Winner is internationally
recognized as an innovative clinician,
enthusiastic workshop presenter and prolific
author in the field of social thinking
and social cognitive functioning. Visit
www.socialthinking.com for additional
information.
References
Allen, D. (2001). Getting Things Done. The art of
stress free productivity. Penguin Books: New York.
(recommended by an adult with AS)
Dawson, P. and Guare. R. (2004). Executive Skills in
Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to
Assessment and Intervention. The Guilford Press:
New York.
Giles-Brown, C. (1993). Practical Time, Language and
Living Series. Imaginart. www.proedinc.com
Hyerle, D. (1996). Visual Tools for Constructing
Knowledge. Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development: Virginia.
Myles, B. & Adreon, D. (2001). Asperger Syndrome
and Adolescence: Practical Solutions for School Success.
AAPC: Kansas. www.asperger.net
Soper, M. (1993). Crash Course for Study Skills.
Linguisystems: Illinois. www.linguisystems.com
(highly recommended for building a curriculum!)
Winner, M. (2005). “Strategies for Organization:
Preparing for Homework and the Real World.”
The Gray Center: Grand Rapids, Michigan. (www.
socialthinking.com)
Winner, M. (2007). Social Behavior Mapping. Think
Social Publishing, Inc.: San Jose, California
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