My son is kind of, moderately, somewhere on the autism
spectrum. Since he can function somewhat normally, most people see him as just
being a little “different”. He doesn’t
display the symptoms frequently enough to get the label of autism or aspergers,
but he does share many of the common traits with others with those diagnoses. We
say he has just enough autism to be a great engineer. He is incredibly smart,
but is very literal and linear in his thinking. He has limited social skills. Just
like all the engineers he’s related to!
Anyway, as a result of his very literal thinking and amazing
power of memorization, he’s never learned how to summarize.
He can repeat all
the fact of anything he reads or hears or watches. And, he can remember and
apply that knowledge months (or years) later. But, he cannot distill that down
to the essential information.
So, summarizing is one of many basic skills that we’ve
included throughout his day. For example, after his reading assignments or
watching videos in social studies, he has to write a few words about each of
the major people or events in the lesson. Putting a limit on how much he writes
makes him think about what the important facts really are.
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