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Gcse English

Portland girl

I have real concerns about ASD children taking GCSE English. The papers that my child brings home all seem to involve 1) "the author feels ....., provide quotes to explain " 2) "the author wrote ...., what does he mean by that ? " 

It seems that ASD children are just set up to fail ? does anyone have experience of appropriate questions set for ASD children ? Different examining body etc ? My child can read fine just doesn't understand other peoples feelings, does that really mean he can't pass his English GCSE ? 

Parents

  • I've commented on this somewhere previously. It is considered necessary to formulate questions in different ways to encourage discussion rather than merely descriptive answers.

    The problem from an autistic spectrum perspective is, as you have commented, the wording often has social connotations.

    Particularly when it is necessary to "question spot" - learning likely answers to expected questions, which may be partly necessitated by a school's emphasis on the curriculum means candidates are not prepared for some questions, you have to hope your learned areas come up.

    So when the phrasing of the question feels threatening to someone on the spectrum, it can make it hard to answer your best question.

    Unfortunately no-one seems willing to adjust the curriculum for autistic candidates. And it is all very well the examining board saying they will take autism into consideration - do these examiners properly understand how socially phrased questions can undermine a candidate's confidence?

    But there must be a way of preparing pupils on the spectrum on ways to deal with these kind of questions.

    You'd think such preparation would already be available. NAS Moderators - could you raise this with campaigns or some other action group to raise this with examination boards?

Reply

  • I've commented on this somewhere previously. It is considered necessary to formulate questions in different ways to encourage discussion rather than merely descriptive answers.

    The problem from an autistic spectrum perspective is, as you have commented, the wording often has social connotations.

    Particularly when it is necessary to "question spot" - learning likely answers to expected questions, which may be partly necessitated by a school's emphasis on the curriculum means candidates are not prepared for some questions, you have to hope your learned areas come up.

    So when the phrasing of the question feels threatening to someone on the spectrum, it can make it hard to answer your best question.

    Unfortunately no-one seems willing to adjust the curriculum for autistic candidates. And it is all very well the examining board saying they will take autism into consideration - do these examiners properly understand how socially phrased questions can undermine a candidate's confidence?

    But there must be a way of preparing pupils on the spectrum on ways to deal with these kind of questions.

    You'd think such preparation would already be available. NAS Moderators - could you raise this with campaigns or some other action group to raise this with examination boards?

Children
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