GCSE support

You've summed it up really well, those are the main issues he has. Even in maths he sometimes has trouble interpreting the questions. It's frustrating as it's obvious he's a very competent and bright boy, I wish everyone could see it as clearly as I do! Well done on your A in maths, I had to drop out of my a level maths course as I just didn't understand it but I was very good at English!

I can sympathise with exam problems, especially in English.  I never passed my English O level.  I failed five times. I was ungraded in my first three attempts. 

The trick to passing is understanding what the examiner wants and giving them that.  Unfortunately us autistics are very very poor at this.

Typical issues are: Being able to read between the lines, knowing when and what to assume,  and when to be literal and give specific evidence in written answers. 

We struggle to understanding people's meanings and intentions in real life, and exams are just as difficult. 

Depending on the subject, some exams are much easier than others. I, for example,  achieved a grade A in A level maths while still being ungraded at O level English.

Thank you for your reply. Sorry to hear you've had similar issues, sounds like you've done everything possible to support your son. Mine gets extra support like using a keyboard, a smaller exam room, breaks and possibly noise cancelling headphones which have all been great. His grades are ok, he'll probably pass English and maths barring any bumps in the road but his baseline grades are a lot higher than those he's getting. I'm not fixated on grades, as long as he's ok I'm happy but I know he'll be disappointed if he doesn't do as well as he can! He has a very specific issue with off-topic answers but it seems the school is not set up to address it. The bit about decoding written information is useful and a great way of explaining it, thank you.

I can completely sympathise with you here.my own teenager just recently diagnosed with autism, had a real struggle with his GCSE revision.He made it through ,with a few resits and we now face the same issues with his a levels.as you have mentioned the issue for him is the understanding/ interpretation  of the questions. fact based engineering questions no hassle, but been asked to give opinions and interpretations in geography ,English is a concept he is struggling with. he definitely struggled with us trying to help him structure his revision ,we spoke to school and he was much more willing to work on this with them..as it was suggested that he would natural feel school knew " best". we also ensured his recently diagnosed autism and particularly his difficulties around " decoding written information" was explained to the exam boards and he was given an extra 25 % time for each future exam to allow for this.he said this is helping, and it did allow him to scrape a GCSE English pass recently after 5 attempts. have you checked this out with school to see if your child has this sort of additional allowance. 

Yes, mental wellbeing and self confidence are essential.

Thank you so much for replying. We are looking at mark schemes and past papers so it's reassuring to know we're doing something right. It's such a delicate balance between preserving self esteem and mental well-being and encouraging him to put in a bit more effort!!

I grappled with this problem with my elder daughter and to be honest didn't find a solution. In spite of support she never understood how to score the last two out of 4 points. The approach is to analyse the key words in the question and to understand what is required and then providing it. We even asked the school for a guide for her on what is required for 'describe', for 'explain' and 'evaluate' etc. What helped is looking at past papers and mark schemes and learning how to score mor points. Try to hook him on counting the points he gets based on the mark scheme. I am sorry I hope I could offer had more help.