Autism focus issues

NeuroTypical children intake and process knowledge / information entirely different than NeuroDivergent (sometimes interchanged with Autism Spectrum). Autistic individuals might appear to mature slower. But when they do and if they are helped rather than hindered, they will be amazing. 

Sometimes animations of being spac-y are coupled from a vivid imagination (nearly as powerful as reality) and too much external stimuli. Overly sensitive to criticism can be due to feeling continually misheard, misunderstood, misrepresented. NeuroDivergent children do not think or reason the same as their NeuroTypical peers. We have completely different motives and many times use language incorrectly due to a more super-symmetry use of our brains rather than asymmetrical focus on language/semiotics. The Erratic emotionality can be due to the stress of this and if she is hyper-sensory but not communicating this (girls often don't), then she might be at a continual stress limit. 

Now, above intellect doesn't mean she's taking in the information, as stated above. It's beens suggested typical development works with language, piecing together information. But many Autism Spectrum children can process only fundamentals up, if they miss a step they can no longer 'see' the whole picture. I believe something like 98-98.5% of us use Picture thinking to analyse and reason. They might be able to learn things other children don't learn until later in school because it is fundamental to the discipline. 

To help her learn to focus, you could tap into her imagination and engage with one element at a time in small pieces. A full day on 2 subjects is much easier for us than a full day of 8 as immersion is how we learn. If we're continually knocked out just when we're starting to capture and play with a thing mentally and emotionally it can cause turmoil. Do it daily and we can just go into shut-down mode. 

One thing I might suggest doing is to read her a sentence at a time out of a book. Allow her to think about it and picture it. Take the book for a walk maybe and work through each sentence leaving your phone at home - it's important to set aside all distractions when helping children learn to engage with their senses. See if she'll talk about it and ask more questions. Inspire her curiosity around these things and allow her to ask questions. It may be good to get school work and see if there was anything she found interesting she wasn't allowed to fully engage with. Allow her to be fully immersed in that one interest. For some of us who used to be just like this in childhood, there is literally no shortage of what we're interested in in adulthood. 

Hi Juniper,

I found your reply really insightful. I had not realized that ASD need time  to immerse and play with ideas. It explains why many ASD kids cope well with home schooling where they are not constrained by school routines and changing topics so quickly. Also, I will look into picture thinking- just did a very quick search but having trouble understanding it so will need to explore that a bit more slowly.

The problem I have is I am rubbish at trying to engage with her - I am actually rubbish at trying to inspire my NT child as well.  every time I need my asd child to do something, I receive a mini explosion and I have lost heart recently so I have let her hide away. However she does seems to stress a lot about homework( "Mummy  can only manage one piece of homework a night- how am I going to manage a couple when I am in year 7??") and asked me if I could sit with her when she does it so this could be an opportunity to try again as you say.

Is it possible to arrange a time for everyone to sit around the table and work together? As if you're working in a loft studio Creative Office. You could even take them out every other week to a creative space if you're in a city and there's a workspace environment or to the library to focus on homework. At home, though, the kettle and snacks are free :) 

Picture thinking is a big one to understand. When I dream, I have invented entire cities in lush dark tones with thousands of other people (how do I invent these??). I've had dreams which sorted out things happening in life, dreams which seemed 'prophetic' but were perhaps just calculations and details that I automatically catch without realising it. Picture thinkers might not have an 'inner voice', they rely on their occipital lobe (possibly more than the lobes for language) to create a picture for everything they're explaining and need to use the imagination in order to understand a thing. For someone like me, I love the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I used to be incredibly envious of kids who's parents had the whole collexion. I could spend forever in a library learning about anything with photos and identifications. Flags, Maps, Art collexions, Tapestry. These sort of books can be great resources to help bridge nebulous gaps left by the school. "Nebulous" is a Key Word for is a thing those of us who see systems and structures and human exchanges in various imagery when dealing with someone who doesn't reason this way. Teach her this and you may find it is something often experienced. 

Temple Grandin helped bring this understanding to the front of Autism research www.grandin.com/.../visual.thinking.html

To add: when I was young I had little to no discipline over what was happening in my head. It might have been too much to express and it slows down my ability to identify or express the simplest thing from visualising a colour and trying to access a different part of my brain for that word when there's a whole forest around in my mind demanding to be identified in language as well. Thus, we function much better when the world around us is in Order and not as Chaotic as our heads :) 

To add: when I was young I had little to no discipline over what was happening in my head. It might have been too much to express and it slows down my ability to identify or express the simplest thing from visualising a colour and trying to access a different part of my brain for that word when there's a whole forest around in my mind demanding to be identified in language as well. Thus, we function much better when the world around us is in Order and not as Chaotic as our heads :)