Hey

[SparkleSparkle]

I'm on the autism spectrum, and I was wondering if anyone else finds it really hard to focus in certain subjects - i.e maths, English and history?

[caringmum11]

I have read that maths may be a problem but I cannot say for the other subjects. My son, I believe may have autism but as he is nearly 28, getting this confirmed is going to be unlikely unless I pay privately and I have just been told this will cost between two and three thousand pounds which I cannot afford. Therefore my advice is purely from my own experience with my son. He has always had many problems with maths. At 10 he was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and this was again diagnosed at 20 along with Dyscalculia which explains the maths difficulties. I know that some people on the spectrum excel at maths and have wonderful abilities with numbers, but others find it very difficult as does my son. He tells me that he has always hated reading books though, but his written (typed) English is good. He likes to use coloured backgrounds on his PC when he reads as he says this helps, which it might possibly do for you. He also hates using a pen to physically write as he says the pens are uncomfortable. I don't know if any of this is of any help to you, but I believe that everyone is different and may experience things depending on how they are personally wired if that make any sense. x

[emmasue]

My son with ASD is 11. He finds maths and science easy. He struggles with writing because of his poor motor sills. He struggles a bit with reading comprehension because he struggles to read between the lines. He likes science, maths, history, geography and so on because he is good at seeing patterns. However, he is at bit slower at processing information and doesn't like being timed.

I have an 8 year old daughter who is on the waiting list to be assessed. She had a severe speech and language delay. She is also an August baby and as such struggles to keep up. Reading was very difficult for her and it only began to click recently. Maths is still very difficult for her. One of her assessments indicated she had a very good rote memory but a poor working memory and processing skills. That means she can take facts in but she can't do anything with them except regurgitate what she has learnt. I think this is how she learnt to read, by recognising words instead of by phonics.

Anyway, as you can see, though both have autism, both are completely different. I could go on with examples of my friends' autistic kids. Some find learning easy, others can't read at the age of 11! Autism affects people differently, but everyone with autism has some difficulty or it wouldn't need to be diagnosed. I hope this helps.

[juli_81 in reply to emmasue]

Do August babies have a harder time learning? Never heard that one! I knew thatbabies born in the winter were often more depressed as children due to lack of vitamin D whilst growing in the mother's womb but not heard about August...??

[emmasue in reply to juli_81]

They start school here the year they turn five. This runs basically 1st Sept - 31st Aug. So a child born in August will start school within weeks of turning 4 and a child born in September could theoretically be 5 when they start so there is nearly a year between the youngest and the oldest. To top that off, my daughter had a speech and language delay. We tried to get them to delay starting school by a year but at the time, the local authority refused to allow it. So she is now in year 4 but working at a year 2 level. If she was in year 3, she wouldn't be as far behind. That is why summer children, especially August children tend to struggle more than their peers born in the autumn.

[juli_81]

I don't think there is a link between autism and being bad at history, in fact history seems to be easy for autistics because they have inquisitive brains and like facts!!! I'm speculating but maths might be hard if you have a poor working memory ie: you have problems remembering how you got to a solution or sometimes just not knowing the solution because you can't remember the order of things. I guess you could apply the problem to English and History then too. It sounds like you might have problems sequencing. Make sure you get this looked into. X

[davidgolf49]

Have you got a bad environment in your class? How is your teacher? Are you getting support during class? Are you behind and catching up with everyone else? My friend is Autistic and became a Professor in Physics and is a genius at Maths, but he had an amazing teacher and worked his ass off in his spare time reading up on everything maths.