Kind of a big favor, actually, so I’ll try to give some background. Son in Ohio is almost 14, is in 7th grade, and has Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s classified as both special needs and gifted–takes advanced classes but has a resource teacher for when emotional/behavioral issues keep him from being able to participate appropriately in the classroom.
He’s taking advanced science (with the 8th graders) and one of the features of this class seems to be that they are assigned these big projects with multiple moving parts. This one is actually a major portion of both his science and his math grade.
On FRIDAY, Demetrius received word from Son’s special ed resource teacher that he was in danger of a failing grade. The project is a psychology experiment, involving memory tests and a Myers-Briggs. He has been working on the project over the past weeks, but has unusable data because the classmates who agreed to participate either didn’t show up or didn’t take the tests seriously.
A couple of thoughts occur to me…first of all, I can’t imagine having to do something of that magnitude in 7th grade. Secondly, it seems like
he is being set up to fail–a kid whose main disability is in the area of social skills, and his grade depends on his ability to schmooze his classmates? Apparently, Friday was the day the science teacher set aside for last-minute data collection, but in the same letter, his resource teacher told Demetrius that she kept Son in the resource room (out of science class) on that crucial day because of his behavior. She seems to think that he should be able to learn from consequences like this, and adjust his behavior, but in fact, it is part of his disability that he doesn’t have that level of insight. That needs to be taught.
Son in Ohio had a power point memory test that he created and was administering, but since we are now having to figure out how to do this online, I’ve spent some time in the past couple days trying to find some self-scoring instruments that can be used. He thinks he needs about 32 people to have enough data, and he needs the data today.
As I said at the beginning, I know this is a big favor I’m asking on his behalf, but we’d be really grateful for any volunteers we can get. But if you’re willing to help out with this, please drop me an e-mail at ohiorenee(at)gmail.com and I’ll send you the links and information you need to take the tests.
And thank you, thank you, thank you in advance to anyone who can help out with this.
