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Facts Versus Skills: Asynchronous Development

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  Photo by  Conscious Design  on  Unsplash Grownups who work with 2e (twice exceptional) kids talk a lot about spiky profiles and asynchronous development. Sometimes that means kids learn multiplication long before reading, or learn to analyze literature before getting smooth at arithmetic. But sometimes it shows up within a subject. Learning about a new topic often involves learning facts, concepts, skills, and the ability to notice details. When I started taking yoga classes I was okay at noticing and imitating the teacher’s arm and leg positions, but I didn’t notice whether her torso was straight or bent so initially I did some poses wrong in predictable beginner ways. Repeatedly hearing instructions, doing poses, and occasionally getting specific corrections from the teacher taught me to notice and imitate torso positions.  I quickly learned the facts of where to place hands and feet for downward dog pose (adho mukha svanasana). Then I learned the concept that it was supposed to in
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Intrinsic Doesn't Have To Mean Exciting

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  Photo by  Gabriel Valdez  on  Unsplash I wonder if some parents and teachers shy away from encouraging intrinsic motivation because they don't have the energy to make every lesson and chore as fun as a party game or as delicious as chocolate cake. Intrinsic motivation can come from something having become habitual enough that once you work yourself up to starting it you're going to finish it unless something interrupts you. I feel that way about cleaning up after the cats and about making pancakes.  Intrinsic motivation can come from something being soothingly repetitive like sweeping or crocheting something rectangular. (Crocheting other shapes can be intellectually intense.) Intrinsic motivation can come from being able to do one thing while focusing on something else like doing the same set of warmup exercises while watching different music videos.  Intrinsic motivation can come from feeling companionable with the person you're doing it with. I often play solitaire or
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Doing The Easy Parts Fast Impairs Communication

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Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash When someone begins to learn a musical instrument they play the easy parts fast and the hard parts slowly. When doctors had to sign a lot of paper prescriptions their signatures were quick to scrawl but impossible to read. Elementary school teachers write beautiful, regular, even letters on the board. I grew up with a stutter and spent years in speech therapy about it. So I've had a lot of guided practice on listening in detail to what I'm saying and how I'm saying it. I've had a lot of coaching on paying attention to how I sound to others.  Most people don't realize that the things they say most often are the hardest to understand. Language learners might study sentences for shopping, "Did you find everything you needed? How will you be paying?" then be thwarted at hearing "Dja finerrythin y'need? CÉ™shr card?"   Most people haven't worked on speaking more slowly nor enunciating more clearly so if you ask
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Ice Is Nice

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Strong, non-routine sensory input can interrupt some acute mental health situations like being frozen with stress or existential despair. My kid is supposed to take a medication every day and often that goes smoothly but sometimes expectation and anticipation can build up to make it impossible. So today I took the cat-shaped lunchbox ice pack out of the freezer, carried to my kid and said "Hold this on top of your head while counting down from 10 slowly." My kid did so then took the medicine. I am quite certain that using this trick too often will make it stop working.
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Fiber In Cat Food

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  I had a hard time deciding which photo to use at the top of my post about decision paralysis, so I'm making an off-topic post just to use this evocative photo.    Content Notes For This Specific Paragraph : Anatomical Terms, Pet Smells, Pet Digestive Issues, Pet Wounds. Cats have two anal glands that add scent to their poops. The openings are next to and a little lower than the anus. During healthy operation, the poop leaving the cat squeezes some liquid out of the anal glands. Poop that is too skinny or too soft doesn't work as well. My cats have problems with anal glands getting blocked, and the fluid in them getting infected and thick. One of my cats had an anal gland rupture and we're about to have vet visit number three about it.  Based on various things I've read, eating more fiber is likely to change my cats' poop in a way that alleviates their specific health issue. I know that anything on food packaging outside the nutrition label is straight up advertisi
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Supporting Decision Paralysis

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My kid has decision paralysis 1 . This became apparent around fifth grade with assignments that started like "Pick a country to do a project on!" and my kid would spend a day and a half analyzing and second-guessing and being unable to move on to step two.  Digression: Part of the challenge to parenting a 2e kid is not knowing how long a school sub-task is supposed to take. Asking teachers was surprisingly unhelpful. I assume teachers are trying to be inclusive when they reply "Some kids take longer and that's okay!" or "She can come ask me if she needs ideas!"  When I'm on top of my game I can figure out that if a 15-step assignment is due in a week students are supposed to do three steps a day. But I was rarely on top of my assignment-analyzing game while my kid is panicking, I'm trying to get school to answer emails about how accommodations are implemented so I can do them the same way at home for homework, and I've just found out my kid
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Analogies for Models of Disability

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Photo of plants on a shelf by Jonathan Wolf on Unsplash   I've read some excellent essays  and memes comparing the medical and social models of disability. My biases about disabled people and disability slowed down my understanding. I had to come up with analogies to explain it to myself. (I love analogies.) If the tallest person habitually puts things on the highest shelf, you could consider anyone who can't reach those items to be deficient. You could make them responsible for getting outside therapy to teach them to jump to get things down. You could make them responsible for always carrying a stepstool with them. You could complain how much of their teacher's or boss' time is wasted getting things down for them and use that as a reason to segregate them in special classrooms or a special category of jobs that pays less. That's the medical model of disability. Some interventions designed for autistic people go further in that direction. Some ABA and social skills
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