Basic Electronics 101

For our oldest son's birthday, he received one of those electronic circuit lab kit things. (OK, so I'm not sure how to explain what it is, but I'm sure you can tell by the picture.)

All day long he has been creating new things with lights, sounds, or whatever else it is teaching him. It is interesting though that he comes to show me one project, but then comes again a minute later showing me how he figured out this or that to make two circuits signaling LCD? lights or what not, and he tells me that he just figured these things out himself.

I am so sad. I don't even know what he is talking about, and if you would look in the HUGE manual that he has it is like Chinese to me. And there aren't pictures or anything. I would be bored to death just reading about all these things, and yet he has been nose deep in this book for the last 3 days, and as you can see, brother is pretty excited about it too.


---Oh, and on a side note, we did meet with the district coordinator who then met with the teacher, and supposedly, things are going to become "less negative" in the classroom, but we are still keeping an eye on things and are getting an IEP organized.

Timed Tests?? Is it really that necessary?

Our 3rd grader has to pass off these timed math tests called 36's. They are addition, subraction, multiplication, or all division math problem tests where there are 36 problems that must be finished in a minute and 30 seconds.

OK, so sure, this is a great way to get practice with your math problems, and it helps you get speedier, but must they really be timed, and for a pass or fail grade?

This has been the death of us this school year. Oh, our oldest knows all the answers, but he just can't write them quick enough. It all falls back to his thinking processing disorder that goes along with his Autism/Asperger's, but what do we do?

He simply can't process in time to meet this timed requirement. Yes, he know the answers, but by the time it gets from his brain to function into handwriting, it is just too long.

When we met with his teacher at the beginning of the year, we discussed this and she offered to test him orally, but this still imposes the same problem---he will still know the answer, but it takes his brain an extra few seconds before it can process it into words, so often it is still too slow.

Why does there have to be things timed? OK, yes, I agree with having time limits for how long you are taking an essay test or you know, you can't take forever to answer a question, but with a kid who is so smart but can't do things fast enough, where is your solution???

I guess he will never be able to be on Jeopardy or whatever other game shows are all timed, but that is a sad thing. What about all those geniuses who can't communicate or produce their answers as quickly as others? Does that make them any less of a person? Is it that important?

Obviously it is to this class he's in. He actually has passed off several of these tests orally with the teacher giving him an extra 10 seconds, but there has been no passing them off written and she insists that he finish the remaining tests written or he will fail.

It upsets me so to know what to do or not. I don't just disagree with these tests because they don't fit with our child with autism, but why would any kid have to pass off a minute and 30 second timed math quiz? I think it is great for practice, but really, should it be causing people to get 0's and fail math if they were a little too slow? I think it is wrong. If they know their math, they know it. Why do this??

I know this will be a continued struggle with our oldest. All these things that come in terms of his Autism and Asperger's seem to keep dragging him down. It's like he is at a super high level of learning and knowledge, but then because of his disabilities, the level is dropped down to a much lower level.

What should be done then? Remove him from the gifted, advanced program that he is in to a regular classroom where he would be bored and unchallenged, but able to "keep up" as far as speed, or leave him in the program and let him seem like he is dumb to the other kids?

There is no balance, and no answer we have found yet. Tuesday we are meeting with the gifted program's district coordinator to see what our options are and how having a child with a disability fits into a gifted program.

As always, if you are interested with our experiences more specific to Asperger's, see our other blog www.ourlifewithaspergers.blogspot.com.