my teen is failing 8th grade due to executive dysfunction =/

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we are at a complete loss as to what to do. our oldest is 14, hes in a gifted school. he definitely has some asd traits, and in january his school gave him asd eligibility. he has severe issues with executive dysfunction. he cant keep track of his assignments, hes suppose to use a planner to record assignments and get teacher signatures, but he even lost that. he constantly loses assignments and homework, fails to turn things in even when he has them completed and in his backpack.

his third marking period grades were b-, c, d+, d, and 2 e's (they use e instead of f). his iq is in the 120's and his test scores in his classes are usually good, he is failing solely because of his inability to turn in outside work on time. prior to this school he had no problems in this area, mainly because he had no homework or assignments outside of class time. he basically floated by on his intellect and got excellent grades. now he is in a school that requires work, and his functioning issues are overwhelming.

his school seems to be cooperative, altho not nearly fast or far enough in my opinion. ive asked if we can get all his assignments to be sure he is getting them done and the principal basically refused. they did allow me to email his teachers weekly and ask about late work or upcoming assignments, but every week i get *1* teacher to respond, which makes it almost worthless. i called today to talk to the social worker about the fact that his grades are still plummeting and we have no way to stop it. she is going to pull him out of class to talk to him today, then get back to me.

i dont want him to lose his spot at this school, it is an excellent school with concentration programs (he is in theater), but they have to maintain a C in core classes and a C+ in concentration, and he is nowhere near that. we live in a very poor county, all other public school options are not good, especially for a weird, socially awkward kid who has a really hard time making friends. we couldnt afford private school and home schooling is not an option either, i work full time and his stepdad, who is mainly the home parent, and he butt heads badly.

we have been struggling with this for 1 1/2 years and are no closer to a solution or even a workable plan of action. has anyone else found a way to get through this type of executive dysfunction? his stepdad is autistic and has his own issues with this, and its not like my son's dysfunctions just magically appeared in his generation, so its like the chronically disorganized leading the chronically disorganized.

we are completely failing in helping him with this, and have no more ideas on what to even try.

Hello. I'm a mother of 4 children. My oldest has Asperger's. He's 11 & gifted also. I'd like to say that you sound like a very devoted active parent in your son's life. Kudos to you! Have you had him tested for ASD? It sounds like you may have. Do you have an IEP in place? Sometimes an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) may be the best thing so your son can get the individualized help he needs for the time being. Every child is different. How does your son do with routines and schedules? Can you help him to build on the basics one step at a time? I'm puzzled as to why your school isn't giving you suggestions, but none the less, you can do this! You may have to be a bit more creative with keeping him on schedule. I like your idea of a planner, but it sounds like that may have been a little overwhelming. Planners have specific boxes where you have to write down what you need in a specific place. How about getting outside of the "box". Could he write down things in a plain notebook lets say at the end of each class? Just his OWN NOTES in his own format may be a big help. He may need a visual reminder for homework to be turned in. How about keychains on his back pack? If you have this keychain on your back pack, you have to hand in your science homework today. If you have this keychain on your backpack, you have to hand in your math homework and so on and so forth. Explain to him that he CAN DO this! It's a matter of baby steps and VISUAL cues! What does your son have to say about it? He may have some ideas as to what could work. You're going to have to try lots of different things, but habits are formed out of baby steps. Progress not perfection. It's all new for him to have these assignments & maybe he's not realizing the impact of his actions. Don't forget POSITIVE reinforcement & lots of praise & encouragement for him when he is on the ball! The relationship between him & his step dad is going to have to be between him and his step dad. It would be nice if the two of them got out to do a little father son bonding besides just the day to day. Your husband may very well end up being your best asset for finding new things that may work with your son. What has worked for organization? If you know what's worked for things like putting laundry away or keeping a room straight (does this even happen with teen boys?? LOL!) then you may be able to figure out what works for him. He's a smart kid & he can LEARN! It's just going to take some creativity to find what works for him to help get him organized. Once they have a routine in place, they will thrive on the repetition. The next challenge will be when there is a break in the routine. Give yourself a pat on the back. You are doing great & you will get through this together!!

Our middle school actually has a good number of systems in place to make sure all the kids know the assignments, but the sheer volume of material that gets turned in and graded is mind boggling to me. We have school loop and a phone system, and most teachers use one system or the other daily to leave records of assignments that parents and students can check. This isn't just an issue for AS kids, but most boys that age, actually; compound the AS with the developmental ability of the average 8th grade boy to organized, and you have disaster (Peg Tyre's book, "the Trouble with Boys," is really interesting). Kids are being asked way too much in the way of organizational skill expectation, but good luck getting schools to hear that from us ....

So. Plans. One thing we found helpful was having it written in the IEP that the resource teacher would review assignments and progress with our son weekly. They go through all his folders, sort paper, and compare to the list from the teachers. Teachers are often more responsive to requests from their peers than from a parent, so that helps. We still actually do it again at home once a week, but we saw good progress having it put in the IEP.

Still, organization skills and the crazy modern grading rubrics seem to be the bain of existance for most of our kids. My son has had an "A" on every science test this quarter, but got a "C" on his progress report because he failed to take the notes that are assigned to help kids study for the tests (the notes are graded). Lol, yeah, that goes over soooo well with him, and we agree it's crazy, but we also know he is capable of completing that piece of work and have told him we're not running to the IEP team on it because it's a life skill to do what you're asked even when it's rubbish. In our case, I KNOW he can pull it up to a B by working with the teacher and biting the bullit on his own opinions but if I didn't, I would have INSISTED in the IEP that the note taking be pulled from his grading rubric.

So ... in addition to working with the teachers on making sure the assignments are known and understood, you might want to see how much of the graded material is rubbish that belongs in the "teach the child to stay organized and follow instructions" category instead of "teach the child the subject" category. Truth is, our kids can do without the former because as they move into high school and college, they will leave behind the "grade every minute of every day" system into higher stakes testing and papers, which our kids actually tend to be better with. My son gets overwhelmed remembering what is due of the 20 small assignments in a week, but he NEVER forgets a midterm or a 5 page essay.

Lol, can I ramble on this or what? Seriously, the modern grading rubric can be said to reward dedicated mediocracy, at the cost of smart kids who just have trouble with dotting i's. I tried to get it changed at our school but ran into the roadblock of the parents of those dedicated (mostly) girls who thrive in the system.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 02 Mar 2011, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We're not there yet, right now they are letting DS coast for a bit, but I'm really, really concerned about this for my son in the future. I'm pushing keyboarding in hopes that he will be able to start using our netbook next year, so that everything can go right into it.

I have executive dysfunction issues, myself: all my life, I've depended on electronic devices to get me through. If you can afford something like a PDA or IPhone, this may be what your son needs; it's what I use to get through the day - here's how I do it:

Anytime anything has to be done, it goes on the calendar on my phone THAT MINUTE with an alarm (alarms are set with with different lead times depending on how much prep work whatever it is has.) This is the ONLY thing I need to be disciplined about doing, everything else is automatic. My phone syncs up to Google Calendar. Google Calendar syncs up to MS Outlook, where I keep my email and which sends a popup window. Two alarms will ring, one on my phone, the other on my computer, to let me know when I need to do something.

This works well enough for me that when I was explaining to one of DS's teachers that I probably have AS and executive function problems, her mouth dropped open. I am not known as a flake - though I was when I was your son's age.

If I could, or if I were in school, (and this is my plan for DS) I'd take this one step further: I'd use the phone camera to take a picture of the instructions, which can be uploaded to the calendars as a file. I'd put it in the calendar twice: once for when I'm going to do it, once for when it's due. If it's more than a one-step project, it still goes in the calendar twice - and then when I'm done with step one, I reschedule it for step two until the due date. Homework gets done on the computer that has the calendar on it - so there are three steps to remember: take readable picture, add work date to calendar, add due date to calendar. I assume this would require an accommodation to have a phone on during school time (plus, with my son, we'd need some sort of guarantee that he couldn't play games on it during school.)

This may not work for your son - but there are countless "tricks" for executive function issues: my Dad used a multi-alarm watch. You have to figure out what's easiest for him.

This is not an executive dysfunction issue. This is an organizational issue and the only way to address it is to get him into a strict habit of using a binder, putting the homework assignments in their proper section in that binder the second he gets them, getting home, taking the out, doing them, putting them back in, and consulting the binder when he gets to school to turn them in. It takes discipline, and this is something that most people have problems with. Depression can make it worse.





Normally I would say that it's only an excellent school if he is learning effectively and doing well there. In other words, an excellent school is a school where the student flourishes, however, I understand that in some countries, the reputation of the school matters far more than it does here in the US. I don't know what country you are in but I think you need to ask yourself, what matters more with respect to your son's future, the school's reputation or your son's ability to get good grades? Or, your son's ability to learn despite the actual grades he gets? The school might just not be compatible with his learning style, and might hinder him.

Before you make any major decisions, you also need to consider that he might be depressed, and this could impact his performance.

I was browing in Barnes and Noble today when I saw a book. I have no idea if it is any good, but I had a Groupon and decided to pick it up. It is called Smart but Scattered by Peg Dawson, EdD and Richard Guare, PhD. It talks about boosting executive skills. Again, I have no idea if it is worth the paper it is written on, but I decided to pick it up and read it.

dw, that is a great analysis and i like your approach too.

i think part of his issues are problems with auditory processing, he often doesnt "hear" verbal instructions in class. his teachers are suppose to repeat instructions for him, but i dont think thats happening. but even in classes where assignments on written on the board, he fails to write those down too.


notsotypical, thank you for the encouragement =) he hasnt been medically evaluated (we plan to later this year), but we requested a school eval and the school gave him an educational diagnosis of asd, so he has asd eligibility. he does have an iep, but its pretty generic. the only real accomodations are that he can use a computer for handwritten assignments in class (but only one class has a computer anyway), he is allowed to use pen on all assignments (sensory issues, he cant use pencil), and he is suppose to get to see the social worker and 15 mins of organizational help from another social worker a couple times a year. he does have an accordion folder with a section for every class. i set him up last month with a specific folder that homework assignments go into, and once finished they go into the other side; he is suppose to check this folder in every class for assignments to turn in. he doesnt have an issue with the specific planner, its just a failure overall to write assignments down. we tried using a plain little notebook before, with same results. i like visual reminders, but he isnt allowed to have his backpack in class. he has no organization to speak of, and keeping his room clean is a nightmare.

chronos, we live in the US. our county is poor, not our country =) the other public schools are in dangerous areas, have extremely poor student outcomes, have gang or violent activity, or require metal detectors and security, etc. we live in the most violent city per capita in the us for the last 7 years, according to the fbi. they have a schools of choice program, so he is able to go to almost any school in the county and not just the one offered in his home district. we dont care about the reputation, but we do care about their ability to give him a good education while keeping him safe. this school offers concentration courses, advanced classes, college credit for jrs and srs, and learning opportunities he cant get at other schools (trips to dc, trips to japan, robotics program, etc). he definitely has executive dysfunction issues, its not just organization, thats just where it shows up the most.

momsparky, we talked about using his phone last night actually! he has a new android phone, and i thought about setting it up so he can enter assignments on an agenda that copies itself over to google calendar. i am no stranger myself to executive dysfunction, and i use the same system to keep on track (<3 my android). he also has an ipod, and we were looking for calendar apps for that. the only problem is that neither are allowed in class, and he isnt even suppose to have a phone at school at all. he does have a netbook that was purchased for use at school. i will talk to the school about getting this put in place for him, but not sure they will go for it (they seem to think the planner is good enough, but not if he doesnt use it).

dw, great idea about having him go over assignments at school with someone. i dont believe they even have a resource room/teacher, but i can see if the SW will step up his visits to once a week instead of once every two months. he has a 20 minute break before his last class so he could easily visit her then without missing any class time. the main issue seems to be getting the assignments from his teachers, which i have been unable to do. maybe the SW would have more luck. i know what you mean about things not going over well, lets not talk about the "showing your work" requirement for math! that is the source of much anguish in our house. i WISH his school had programs in place for assignments. they do have skyward, but only one of his teachers puts assignments on there in advance, the rest dont put them on until after they are already late, which does us little good.

twinplets, thanks for the book info. its worth looking into, and not just for N. i dont think there is a single person in our house who doesnt have executive function issues =)

this has definitely given me more ideas, thank you all. i got an email back from the SW, she helped N organize his accordion folder today and says we will follow up later. i will call her again tomorrow to talk over some of these other ideas.

he is such a smart kid. it just kills me to see him not succeeding in school. all it would take is for them to tell us his assignments, we can handle keeping on top of him to get his work done, but not if we dont know what work NEEDS to be done. we know he needs to learn to do this himself, but i dont see failing as being helpful to that learning process

Do you have an IEP or a 504? If so, add to it that the teachers need to email you with his homework assignments, and that he should have 2 copies of books, one at home and one at school so he doesn't forget them. Those are very common accommodations. Even if you don't have it formally set up, if you call the teachers and explain what's going on, they might start doing it ahead of being required to. Parental involvement makes a huge difference to teachers.

My son is 9, and he has double books now and I fully expect to have his homework assignments emailed when he gets older. I've also emailed copies of his reports to school as a backup - I just scan them and email them. I do this because he finishes early, and doesn't want his projects hanging around the house because they stress him out, so he brings them to school early, but then there's the chance he'll lose track of them at school. It's a bit overkill, but it works, and the teachers appreciate the extra effort I put into making him a success at school.

Good luck!

For anyone looking for a definition of executive dysfunction, this seemed to be one of the better ones to me: http://www.greatschools.org/special-edu ... ntent=1017

My son's teacher actually did an excellent job explaining how the work process is the building block for the things he'll be doing later, and how the process is actually more important than the answer. And he bought it. Doesn't mean he always remembers, because his brain just skips those steps at times to the point he doesn't even realize the steps exist, but as a kid who wants to go onto calculus and more, he's been convinced this isn't bogus. Only a really good math teacher can make that sell

My NT Son has Executive Dysfunction issues and it is rough!! !

Chronos, your post made me laugh.. it sounds SO NT!! ! In the NT world, it's just discipline and motivation, right? Well, at least for my boy - he was extremely motivated and really wants good grades. He was grounded for every assignment that wasn't turned in (plenty of discipline!). this is what the typical NT world thought would work -my son still failed classes. When I realized that he was really trying and still faced negative consequences, we stepped in and helped.

I heartily agree, there is no benefit to failing a smart kid for organiztion issues. In therapy I was told that kids like my son may need an assistant one day, for now I need to be that assistant. What happens is that they start being put in lowe classes than they should be, then they get bored then they actually start to fail. This is not an OK cycle.

I don't have a great answer other than driving the teachers crazy with constant contact. I write them all the time trying to sort out the work. Our school started posting grades online and that really works - when the teachers keep it updated.

A good accomidation that can be made is to have his teacher email his homework, and he do his homework on the computer and email it back to her. That way you dont have the problem of losing it from point A to point B...a copy of that email can be sent to your email, so you know what is due as well.

Sometimes the answers are not as complicated as the problem itself

Jojo

he does have an IEP, but its proving useless. at the IEP mtg in january i asked to get the teachers to let us know preferably via email about all his assignments, the principal said no. i got permission to email the teachers weekly asking for info, but i get little response to my emails.

this is what one of his teachers sent me when i asked about overdue assignments (this is the gen ed teacher who participated in his IEP mtg, too):
All students were given the opportunity to make up work as long as it was in by Wednesday of last week. They even had a day in class to work on it. N has 3 assignments missing, 2 are worksheets, but the largest assignment was out of the book. I spoke to him individually about the work and made sure he understood the deadline and how he could get some credit. They were told which assignments were missing on a Thursday and then told that they were due by the following Wednesday. The assignments in questions are all over 3 weeks late at this point. I believe that the students were given sufficient time to make up the work.

the teachers dont seem to understand that he cant remember his assignments, he cant plan his time to get them done by a deadline, he loses papers constantly, he forgets his book everywhere, and he doesnt communicate to us what his assignments are. talking to only HIM about his assignments doesnt cut it.

i understand he needs to learn to take care of these things, but i dont accept that he has to fail until he learns to do so, and i have told his school this. unfortunately, they keep refusing my suggestions on how to help him be successful while he learns to be successful on his own.

i am calling the SW today to again request getting info from his teachers on all assignments, and to request an extra set of books. if they refuse, i'll ask for an emergency IEP mtg. i just cant accept that letting him fail is an option.

My 13 year old has pdd-nos and executive functioning issues (specifically in working memory and sustained concentration), organization is very difficult.
That person who said that organization is not an executive function should talk with my son's psychologist and his psychiatric nurse practitioner. It is indeed, executive functioning.
The book that really helped us was "Late, Lost and Unprepared".
It shows you step-by-step how to build in tools and then slowly move your kid over to organizing himself.
If you haven't yet, get a really good, specific diagnosis. And take it into the school and show the school psychologist. This may help them cut him a break.
Our son needed medication. It's made a world of difference for him.

The teachers need to understand that this is a documented issue related to the AS and just because they think they offered plenty of opportunity does not mean it's resolved. Would they expect it from a kindergartner? NO. They are assuming a level of developmental ability your son simply does not have.

I accepted when my son was in 6th grade that I was going to have to be his admin assistant, and for 6th grade I was (that was before we got it reassigned to resource, and programmed him into academic support instead of an elective). Tell the teachers that you are your son's admin assistant, but you can't do your job if they don't remember to talk to you. You (and hopefully the SW) are stepping in to fulfill a skill he simply does not have and cannot learn at this point in time. Doing so will allow him to develop the work arounds he is going to need to someday do all this without you, but that can't happen overnight and it isn't going to happen if he's allowed to fail over an issue he truly cannot help. It's a totally valid request. Keep pushing. Lol, I don't have to say that, you've already said it in your last sentence. Just know we are totally with you on this one; you aren't pandering or asking anything unreasonable.