Challenges

Kyle has been reported by his parents as frequently finding school work to be boring and/or too easy. He actively dislikes repetition and can be stubborn in refusing to “re- do” on paper what he has already completed in his head. It was noted by his mother that he often demonstrates strong avoidance towards the task of writing. He isn’t able to offer a reason for this beyond that he just really doesn’t like to do it and that he finds it quite tedious.

Kyle’s mother: “…he refuses to engage in the learning if he sees no point in it, and if it is something he’s already covered, he knows absolutely in his head if he knows it or if he doesn’t and I might be insisting that he’s got to reinforce his learning and he’ll just say, no.” (A4:7)

In this next segment, Kyle talks about writing an explanation for his grandmother that put computer terminology into plain language for her. In this example, the writing assignment was a self-directed one that had occurred within a real life context as his grandmother needed to buy a new computer. With a clear purpose and audience it appears to have had the necessary level of challenge to motivate him to undertake the task. However a further difficulty is highlighted as he talks about struggling to verbalise his understanding.

Kyle: “It also challenged me a lot as well, to try and explain something in her words, that she would understand … it’s like when you hear and see a word and its just a simple thing that you know, but then to verbalise it would just, you just couldn’t do it, because its very difficult to explain it.

Researcher: Difficult to… take it out of your head and put it into some words that someone is going to understand exactly what you mean by it, is that what you mean?

Kyle: Yeah, because there isn’t really any words that would really explain it, but you hear the word and you just know what it means … Mostly other people know what I’m talking about, but if they don’t have much knowledge on a subject then it’s even more difficult.” (A2:17)

The ability to verbalise what he knows has been a learning focus with his writing as well this year with his mother also commenting: “I am having to push him to explain it well. He understands it in his head, but I’m trying to say to him that you’ve got to be able to explain it so thoroughly and so logically so that the person who’s reading it understands what’s in your head.” (A4:8)

His parents told of times when his attention wanders away to a point where he completely “tunes out” his surroundings.

Kyle’s Mum: “I will often be speaking to Kyle, either in the context of learning at home, or just generally … and he is completely not tuned in to me at all, and sometimes I will be facing him, talking to him, and he is already not tuned in, I can just see it.

Kyle’s Dad: His mind is working somewhere else …

Kyle’s Mum: And he’ll recognise it and he’ll often say, “Sorry Mum I wasn’t listening to you” (laughs). He actually is, of all our children, he’s been the one who can shut everything out, he can sit in a little bubble, and World War II could be going on outside and its irrelevant, because he actually is distracted by his own mind, so there can be noises, there can be people asking him stuff, people mentioning his name several times, we can be standing right beside him saying his name, and he will be so absorbed in his own mind about what he is thinking about, or inventing, or

discovering, or learning, that he can’t focus on anything else. I have probably found that the most frustrating thing of all … He really does zone out.” (A4:16)

Kyle’s father considers him to not be well organised. He has had problems in the past with losing belongings and forgetting items. His mother has worked at giving him opportunities to practise the development of routines and considers that he has improved somewhat. She finds his ability to follow verbal instructions is best when he is given adequate prior warning, and when instructions are very specific.

Instructions sometimes need to be repeated and are best kept to one or two at a time. If given too many instructions she says it is likely he would become distracted after

the first one and absorbed by something else that has caught his attention. It was also noted by his mother that Kyle finds a major assignment involving many components to be overwhelming. He needs help to break the task down and someone to guide and motivate him through it step by step.

Conversely, the teacher at Kyle’s one day a week gifted programme described him as well organised and very responsible. She also found him to be very adept at

following a series of instructions.

Kyle was described by his parents in an assessment questionnaire as being risk averse and reluctant to try things that may result in failure. During his cognitive assessment, the assessor noted Kyle preferred the opportunity to think about his response. He liked to be assured of its correctness and was not comfortable with guessing. However the assessor also noted that when encouraged to “have a try” he correctly answered many of the questions to which he would have previously answered “I don’t know”. Kyle’s gifted programme teacher however commented that he was

comfortable with using trial and error in his learning.