All About Autism

[SAHM Chew]

slmkhoo:

SAHM Chew:

Are they required to take another second language for O' level?

No.

Thanks for the information.

[Mdm Koh]

I have recently started teaching a special needs student. Sadly, I discovered that he is capable, but the people around him are holding him back. It has been a very frustrating experience. :frustrated: In fact, the student is similar to all my other students, albeit he has some learning difficulties. He is disciplined, he does his homework and he starts and ends the lesson on time. He's no different from other kids in that sense.


It's the people around him, however, who request to be treated differently and want to have special privileges... such as switching lesson slots as and when for no good reason, reducing the number of tutoring hours even though it was already agreed upon, telling me to refrain from saying too much so that the child doesn't irritate them with questions about what I say.... It appears to me that the child is not asking for special treatment, but the people around him are.

And it's really sad, I feel. The student is not doing well in his studies.... but the people around him aren't helping and are instead more concerned about getting their own needs met.

[helplessmum3]

mummies, where can i find the milestone charts for toddler that are most reliable?

[ChiefKiasu]

Mdm Koh:

I have recently started teaching a special needs student. Sadly, I discovered that he is capable, but the people around him are holding him back. ...

Are you referring to his parents or his caretakers?

[Mdm Koh]

Parent and another senior tutor.

[sharonkhoo]

Mdm Koh:

I have recently started teaching a special needs student. Sadly, I discovered that he is capable, but the people around him are holding him back. It has been a very frustrating experience. :frustrated: In fact, the student is similar to all my other students, albeit he has some learning difficulties. He is disciplined, he does his homework and he starts and ends the lesson on time. He's no different from other kids in that sense.


It's the people around him, however, who request to be treated differently and want to have special privileges... such as switching lesson slots as and when for no good reason, reducing the number of tutoring hours even though it was already agreed upon, telling me to refrain from saying too much so that the child doesn't irritate them with questions about what I say.... It appears to me that the child is not asking for special treatment, but the people around him are.

And it's really sad, I feel. The student is not doing well in his studies.... but the people around him aren't helping and are instead more concerned about getting their own needs met.

You are a great and concerned tutor! However, since you have only just started tutoring a special needs child (exactly which special needs?), I would like to raise a few issues in case you have not encountered them before. My Asperger's daughter is 16yo and has other learning issues too, so I will speak from my experience, which may not be identical to all others, but should be comparable.

It could be that the parents are concerned that too much stress can push the child into a meltdown? Maybe they, being more familiar with the child, can spot the signs more quickly than you? My daughter was also a willing child, but would get frustrated and stressed more quickly than NT kids and what an NT child could take could quickly push her into a meltdown. If you haven't experienced a meltdown, it's something you don't want to! Besides being unpleasant, it can also make the child resist the thing that caused the meltdown, which is something we all want to avoid. I have learned that it is better to accept lower achievement and avoid meltdowns than to push to the limit, even if it seems the child is under-achieving based on her intelligence and ability. This may also be the reason for reducing tutoring hours if they find the child is over-tired, which can trigger meltdowns. I don't know the reason for changing lesson times as regular schedules actually work better for kids.

About asking you to say less, it could be that the child obsesses over a particular fact or phrase, and the parents find it irritating or hard to answer the questions? I personally wouldn't make that request, but handling repeated questions about something they didn't hear themselves can be very irritating. The child may not just ask once or twice a day, but may ask every hour! Perhaps you could suggest that when it occurs and they really don't know how to answer, they can call you so you can help answer the questions?

One thing that I have had to explain to teachers over and over again through my daughter's school life is that her disabilities, though invisible, are very real and limiting. Teachers often expect that if a child can do a small quantity of work well, eg. 2 lines of good writing or 3 correct Math questions, then they should be expected to produce a whole page of good writing or 10 correct Math questions because her NT classmates can do it. But her concentration and energy level peters out much more quickly than NT kids of the same age. Many have said \"By this age, she should be able to...\" without considering that normal yardsticks should not and cannot be applied to my daughter.

I hope you don't take this as a criticism, because I know that you probably haven't had much exposure to such kids. I just want to give you some possible reasons why your student's parents might be acting the way you describe. Hope it helps.

[ImMeeMee]

Mdm Koh:

I have recently started teaching a special needs student. Sadly, I discovered that he is capable, but the people around him are holding him back. It has been a very frustrating experience. :frustrated: In fact, the student is similar to all my other students, albeit he has some learning difficulties. He is disciplined, he does his homework and he starts and ends the lesson on time. He's no different from other kids in that sense.


It's the people around him, however, who request to be treated differently and want to have special privileges... such as switching lesson slots as and when for no good reason, reducing the number of tutoring hours even though it was already agreed upon, telling me to refrain from saying too much so that the child doesn't irritate them with questions about what I say.... It appears to me that the child is not asking for special treatment, but the people around him are.

And it's really sad, I feel. The student is not doing well in his studies.... but the people around him aren't helping and are instead more concerned about getting their own needs met.

Mdm Koh

Thanks for your sharing coming from the perspective of a teaching professional handling special needs children. As parents to special needs children we also need to remind ourselves to keep our feet grounded to make sure that we do not take advantage of any privileges where there are.

To add on, maybe open communication is something to work on between parents and professionals helping the special needs child. I strive to maintain open communications with my ASD doter's teachers by giving them feedback on what happens at home, and asking them periodically on what happens in school. And I would love it for the teaching professionals to be equally open about how my child is doing.

Maybe you want to talk to the parents and hear their side of the story? Things may not be as apparent, and its good to hear their views and see how to come to common ground for the benefit of the child.

My two cents worth.

[Mdm Koh]

Hi slmkhoo,


Thanks for sharing. To a large extent, after cooling down, I understand how the parent feels. I was also told that she was having a toothache... so the pain from her toothache was made worse when her child asked her repetitive questions.

Still, that doesn't explain the actions of the senior tutor? It's only been two weeks and he has already made several changes to the schedule. He also forbade me from communicating directly with the parent, which resulted in misunderstandings. For example, he had told the student about a pending change in the timetable. The student asked me if it was true, so I replied in the affirmative. However, when the parent complained angrily about why the change was revealed to the student, the senior tutor blamed it on me and sent me a long email telling me how \"shocked\" he was that I had spoken with the student about the timetable change, even though - and he later admitted this via text message - he was the one who had told the student first. It seems like double standards. If the parent did not want the student to know about it, perhaps nothing should've been revealed in the first place?

I am uncomfortable with such an arrangement where there is a \"middle man\" co-ordinating all the tutors, as I don't want my words to be misrepresented. Mis-communication can lead to unpleasant situations. As a private tutor, I would like to communicate directly with the parent. After all, she is mostly at home during the tuition hours.

And that's just one example... There are other issues as well... I can understand why stressed-out parents may prefer to leave co-ordinating of homeschooling to one tutor, but a lot then depends on whether this co-ordinator can do a good job...

The student, thankfully for him, seems to be oblivious to all this unhappiness going on around him. But I am sure it affects him to some extent... I don't claim to be an especially caring tutor. But I feel that the whole point of home tuition is so that we can have a more conducive environment that is more child-centered. There's no point complicating matters by having an internal micro-manager in the form of another tutor. I have taught tuition to so many students and this is the first time that I've encountered issues with a \"tutor manager\".

[sharonkhoo]

Mdm Koh:

I am uncomfortable with such an arrangement where there is a \"middle man\" co-ordinating all the tutors, as I don't want my words to be misrepresented. Mis-communication can lead to unpleasant situations. As a private tutor, I would like to communicate directly with the parent. After all, she is mostly at home during the tuition hours.

I have never heard of such an arrangement before! So the child doesn't go to a school? Looks like the issue is more with the \"tutor manager\" than the parents? If you are really unhappy with the situation, I guess you should speak to the manager and parents to change the arrangement, or as the last resort, quit. I suppose the parent feels that she is not able to manage or is too busy to manage the various tutors? As a parent, I would definitely want to have direct contact with the people teaching my child and not go through a middleman.

[Double E]

Same here. I would also like to hv direct access toy kids’ teachers.

So when u are tutoring her kid, she doesn’t talk to u at all to get feedback even if she is at home? That’s weird.