school subjects-- better way to teach?

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anyone have any suggestions about unusual methods to teach aqsperger kids school subjects?

My 6 year old is an extremely good reader, but has trouble with some math. Right now, I am having trouble getting him to understand that 4 tally marks with a line through them means 5 and that after he counts by 5's for these type of marks he has to count the remaining single marks by 1's... similarly, he can tell me that a nickel is 5 cents and worth the same as 5 pennies, but if he is counting change with 3 nickels and 2 pennies he says it is 25 cents... also, he has trouble if there is a pattern like 15, 20,__, 30-- he might put 21 here or for 15, ____, 17, 18 --- he might put 20 here... if I prompt him verbally, he will usually correct it, but it seems like I have to prompt him every single problem so he still does it wrong for his school work... he is good at adding (and I have not let him memorize the answers yet, he does understand what adding means) so I am puzzled..

we have been struggling with this for a while...any ideas?

I'm terrible at math and had to get by with only memorization.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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Developmentally many six year olds are capable of these tasks, but some are not yet there. It sounds to me as if your daughter is in Piaget's pre-operational stage of development. One of the problems I had as a middle school teacher was the school district and state requiring me to show students mastered concepts that were beyond their stage of development. This leaves those who are slower to develop feeling "stupid" when really it is just a matter of giving them a few months or a few years to catch up with their peers. Age 6-8 is another of these developmental brain changes that occur (from the pre-operational to operational stage), and some kids just are not there yet. There is no problem with introducing a concept, and becoming familiar with the type of problem, but expecting mastery is often just setting the child up to fail. Check out the following youtube example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg

And if you want, read the following chapter about child development.
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/d ... h_ch02.pdf

Also, researchers like Robbie Case have developed some programs geared to bridge the gaps using manipulatives. RightStart math is one of those programs, but I have never used it so I really don't know how good it is.

http://rightstartmath.com/

These looked fun!
http://rightstartmath.com/resources/card-games-videos

Please check out my free math channel on YouTube (see below). There are lots of free math videos for young children to watch to help them get down basic concepts and learn basic facts.

Personally, I have also used many commercial math products with my older son. Please see the "math links" on my free website, www.freevideosforautistickids.com.

My older son with high functioning classic autism befits from visual aids; repetition; simple, written step-by-step explanation of concepts; and clear definitions and visuals for all math vocabulary terms. Therefore, video (especially with closed captioning and some entertainment value), math picture books, math vocabulary flashcards, and math facts flashcards all benefit him. Also, following directions could be part of the problem; make sure that your child gets into the habit of reading directions at the start of any assignment and understands direction words and phrases.

I work in a Montessori school. All of my life I was really bad at math because for me memorization of the outcome without understanding conceptually doesn't work. In Montessori, manipulatives are used exclusively until a child gets the concept and can abstract (math on paper/math in head). By this I mean that 1=1. In montessori we use beads so 1=1 bead. 10 is a bar with ten beads on it...100 is a square of 100 beads...1,000 is a cube of 1,000 beads. All of the "multipication tables" are first learned by the hand with our different chains. For instance, you actually see and touch 8x8. when you do addition and substraction you first do them with beads...and then stamps. You physically subtract 3 from 7. I didn't actually understand math (I've learned to do everything on my fingers or on paper) until I started working in Montessori....now I understand the pattern of everything, so recalling the facts isn't hard...because i can see what it looks like in my head.

Might be worth looking up Montessori math.

My son still struggles with this at 11, and I am finally coming to realize that he is struggling with the LANGUAGE of math, not the concepts themselves (if he wants an outcome that involves mathematical thinking, but not actual numbers, he does just fine) I, also, have always had a math disability but am just now realizing that I have an intuitive number sense that no one was ever able to bring out in me.

Think about it: you just described several different ways of doing exactly the same thing, but with different labels - for a child with a communication disorder, that is a significantly difficult thing to do.

Most of the Aspie boys I know consider label words to be immutable: in fact, one of my son's largest social deficits is that he will get into screaming fights with kids for calling an "AK-47 Assault Rifle" a "gun," or a "rifle" while they are playing a pretending game. I notice that when the kids leave his social skills group, they are all discussing "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" instead of "Smash Brothers Brawl" etc. I finally had to sit him down and explain that calling things the "exact right name" is an AS vs NT thing, and he needed to be tolerant of people who use shortcuts when they talk.

So, basically, every single time you present a math problem using different language or words, I am guessing your child has to learn it again from scratch as an entirely new thing. I wonder if a visual conversion chart might help? For instance:
Photo of Penny = 1 = /
Photo of Nickel = 5 = <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">////</span>
Photo of 5 Nickels = 15 =
Etc., etc.

momsparky... 15,__,17, 18 ... sometimes he will put 16 or sometimes 20... because in other problem like this, those would be the correct number after 15 (depending on single count or skip count by 5)... it is like he is not recognizing a pattern and has just memorized the answers...

everyone, WOW!! ... lots of ideas... momsparky, i think you hit the nail on the head... i think so many ways to say 5 is confusing... it made me think of math-u-see, which we have but he was not ready for this summer (although school math has gone on without him--bethaniej, Eureka-C).... in math-u-see, he shows individual green cubes, and different color cubes for each number, so 5 would be 5 purple cubes stuck together, not 5 green cubes, but equal to 5 cubes... i thought this was confusing, but now i think this might make more sense to him than it does to me... he does have a habit when adding to count at the beginning rather than adding on no matter how many times i have told him...

5+3= he will say "okay if Harley Quinn has 5 hammers--- 1,2,3,4,5," pause as if he is visualizing harley and her 5 hammers, "and then she gets 3 more hammers by robbing Home Depot " pauese as if visualizing... " so 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8"-- his special interest is batman, so a simple problem usually turns into some long story about batman--- which i am glad, because he is thinking about the numbers, but sometimes all this thinking makes him take too long, and then miscount... which makes me think he is ready for memorizing...

but he has no problem adding on if you stick a number line in front of him... i guess because on the numberline he sees 5 as a spaceholder, kind of like the 5 purple cubes stuck together, i guess-- and then just counts 1,2,3 over to 8

no wonder all this is so confusing-- i was one of the lucky ones who just got math without thinking-- numbers are intuitive to me so i never really stopped to think about how i was thinking about it--

for a quick fix i think you guys are right... making visualization conversion math flash cards right now for things that equal 1, 5, 10... and i have the triangle flash cards so he can memorize addition and subtraction at same time

love the rightstart goldfish game... this is something our ABA therapist could play with him while practicing turn taking... multi tasking-- awesome

i am still not sure about patterns... 15, 20,--, 25..... Eureka-C would I start by seeing if he could see picture patterns first (like logic type books) to get him to this more abstract math ? or do you guys just think it is one of those Aspie things where he is thinking, "why the heck would you even do this... who cares"

i am still not sure about patterns... 15, 20,--, 25..... Eureka-C would I start by seeing if he could see picture patterns first (like logic type books) to get him to this more abstract math ? or do you guys just think it is one of those Aspie things where he is thinking, "why the heck would you even do this... who cares"

That's a really good question. I am not sure that I have the answer for that. As patterns are an integral part of math and there is a correlation between understanding patterns, music and the mathematical mind then what you say makes sense. As for whether visual patterns would be best, that depends on your child. Personally, I am a visual learner and learned math best by seeing pictures of patterns. My husband on the other hand is an auditory learner and I could see him using a beat to work out patterns. A kinesthetic learner would need to move objects. A verbal learner would need to hear the patterns explained. I agree with one of the above posts about montessori/hand-on based math. There is an interesting article that talks about adding like you described with your son. It is informative, but does not offer any applicable responses.

There appear to be three main stages in the development of counting as an addition strategy:
1. Counting all. For 3 + 5, children will count ‘one, two, three’ and then ‘one, two, three, four, five’ countables to establish the numerosity of the sets to be added, so that two sets will be made visible – for example, three fingers on one hand and five fingers on the other. The child will then count all the objects.
2. Counting on from first. Some children come to realise that it is not necessary to count the first addend. They can start with three, and then count on another five to get the solution. Using finger counting, the child will no longer count out the first set, but start with the word ‘Three’, and then use a hand to count on the second addend: ‘Four, five, six, seven, eight’.
3. Counting on from larger. It is more efficient, and less prone to error, when the smaller of the two addends is counted. The child now selects the larger number to start with: ‘Five’, and then car- ries on ‘Six, seven, eight’.
(Butterworth, 1999; Carpenter & Moser, 1982)
The stages are not strictly separate, in that child- ren may shift strategies from one problem to the next. There is a marked shift to Stage 3 in the first six months of school (around 5–6 years in the US, where this study was conducted (Carpenter & Moser, 1982). Stage 3 shows a grasp of the fact that taking the addends in either order will give the same result.

http://www.mathematicalbrain.com/pdf/BUTTJCPP05.PDF

I am sure there are some homeshooling parents or early childhood teachers out there who would be more helpful in this.