attentiveness?

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• by
  • micO
  on May. 23, 2009 at 5:45 PM

• My O had a similar problem for years and what I have learned is that his teacher had to get close to him when giving him directions and make sure that he is looking at her at the time, otherwise he'd drift off and get distracted right away and wouldn't be able to follow the directions untill hearing them again and again. If this boy you are talking about has an auditory processing issue, like my son, then he'd have the same problem and would just get distracted by any little noise in class (things the that the teacher doesn't even realize that is there, would be loud and distracting to him)- try asking him to look at the teacher while giving the directions the first time (not talking necessarily eye contact, but looking at you, so he's more focused) and see if it gets any better.

  As for the stimming behvaior- if he toned it down, then I don't see how that is what keeps him distracted. Socialization- you don't really want to restrict him from socializing, since that IS his biggest issue, but you don't want it to interrupt his studies either... what you CAN do, is have the teacher explain to him that the morning is more for getting set up for class and less for talking with friends but that he'll have much more time for socialization at recess or lunch time.
  

  Another way to keep him less distracted is seat  him away from the door, windows and kids who are known to chat a lot during class. O used to have lots of problems trying to listen to the teacher while the kids sitting near him were talking non-stop- it got to a point where he used to cry everyday in class being overwelmed with the noise that kept him from hearing the lesson.
  
  

• 
• by
  • autinae
  on Jun. 7, 2009 at 1:39 PM

• thank you! hopefully this will work. he has come a long way this year, a lot of progress. but towards the end of the year he was taken off his meds and that seemed to create many attention problems. sometimes it is difficult for the teacher to talk directly to him. he does work well with the explanations and reminders to follow through. i agree with the socialization thing and i did point this out to the teacher, that at least he was socializing and not stimming. thank you again!

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