Frustrated by homework issues?

We often hear, "He is so capable...but he never turns in homework!" Homework frustrations are common for students with AS. The following tips are part of a list which comes from Michelle Garcia Winner. She is a speech language pathologist and author in the field of social thinking and social cognitive functioning. You can visit www.socialthinking.com for additional info and resources.

Steps to Foster Organization Skills

1. Clearly define what needs to be done
Too often, parents and schools view organization goals too simply: “the student must write the assignment in his planner.” Clearly this is not nearly enough detail for most tasks and may not even be the best starting goal for a particular student. Adults must be organized in their own thinking if they are to effectively teach students with EF deficits this skill. Go beyond giving out assignments; help the student understand how to also approach the task from an organizational standpoint. Adults must be organized in their own thinking if they are to effectively teach students with EF deficits this skill.

2. Move it with motivation
Almost all students with weak organizational skills also struggle with motivation to accomplish homework tasks. Parents and teachers often don’t realize this lack of motivation can stem from feeling overwhelmed by the task demands. Students with the greatest motivational challenges are often our most intelligent students (e.g. those with high IQ scores). We often assume “smart” means “organized” and say things like “come on, I know you can do this, I know you are smart.” Yet, they may have the hardest time motivating themselves when overwhelmed because they have never had to work at learning. Learning just happened if they stayed attentive. By adolescence, students need to appreciate that completing work – even work that seems somewhat ridiculous to them – has its rewards. It establishes them as hard working in the eyes of others, improves their grades and increases feelings of self-worth through meeting their grade level academic expectations. However, as obvious as this sounds, this level of cause effect can still be too overwhelming to some students because it requires delayed gratification. Many students need to start at a much more concrete level of motivation, with very small work steps combined with reward early in the task completion process.

For example, if a student cannot easily work for an hour, have him work successfully on a single part of the task for just 10 minutes before he gets to pause and congratulate himself. Self-motivation increases when students feel confident in understanding and accomplishing the task before them. It doesn’t matter how “well” you teach students these EF skills; if they are unmotivated, they will not implement the ideas. directly on helping students tackle and overcome motivation challenges.

3. Prepare the environment
Most adults familiar with helping students “get organized” understand this point. Establish a dedicated workspace for homework that includes the essential tools: pen, pencil, paper, etc. Color coding tasks, making sure the student has an organized binder, possibly access to a time-timer (www.timetimer.com) create structures that promote success during homework time.

4. Chunk and time it
Assignments that sound coherent and structured to teachers can still overwhelm a student with EF challenges. For example: “write a report focusing on the economy, culture, weather and climate of a specific country.” Clear enough, you think? Maybe to us, but not to them. Make sure the student understands how to “chunk” an assignment (break it down into smaller pieces) and how the individual parts create the larger whole. For example, not all students will know their report needs four sections, essentially “mini-essays” worked on separately and then joined together. Furthermore, once they “chunk” the project students also need to predict how long each chunk will take to complete. The majority of students with poor organizational skills have a resounding inability to predict how long projects will take across time. In fact, they tend to be weak
in all aspects of interpreting and predicting time.

Consider this: Is there anything you do without first predicting how long it will take? We “time map” everything, gauging how the task will or will not fit into what we’re doing now, an hour from now, later in the day or later in the week. Homework functions in much the same way. Students are more willing to tackle homework when they can reliably predict how long they will have to work on the task. For example, a student will usually calmly do math if it should only take 5-10 minutes. However, for those students who can’t predict time, the nebulous nature of the activity incites anxiety such that they may cry for 45 minutes over doing a 10-minute math assignment.

When the student does not – or cannot- consider time prediction as part of his organizational skill set, he is likely to waste a lot of time rather than use time to his advantage.

5. Use visual structures
As the school years progress, homework shifts from mostly static tasks doled out by one teacher to mostly dynamic tasks assigned by many different individuals. We expect students to self-organize and know how to juggle the many pieces of learning that make up each class, grade and level of education. Yet, this valuable skill is never directly taught! Visual long-term mapping charts, such as a Gantt Chart, (www.ganttchart.com) can help students plan and monitor multiple activities. These bar type graphs allow a student to visually track multiple projects across time, determine when they are due and
how much time is available to work on each. For example, a history paper may be assigned in February and due in late March; a time-line would run from early February to late March to indicate the time allocated to the project. A math project assigned in early March is also due in late March; another line would represent this project. Visually the student can see that two big projects are due at about the same time, and both are worth significant grade points. This then helps the student understand why he should not wait until the last minute to start one or both assignments. Gantt charts are frequently used in business, but have yet to make it into student software for school/homework planning. However, they are easy to create and use at home or in the classroom. For students who struggle with time management, they are invaluable tools for organization.

Visual structures can represent entire projects and then also be used for individual chunks, creating the visual organizational framework students with weak EF. Once assignments are understood as needing to be worked on across time, we can encourage students to “chunk” tasks to be worked on during specific weeks, then make related lists of things to do on specific days.