Teen Academic Problems

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Hello,

I am the father of two sons, both diagnosed with Asperger's. My older son is 14 and currently a freshman in high school. He's a bright kid and has always done well in school. In middle school, he often complained about his classes being stupid, too easy, etc. This was public school and there wasn't a whole lot we could do at the time other than doing educational things with him (museums, science institute visits, etc.). At the end of 8th grade, we applied and he was accepted to the local international baccalaureate high school.

This was like a dream come true for us. It's a great academic program with lots of opportunities for school trips, clubs (like robotics club), and so on. It's also a great social environment because these are the local cream of the crop in students--intelligent, academically minded kids. My wife and I are not people of great means so this represents his best chance to earn some sort of scholarship, get into a good university, and just be well prepared for higher learning.

The first few weeks he liked it and then his enthusiasm noticeably died down. We weren't surprised. We told him beforehand that there would be more homework and that it wouldn't be as easy as before. However, we weren't really prepared for what began to play out. He started bring having bad grades the majority of which resulted from work he didn't turn in. When asked about it, often he would be completely unaware that there had even been an assignment. I would seriously ask him--"how can you not know that you had this homework?" As school progressed, he would have a grade like, say a C in math. If you looked at the actual breakdown of assignments, that C was a combination of As for things he had done and Fs for the things he hadn't.

We tried to coach him on how to be organized. We bought him folders for all his classes, set up a desk and workspace, explained how to keep track of things, etc. He rejected all of it. To this day, he just shoves all of his papers into a bag. After dozens of missed assignments, he still denies that there is any organizational dysfunction on his part. He will fail to turn in a fairly substantial assignment, at which point I will direct him to go back and do it. He will stall and make excuses (and straight up forget) for weeks. Sometimes all the way until the end of the grading period, at thich point it's too late. I ask him every day if he has homework, but he only goes by memory, won't try to look the assignments up online like I tell him to, and sometimes just lies.

He has maintained that he wants to there. His grades, so far, are not bad enough to get him kicked out. However, the other day my wife was trying to get him to do his French homework and he suddenly said he wanted to pull out of the program. She made him state his reasons, which were:

1. I'm lazy.
2. Going to the IB program will take up all his time and he doesn't want to do that.
3. He wants to be a writer and he's going to have an engineering degree to fall back on if money is an issue. (????)

I did my best to familiarize myself with Asperger's traits when he was diagnosed. But he seems delusional. It seems like he lacks a sense of logical consequence regarding his actions. Putting him back in a less demanding school will make it easier for him to slide by, but it won't change this underlying issue. And since he has other Aspie behavioral tics, I think it will be a hard social transition. Much harder than he assumes (he maintains that he doesn't give a crap about other people's opinions of him so it won't matter).

Sorry about the long post. If anyone has some feedback or perspective on this issue it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Having a 17 year old son myself, I am going to guess that you are dealing with a host of spoken and unspoken (and possibly not fully formed) issues:
1) Executive function issues, which are common with ASD.
2) The frustration that comes with discovering that schools actually seem to care more about how well you do staying organized and following instructions than they do about how much you have learned.
3) The disillusionment that the above leads to, with maybe a sense that world does nothing but lie to you, saying they want you to learn but then valuing everything but learning.
4) The need most ASD kids seem to have for more down time than average, just to get rid of all the stress built up from a day of being around people.
5) The difficulty ASD kids can have with focusing on what they have to do, versus what they want to do.
6) It seems to be really common for ASD individuals to escape into ego and "its too easy" as a self-defense mechanism, ie a way of dealing with and downplaying all the ways they actually struggle.
7) An inability to handle workload stress.

For us, what seemed to help was helping our son identify and voice some of those feelings, having empathy for them, and then talking about how everything going on now fits in with his goals for his future. The truth is, we told him, that as sad as it made us for him that he couldn't experience a time in his life where pure intellectual pursuit would be valued, the need for executive function skills wasn't something he would ever escape and, thus, he was going to have to learn a work-around for it, and choose jobs and careers where his struggles in this area would have the least amount of impact.

My husband and I for years tracked his homework for him, playing administrative assistant, until he programmed himself an odd little tracking system on his laptop one summer (he didn't like any of the apps out there, enjoyed the challenge of it, and also enjoys that no one else can follow his system). We've been sure to engage in every on-line tool from the school, and have encouraged him to do so, as well. When something gets missed, we've taught him to advocate with the teacher for turning it in late and getting partial credit (those zeros carry more weight than 10 A's).

Years and years of constant dialogue and my son has also come to accept that he has to make some difficult choices. Last summer, for example, he dropped an AP class, before school started, because he was clearly overwhelmed with the amount of summer work he had from all his AP classes combined. That was a very difficult decision, because he loved the material, and he wanted the education. But since he can't handle stress, I saw it all heading to disaster. He would have checked out and basically committed academic suicide, similar to what he had started to do the year before. So, he HAS to manage the work load and stress level he subjects himself to, and that will probably ALWAYS be the case for him. And he HATES that, but he has also run into the problems often enough now to know that it is the only way to survive.

College applications were a mixed bag, but he will go to a good school and I think he had a strong variety of choices. He didn't get into his top choices, however, because he played the stat game way too close on it all, and he accepts that it was his own choices that kept him from being accepted. One more thing learned; so it goes; he is truly content with the school he has submitted his SIR to. It is hard for any teen to accurately see cause and effect, and especially for our kids, and then the crazy world they are growing up in ... well, it is a stress and pressure you just can't put on them. I got my son to buy into the "game" for a while and then he almost had a complete breakdown as a sophomore, and I had to explain that all is NEVER lost, you just may have to take a few more detours to get where you want to be. There is a balance they have to seek, and while we can help, that balance really has to be their own.

Anyway, sorry to hear of the struggles, but know that it all is totally normal. Have a lot of long talks and then just be there for him, while letting him make his own choices and mistakes.

This seems similar to what I went through during 7th grade, which was the transition from grade school to junior high, and I had also skipped 6th grade and any preparation for junior high that the other kids got in 6th grade.

I also had a combination of As and Fs for work that I had done and not done, and even if I did the work, I failed to turn it in often. My backpack was also a disorganized mass of papers. I usually remembered which assignments I was supposed to do, but I often just didn't do them. It was like I couldn't find it in my mind to care about doing them, and I didn't care about the consequences either. I also felt lost, like I knew this course was not the right course, but I didn't know how to correct it, or how others could help me.

After this went on for a whole school year, the school took action to help me get back on track, which I did quickly, after I got assignment folders from the teachers that contained all the day's assignments, so each class was organized for me, and my parents and teachers communicated frequently on whether or not I had done the assignments, which I did with an orderly system. Also, I simply adjusted more to junior high after a year of disorientation and chaos, so by the beginning of 8th grade, I was ready to be a great student again, because I got used to the routine.

Perhaps your son is having similar problems transitioning, doesn't feel like he has control or has it together in school right now, therefore has low motivation to do schoolwork, feels like he can't and doesn't know how to correct things so the only choice is to give up on the program. I think that it is time you and the school counselor and teachers work out a plan for him to succeed next year, since this school year is almost over. Since he is 14, I think he is old enough to be included too, and the adults should let him know that he should forget about this crap year, and he now has chance to start over for new school year. Even though he did bad this year, many colleges will still accept him if they see big improvement afterwards, so it is not like his life is ruined, and the adults should tell him this directly. They should let him know that they all still believe in him as having high potential and good future.

Free free to pm me if you want to discuss further, I hope your son gets the help he needs and also finds it in his mind to get it together like I did.

Forgot to give a suggestion on an organization system:

My son uses wide mouth folders, each class in a different color, that he can access the inside of when his backpack is partially unzipped. Because he moves a little on the slow side, he just can't get through the steps of removing a folder or binder, opening it, and removing the right paper quickly enough. But having an organized "stash" system is something he can do quickly and accurately. So, that is what he has used for some five years now. Once a week he goes through and cleans it all up; we or a teacher did that with him for a while, but now he does it himself.

Hi Slan,

You've gotten some great advice from DW, and I don't have much to add other then I can relate. My daughter is 13 and will be entering a more academically challenging high school next year (her choice). I can see some of the issues you are having with your son coming down the road for us. She has always had the "schools so easy" attitude and I don't think fully realizes the workload and pressure that is coming her way next year. I am going to talk with her over the summer about all of this. While she is looking forward to being surrounded by other bright kids and thinks she'll have more in common with them, I do wonder how she will adjust to not being the smartest or most hardworking student in the class. I know that I have to let her chart her own path, make her own mistakes, etc., but it's hard to do knowing how everything starts to really count towards college. But I guess as DW says, if she falters, hopefully she learns from it and adjusts. I know that while I will always be there to help and support her, she has to start taking ownership of her choices. It sounds like you are communicating with your son about the issues he is having, and are offering help. It is up to him what he chooses to do about it and the amount of work he wants to put in to change things. With a teen you really can't force them to do something. I wish you and your son the best of luck!

That sounds familiar! My second child is 13 and in 7th grade, has ASD, and has the same grade profile as you're describing- As on all the class tests and lower grades on partner work and 0s on homework- leaving a low B to high D for each class. We've managed to improve things a fair amount (he's getting one B in language arts- his most difficult subject- and all As or A- now) by setting up a system he could handle:

Folders and binders (the school's preference) is too much for him. We got him an accordion folder on the recommendation of a teacher, and he has one slot for each subject, set up in the order of his classes. He keeps his stuff in there pretty organized (easier than a binder or managing several different folders). The front slot is for ALL work he has to turn in (no matter the subject). The "window" at the front of the binder has a list of the steps he needs to do at the start of each class. I forget exactly the order, but it includes checking the pocket for homework, reading the directions on the board, getting his materials ready, etc. We also now require him to check his online grades/homework postings daily before getting any time on technology or whatnot. This was a hard battle, but we are lucky in that the school has really gone with technology, and he can access his work and his grades at any point. They're not always completely up to date, but they are usually very close. He is very honest about not having finished something, so he needs to get those things done.

These things haven't completely "fixed" the problem, but it has helped tremendously. Previously, he wouldn't turn in work he finished, and he would just not do work he didn't understand (generally language arts). Now, he gets help from me on what he doesn't understand (usually thought/opinion essays/questions) and he turns in probably 80-90% of his work, which is a huge increase. He can solve advanced math problems in his head, but he can't solve the problem of "this is supposed to be stapled, and I don't have a stapler" (hence it comes back home and he doesn't turn it in on its due date). Every time a situation like that comes up, we "problem-solve" and do a social story, but it only "solves" that one problem. So it's a work in progress.

All that being said, my oldest (TD) is also 14 and in 9th grade at an IB school. He went from straight As in middle school to a mix of As to Cs- generally for not getting stuff in. It's gotten better over the year, but it was a transition for him as well, and he doesn't have the same issues his younger sib does. So all that is to say it's not necessarily that your son won't get the hang of it and rise to meet the standard, just that he may need even more support than he has right now, and that even typically developing children may struggle with the transition to high school.

Thank you for the replies everyone! I'm going to share these wife my wife and try to digest all this info.

It would seem worth thinking through exactly what are the changes and demands that you and he think are leading to problems he did not have in the past. Then hopefully you, but also school, can help problem solve. That's a lot of hours if he's not organizing well and doesn't have support in school. Has he ever had any school services?

Funny, we were just having a nearly identical conversation with our 14-year-old.

So, some stuff first: It is super-easy when you have a smart kid to forget that your child has a disability. The school (even a private school) is required to accommodate them, at least in the US under Section 504. (Private schools are not required to offer special education, but must offer "reasonable accommodation" under the ADA) I know that accommodating sounds like a cop-out; think of it this way: your child's lack of organization is just as much a disability as a child with blindness or an intellectual disability - just not with the cognitive part or seeing part. As DW said, executive functioning problems are a part of the disability and are not in your child's control any more than cognition is in the control of a Downs child.

Obviously, just because a student has a disability does not mean we stop expecting them to learn - just look at all the amazing things Downs children are achieving these days in comparison to the outcomes from the horrible way they were treated when I was a child! Meeting their needs FIRST is CRITICAL. This is just as much the case for smart kids with Aspergers as it is for kids who struggle with more concrete things like intellectual disabilities or blindness.

First and foremost, you and the school have to figure out your son's needs and meet them. "Lazy" is just your son's way of saying he is so lost that he can't even begin to solve the problem and is giving up on it - another part of his disability is an inability to frame problems or communicate them accurately. Sounds like he also has one of my son's quirks: an incredible visual memory...which works against him in this case, because he can accurately visualize things that haven't happened and confuses that with reality (so for us, it isn't "is your homework in your backpack" but "did you touch your homework to check that it's in your backpack?)

Some standard accommodations for a student with executive function are the following:

* "Chunk" assignments - schedule large assignments into smaller tasks with separate due dates for each task.
* Allow student to use resource materials outside of class
* Give partial credit for late or incomplete work
* Have teachers sign off on students' assignment notebook that homework is written down correctly.
* "Check-in, check-out" a support staff person checks the student's backpack each morning and each afternoon, making sure the student has everything he(she) needs to complete tasks for the day (homework, school supplies, textbooks, a completed calendar, etc.)
* Supervised desk and locker clean-outs (usually 1X month, depending on need)
* A photo of what a clean desk and locker look like posted on the inside of each.
* Reduce total amount of work
* Color code material by type of task (FWIW, this never worked for us, but it might for your kid)
* Permission to carry backpack to each class containing entire day's schoolwork.
* Use of a CaseIt style multi-subject organizer
* In-school homework support like a supported study hall or a supported afterschool program
* Parents are notified immediately when homework isn't handed in on time.

We were doing most of this (DS seems to be doing well keeping stuff organized on his own as long as nothing is unusual - permission slips never make it home...sigh...) and recently we found that DS wasn't telling us the truth when he said his homework was finished. I got the same answer you did when I asked him about it "I'm lazy and I want to play video games."

We did make him spend a day without screens catching up, and then we sat down and came up with a system we're going to implement starting this week (at the recommendation of a therapist.) DS will get a half-hour of video games when he gets home from school to decompress. He will then study for a full hour - if he doesn't have homework, he will have to read something (we have had to structure pleasure reading as different from school reading) or come up with an academic project to do. If he is done with all of his work, he can then have some more screen time.

We also have figured out that we have to be in the position of "trust, but verify." We can keep track of his grades online, and we try to remember to check up on him to see if anything is missing. It's a lot of work - I know it's frustrating as a parent and feels like micromanaging - but it's what my son needs; the minute he doesn't need an accommodation anymore, he drops it himself. He may well need you to put his papers into folders for him...or schedule out a long-term assignment and sit with him for each chunk, or look online at his assignments for him instead of asking him about it.

I'd also say this: a lot of what you are describing is normal 14-year-old development. If he's in a gifted program, he's with a lot of kids who are skilled beyond their years in executive functioning and it's probably making him feel like he will never get there. Very few kids this age do not have a sense of long-term consequences or the logical connections between behavior and outcome. I talk a lot with my son about how the point of high school is to keep doors open to lots of different opportunities - that when he gets to college, he can specialize, but he needs to make sure he gathers all the tools he can so that he has as broad a range of choices as possible when he graduates.

BTW - while DS is excited about a language in High School (Japanese,) we dropped language for Middle School. He had been in a Spanish-immersion program since preschool, and in middle school it changed to conversational Spanish. Problem is, my son can't converse in English, at least not in a setting where he is put on the spot...we finally decided that it wasn't a battle worth fighting.

We had similar issues with our daughter in middle school. The single most effective thing we did was have an IEP that allowed her to turn in her work late and still earn all of the points. This allowed us to ensure she did the work - though often she would carry an F through most of the semester and then turn everything in at the end and the grade would go up to and A or B.

We worked with her on using several different organizational techniques until we finally found one that works for her. We are also lucky in that our school has an electronic system where we can look to see what work has been done for each class and what is missing. When she started high school we checked it together every day.

Now I only check once a week and she generally is doing better.

I will say that when she takes particularly difficult classes (AP) it is harder for her to keep up in all of her classes - so we have limited those.

Good Luck

About IB programs.

They are REALLY tough. And you do easily double the amount of homework that an AP high schooler would have. You must be very disciplined, and almost a self starter. All the kids that I know in IB programs, that have thrived, are beyond motivated.

Also, the IB middle school my DD will be going to, there is a HUGE emphasis on team and group work. Almost all classes have group orientated projects. It's not just get lectured and turn in homework. There is a ton of group interaction to learn the concepts. Everyone must participate.

Dimes to donuts, your kid is overwhelmed. He's competing against uber achievers who usually have awesome social skills. The IB kids will do things like organize a project to build homes in for the poor in Mexico. They come up with the concept and actually do it. It reminds me of basic training where the group is more important than the individual.

The IB program has a big drop off rate after the first year for high school. There isn't a lot of time for fun stuff. The majority of the kids don't want to work that hard.

From what I've heard an IB diploma doesn't carry anymore weight than anything else for college scholarships. It's more "oh that's nice".

I'd find out what is really going on in the school. Between the uber work load and the mega social expectations, he might just be swamped. And believe me, plenty of NT kids pull the plug on IB. No shame in that.

Does your son's school do block scheduling? Meaning your classes meet only twice a week on a rotating basis. Say the regular school class meets 1 hour/5 days a week. The IB high school here meets 2.5 hours/2 times a week. So you really need to be organized. You will not have that daily contact with the teacher.

My friend's son with ADHD couldn't handle it. He always felt behind, and you can see after missing a few days of homework, how far in the hole you can get.

Our IB high school does not do a ton of accommodations. There is some wiggle room, but at least this school doesn't budge on much. If you are bright and need that, you are tested for GATE.

Just tossing ideas in the air. Sorry it's a rough time for him and you.

This all sounds very familiar. These are the same challenges the daughter had in 7th grade. Of course the school didn't figure out that she was having actual issues and just berated her for not keeping up.

She is doing school at home now. We had to adjust to doing one subject at a time start to finish. This she can deal with. Having 5 or so classes a day at school was just too much to organize and deal with.

Thanks again for the replies everyone. My wife and I have both read these posts and are going to sit down and hash things out with a counselor.

Please let us know how things go! We are all in more or less the same boat!