kids on the spectrum and heavy laptop/app use at public schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My two kids have HFA, and one of them had an IEP for severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and low processing speed on top of his autism. He was medicated for his ADHD all throughout middle and high school, otherwise his focus was non-existent. He also had 50%, then 100% extra time. He still has extended time in college.

None had trouble with instruction or tests conducted with screens, however.

I think your kid's current problems stem from inattention, or other issues not directly to do with a socio-emotional communication disorder.

Maybe a more complete evaluation is in order.

With all due respect, your kids did not have to deal with the clusterf*ck that is computer based learning in 2026.

OP I think you need to get an IEP and the IEP needs to include home-school communication provisions that allow you to better monitor the in-class assignments on a daily basis and provide him with more *daily* checkins from the teachers to make sure he knows what he needs to do and has any issues with the app resolved. Getting the C in math shows he is not accessing the curriculum.

Excuse me, my youngest just turned 16 and has been learning on a chromebook since Kindergarten. My oldest lived through high school pandemic learning, exclusively on his chromebook, and did well.

I don't know why you think computer based learning in 2026 is worse than in previous years. It just isn't.

To OP, given your follow-up, he clearly has an attention problem. He needs to understand that when he works on a graded assignment in class, or has a test, he is NOT ALLOWED to do anything else during that time, until he hits submit. None of that "but I was working on something else" stuff. He needs to re-read each question at least twice, and ask for extra time SYSTEMATICALLY, or you need to change the 504 to get your kid on an automatic 50% extra time category. He's also not allowed to hit submit until he goes through the whole test/assignment to check he's completed all questions.

If he cannot follow-through, he needs an evaluation for ADHD, including a test of his processing speed (processing speed is tested on a WISC, ie, an IQ test).

Yeah you still may not understand what it means for math to be completely transitioned to a “flipped” or “modern classroom” - that is recent. It’s not just the use of the Chromebook we are talking about.

OP’s kid does not need any more testing (unless it is to help get the IEP). he already has an autism diagnosis. What he needs is much better structure in class and the teacher to check in daily to ensure he understands and has completed what he needs to do.

PP you replied to. I don't know why you're intent on dismissing my kids' experience with digital learning. My son sat down and CRIED when his school closed down at the start of the pandemic, because he was required to use multiple platforms to look for assignments, grades and instructional content and he had never done it before. I helped him through that first week and then he did well. We'll just have to agree to disagree, on everything. Autistic children without ADHD need very different things from autistic children with ADHD. I know, because my kid with both needed a lot more accommodations than my kid with only mild autism.

Best of luck, OP. I hope you figure it out. I encourage you to give it your all before your child enters 9th grade, since expectations ramp up in high school.

[Anonymous]

I have four children, three of them have been diagnosed with ASD. For one of them, the Chromebook/laptop based learning is an absolute nightmare. He just spends all of his class time looking up things about his special interests. He got so many detentions and Saturday schools his freshman year of high school that it basically lost all meaning for him, and it just kind of became something that he did. We asked that everything be moved to paper, but it wasn’t really possible.
For the second, it’s fine. He gets frustrated with it sometimes, and it can definitely be a distraction with homework, but it’s okay. I will say that he was in a homeschool co-op until he was in eighth grade when we moved away and didn’t have screens there.

My youngest (7th grade) is kind of like yours, OP. He is getting things done for the most part, and he wants to get things done, but he gets distracted during the school day and would rather play games online than get his work done. It’s a challenge, but not the worst. He got distracted making oragami out of scratch paper when he was in the screen-free co-op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My two kids have HFA, and one of them had an IEP for severe ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and low processing speed on top of his autism. He was medicated for his ADHD all throughout middle and high school, otherwise his focus was non-existent. He also had 50%, then 100% extra time. He still has extended time in college.

None had trouble with instruction or tests conducted with screens, however.

I think your kid's current problems stem from inattention, or other issues not directly to do with a socio-emotional communication disorder.

Maybe a more complete evaluation is in order.

With all due respect, your kids did not have to deal with the clusterf*ck that is computer based learning in 2026.

OP I think you need to get an IEP and the IEP needs to include home-school communication provisions that allow you to better monitor the in-class assignments on a daily basis and provide him with more *daily* checkins from the teachers to make sure he knows what he needs to do and has any issues with the app resolved. Getting the C in math shows he is not accessing the curriculum.

Excuse me, my youngest just turned 16 and has been learning on a chromebook since Kindergarten. My oldest lived through high school pandemic learning, exclusively on his chromebook, and did well.

I don't know why you think computer based learning in 2026 is worse than in previous years. It just isn't.

To OP, given your follow-up, he clearly has an attention problem. He needs to understand that when he works on a graded assignment in class, or has a test, he is NOT ALLOWED to do anything else during that time, until he hits submit. None of that "but I was working on something else" stuff. He needs to re-read each question at least twice, and ask for extra time SYSTEMATICALLY, or you need to change the 504 to get your kid on an automatic 50% extra time category. He's also not allowed to hit submit until he goes through the whole test/assignment to check he's completed all questions.

If he cannot follow-through, he needs an evaluation for ADHD, including a test of his processing speed (processing speed is tested on a WISC, ie, an IQ test).

Yeah you still may not understand what it means for math to be completely transitioned to a “flipped” or “modern classroom” - that is recent. It’s not just the use of the Chromebook we are talking about.

OP’s kid does not need any more testing (unless it is to help get the IEP). he already has an autism diagnosis. What he needs is much better structure in class and the teacher to check in daily to ensure he understands and has completed what he needs to do.

PP you replied to. I don't know why you're intent on dismissing my kids' experience with digital learning. My son sat down and CRIED when his school closed down at the start of the pandemic, because he was required to use multiple platforms to look for assignments, grades and instructional content and he had never done it before. I helped him through that first week and then he did well. We'll just have to agree to disagree, on everything. Autistic children without ADHD need very different things from autistic children with ADHD. I know, because my kid with both needed a lot more accommodations than my kid with only mild autism.

Best of luck, OP. I hope you figure it out. I encourage you to give it your all before your child enters 9th grade, since expectations ramp up in high school.

Again you don’t understand the “modern classroom” “self paced” model. It was just unrolled this year for math in our school and it compounds all of the issues that you saw when the pandemic started. And it is not just a matter of the kids watching you tube in class.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. For some background, DS has laptop work for most of his other classes, but, for whatever reason, math is pretty much dominated by apps and the teacher has been very unforgiving and unhelpful if all the teachers. Others have been very responsive and helpful and understand he's on the spectrum and support him, but this one teacher, forget it. Honestly, it's been a nightmare. We log on to see his grades after watching he work all weekend and it's like WTF, why did he get two zeroes and a 20/100 on his work?

[Anonymous]

I just want to commiserate - at this point I despise all the wretched Chromebooks, Canvas, ParentVUE, literally everything. It’s a nightmare and my kid learns little bc he spends significant time figuring out what is due when, was it graded, does he have to logon to some new app which of course parents can’t see, was it on paper? It never ends. I dream of banishing all electronics and going fully back to paper and pen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. For some background, DS has laptop work for most of his other classes, but, for whatever reason, math is pretty much dominated by apps and the teacher has been very unforgiving and unhelpful if all the teachers. Others have been very responsive and helpful and understand he's on the spectrum and support him, but this one teacher, forget it. Honestly, it's been a nightmare. We log on to see his grades after watching he work all weekend and it's like WTF, why did he get two zeroes and a 20/100 on his work?

OP-you say your kid has a 504. We have an annual review for our kid's 504 at the end of each year that includes teacher and guidance counselor participation. What are your plans for that meeting? You should come prepared, or better yet email the chair of that meeting a list of your kids' challenges ahead of time, and see if they can refine his accomodations so he's not having so many issues.

[Anonymous]

OP: commiseration. I don't know if this is offered at your kid's schooling level, but high school public schools can offer "instructional studies" which provide a class period in lieu of an elective. The class gets a grade and helps kids learn executive functioning skills among other goals identified in the kid's IEP or 504. It sounds like you might want to push for an IEP. We have a kid in a "flipped" math class -- with a lot of apps and daily videos to watch at home and then "practice" the math in class the next day. It's a nightmare for our kid, who is a teen and we suspect ASD but not (yet) diagnosed. Definitely kids like mine with ADHD and other learning disorders struggle with online learning. DC is also dyslexic and the math teacher's handwriting in the videos to watch at home is atrocious. If I could go back to full paper and pencil schooling, I would in a heart beat.
Good luck and keep pushing that school. If you can swing it, a private for middle and high school would be ideal. I wish we had.

[Anonymous]

At a private school. 10 year old with ADHD. Tested 99+ for math. Now testing in 80 percentile and hates math. It's all via IXL. Share your pain. The school doesn't budge. Even tonight we said he has to get off the school Chromebook but was completely distracted playing online chess. I find it so hard to monitor. If it was our home computer at least I could have it turn off.

[Anonymous]

I suspect in 10 years, we'll all be looking back at the horrible 15 year experiment we performed on kids, expecting them to do all their learning on screens from K onwards, no pen and paper, books, textbooks, tests or reports with teacher handwritten comments on them. They already know this is an educational disaster for the vast majority of kids, not just SN kids, and it's bonkers there's not been an immediate adjustment back to regular teaching yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At a private school. 10 year old with ADHD. Tested 99+ for math. Now testing in 80 percentile and hates math. It's all via IXL. Share your pain. The school doesn't budge. Even tonight we said he has to get off the school Chromebook but was completely distracted playing online chess. I find it so hard to monitor. If it was our home computer at least I could have it turn off.

The same thing happened to my daughter but her grades went to failing and she hates math when she was always eager to do it and proud of how well she understood it.