Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter was diagnosed with ASC four years ago and is now in the first year of A-levels. She is very bright and a natural independent learner.
She is studying essay subjects (RS, History and Politics) and is now really struggling with the task of essay writing. She is also absorbed, perhaps too absorbed, in the subjects she is studying. She is reading 1-2 books a week on her subjects that go well beyond the syllabus. She is following her curiosity and always wants to know more. On the face of it, this seemed like positive behaviour. Now I am not so sure.
Her challenge with the essay writing is that she struggles to make sense of the essay question. Terms are not defined with sufficient clarity and she can see many ways to address the question. When she does eventually pick a path to go down, she loses her way as the questions she has grow and grow. She finds it very hard to marshal her thoughts and often gives up.
When she does manage to write something, it is very good. She is getting top marks for the work she hands in. However, the effort and emotional drain associated with doing the work makes this all unsustainable.
She is slipping behind and is growing increasingly anxious. School refusal has now become a real issue again.
The school are now worried that she won't be ready for her year end exams and would like to talk to us about support and options. I suspect they'll want us to get some external support for her. Perhaps involving medication.
I don't really know what to do for the best.
Any advice?
I'm at uni and I also struggle with this, so I was given a study skills advisor, who's role is to help me piece together what the essay question is actually asking and what is relevant.
It sounds like a good course of action might be that right at the start, when the question is set, a member of staff takes some time to define all the terms and set limits and they can discuss a more narrow set of topics to discuss. This does getter better the more people go through it with you.
I don't think medication is likely to be the right course of action for this particular issue.
Another thing I found useful is setting myself time limits. So limit each essay to maybe 4 hours of work. Maybe more, depends on the essay, her teacher should be able to help set guidelines. Along with good exam practice, this should help reduce the exhaustion from 'rabbit holing'. It sucks at first, and the quality might initially go down, but she will likely find a balance. The extra time can be used for reading around the subject, but the essay should be handed in after those 4 hours.
But yeah in general, more parameters need to be put in place for her, because autistic brains find it really hard to do themselves.
Fibonacci Squid. This is really helpful. We'll suggest this to the School and to my daughter. I'll also share your experience with her. This will help her rationalise what's going on and help her understand its normal to need some help with this, at least initially!