Foggyrock
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Homework and Aspergers Posted By: SportsMum
Posted On: 10/18/2007
As I write this, my husband is attempting to do 5th grade math homework with Jackson. In fact, I came in this office to write this blog in order to get away from John and Jackson and 5th grade math homework.
I am a self-professed math moron. In every other subject I am somewhat gifted (or so they would have labeled me in this label crazed world), but math and I have never spoken the same language. So you can imagine my immense joy when John took a new job closer to home, simply so he could do math homework with the boys! (Well-not the only reason but I'm sticking to my story...)
Problem is - while John is very good at math (he's computer man, after all)- he's not very good at relating math concepts to a boy on the autism spectrum who doesn't want to learn math.
Jackson is an exceptionally intelligent boy. He came home from school yesterday and bragged to me that in social studies, the teacher gave the kids a blank map of the U.S. The class had a contest to see who could fill in the most blanks in the shortest amount of time. Jackson won by a full minute - and filled in every blank! But social studies is easy - he has studied this map every day since first grade when his reward for staying in his seat was the chance to sit by the map on the wall and read.
Math takes longer - you have to actually think. And then - try applying the concept to the real world! (that's where I gave up...)
So tonight - we are dealing with prisms and pyramids and determining the volume inside. But we don't have a prism or a pyramid to look at - and Jackson can't imagine what one would look like. He needs to SEE it. So John draws a prism (rectangle) on a piece of paper and writes the numbers for length, height and width beside it. But - Jackson says - the numbers are upside down! And, that rectangle on the piece of paper is definitely NOT eight inches long - it's more like an inch and a half.
I love my husband and I know he wants to understand Jackson but - he could not figure out why it mattered that the numbers were upside down...and that Jackson kept looking away...and that he was drumming his hands on the kitchen island...and that he was humming an incoherent tune. (well maybe I had trouble with that one...it was actually Pirates of the Caribbean)
They made it through to the end - the battle of the "why aren't you listening?" versus the "why do I have to do this?" titans!

*See more blogs from SportsMum at www.sportsmum.blogspot.com
       
shannonj wrote this reply on 10/19/2007
Sounds like a lot of determination going on in your house....I'm impressed with your family's commitment to education....

fridgudare wrote this reply on 10/27/2007
Sounds a little like homework time in my house as well. In our case the weakest subject is reading (comprehension). Even though he's quite good in math my 9 year old detests math homework. We never quite understood why he detested a subject that he was good in. Then one day when he was in 2nd grade I picked up his math work and was surprised to see that he had missed several of his math problems. Then I realized that he had penciled a 3rd number into his problems and had added it in (correctly). It wasn't the math he hated doing. It was adding those same stupid numbers over and over again that was the problem! Now why should he have to keep practicing if he already knew how?!

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