It seems like attentional problems are one of the main problem areas for
our kids- it is certainly true for my ds. Lately it has been really getting to
me that I have to jump through hoops to get his attention. He is always
off on his own little thing and I am lucky if I get a very grumpy "what!" as
an answer. This has also been a big problem in school.
I've heard that part of aba is teaching kids to pay attention and that it is
pretty hard for kids in the beginning. I just started reading a book on RDI
and they seem to say that the lack of shared attention is the main/ root
problem of asd.
If the cause is' weak central coherance' or 'stimulation overload' how can
you teach paying attention ?
How are your kids with paying attention to their surroundings (and you)?
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Interesting Fred and I recognize myself in there, too!
The European post-secondary system would have been so much more appealing to us both -- no lectures, no auditory learning. You STUDY. You READ. You discuss one-on-one with a mentor. So much better than the freshman cattle-call lecture halls, no?
But, unless you can really, REALLY afford the nicest of private settings, it seems to me at some point our kids are going to have to deal with the classroom setting as a learning venue. SIGH. So yeah, it is important to train them to handle the auditory learning, and discriminating and focusing on a teacher's voice for long periods of time, in order to capture complex information. That's our plan for Tuhina, anyhow.
That and pullout academics in order to buy her the time to develop that ability ...
My son has problem with attention too. You definitely have to get his attention before telling him something -- we can't just say "hey honey, can you hand me the remote" or something. we have to establish contact before saying what we need to say, and that is SO easy to forget. He also has trouble sustaining attention, especially if it's something he's not that interested in. At school he has his assistant to help direct his attention appropriately.
My son also has trouble following a point, but it seems to help if I ask him to look at my finger before I start pointing, and then point forcefully. He tracks the movement better than he can follow a static point, if you know what I mean.
I used to think my son might have ADD (no hyperactivity), but the hospital experts gave me the impression that in my son's case the attention deficits were just part of the autism package.
As usual, good luck with everything.
[QUOTE=foxl]So yeah, it is important to train them to handle the auditory learning, and discriminating and focusing on a teacher's voice for long periods of time, in order to capture complex information. [/QUOTE]A parent can start down this road loooong before his child will be in this situation. IMO, we can't just throw our kids into classrooms and hope that they'll pay attention. Or hope that the teacher handles this. We parents can start early on doing many, many little games with them to develop their ability to pay attention. And we can give them ever increasing incentive to pay attention.
ASD kids generally do not appear to "pay attention" because they are having difficulty processing all of the sensory information coming at them. OT helps with this. And again, there are many things a parent can do to foster his child's ability to "pay attention." We should not wait for the schools to handle this b/c that usually does not happen. Not sufficiently, anyway. There is much we parents can do to set out kids up for success in school and in "paying attention" settings.
What appears to us to be "tuning others out" is many things. Most ASD kids do have the ability to pay attention. They just need a lot of practice with it and they need a lot of help organizing their sensory input. The key is to go little by little at home. There are many ways to work on this in a gentle, respectful and productive way.