Greek Mythology - or is it "miss-ology"?

A few years ago I did a unit on mythology as part of our homeschool curriculum. We learned about Greek mythology as well as mythology that originated in various other parts of the world. Although I found some of the stories to be kind of creepy at times, there's no question that it held the interest of my children. Still, when you have struggling learners even interesting materials tend to be remembered more in general terms than with specific details. My daughter, Beckie, who has AD/HD also has working memory challenges. Allowing her to draw some of the mythological characters helped her to keep them all straight in her mind. She's very creative and artistic, so drawing appealed to her and was a good challenge as she attempted to sketch some very unique creatures. Children with learning differences often struggle to generalize information they have learned. Admittedly, there's not a high need for generalizing information gleaned from Greek mythology so I didn't worry about it too much. I just wanted my children to have a basic understanding and a frame of reference when mythological characters were mentioned in literature and other media. I also taught my children about foreshadowing in literature, so one day when I was reading aloud to Beckie from a non-mythology book I paused and asked her a question about what was read. She made a good prediction about what might happen later on in the story, and I asked her how she figured that out in hopes that she would respond that she recognized the foreshadowing that had just occurred. Instead, Beckie proudly announced, "I'm Cyclops!" I was baffled for a minute, and sat there in stunned silence trying to figure out where that answer came from. Since she does not have one eye in the middle of her forehead and is actually quite lovely, to describe her as "Cyclops" clearly didn't fit. I could not recall that Cyclops were known for recognizing foreshadowing, either. As I rolled possibilities around in my head, an idea struck me and I asked Beckie, "Do you maybe mean 'psychic'?" and she laughed and said that was it. She couldn't recall the term "foreshadowing", so pulled up a word that sort of fit. I love my Beckie for not being afraid to give things her best shot. She's confident and can laugh at herself, even as she boldly attempts to answer questions that she does not have a precise answer for. Let's hear it for all the children like Beckie who try and try again, and who don't let mistakes prevent them from offering their answers and making contributions.

Facial Recognition and Social Implications

Most of us have times when it's hard to recall someone's name, although we recognize the face. We readily admit, "I'm terrible with names" as a disclaimer when we first meet someone so he won't be offended in the future if his name slips out of our grasp. This difficulty with name recall is both common and understandable. Unless an individual's name makes it from our working memory into our long term memory, and pretty quickly, we are not likely to remember it in the future. For most of us, it is easier to recall the visual information and appearance of another person's face than the auditory information of a name. Sometimes we recognize someone but can't remember the context in which we met them. Church? Community activity? Friend of a friend? Because this is such a common experience, most people are pretty forgiving if we've forgotten the name but at least show recognition that we have met before. Often, there is mutual forgetfulness and the other person does not remember our names, either. No harm done.
My son, Josh, has significant working memory challenges. I realized over time that my son not only was unable to recall names, neither could he readily recall faces. He had no difficulty recognizing those of us he interacted with on a regular basis, but for those he saw infrequently he honestly had no memory or context for knowing them. It would be unsettling for him when virtual strangers (to his mind) would call him by name and initiate a conversation. Josh has never been good at faking anything, so he would genuinely ask, "Do I know you?" or "I'm sorry, but have we met?" Unfortunately, this attempt to be polite and seek clarification had negative social implications. People naturally feel hurt when others don't remember them, especially people whom they remember quite clearly and have shared past experiences. I remember a mother of one of my daughter's friends coming up to me and telling me that Josh asked who she was and she told him "I've only known you for YEARS." It was true, but months would go by in between each brief contact and Josh never transferred the information to his long-term memory so each contact was starting fresh - for him. If I told Josh who people were and when he had seen them before, it sometimes jogged a vague memory for him.
There is a name for this "face blindness", and the term is "prosopagnosia". In severe cases, individuals have difficulty recognizing their own family members, friends, and even themselves. Many people with autism, PDD, and Asperger Syndrome experience prosopagnosia. I guess Josh had a fairly mild version, and I wondered if what registered in his mind's eye was like a snapshot of faces, rather than the more dynamic version of faces changing to reflect a variety of emotions. Since Josh used to have difficulty recognizing different emotions expressed on faces, I thought maybe he only had one still picture in his mind and if it didn't match what he saw there was no recall. I don't know for sure, and Josh has improved over the years. It's too bad that there's not facial recognition software we could install in our brains to help us make the connections. I have worked with many children with autism who focus on part of something rather than seeing the whole. If this happens when a child looks at a face, he may see just the nose, or only the mouth, and not how those parts comprise a face. I have had children stare at an object I've held in front of my face, without recognizing that there was a person holding the object. If a face is viewed as individual component parts without seeing the whole, that face is not likely to be recognized in the future.
For our verbal children with the language skills to express themselves, we can teach them strategies to ease the social tension. Having someone admit "I know lots of people have trouble remembering names, but I even have trouble remembering faces sometimes" may prepare others in advance so they won't be offended or surprised when they have to reintroduce themselves. For our nonverbal or less verbal children, we can advocate for them by explaining the challenges of prosopagnosia and reassure others that it is not a personal slight when our children don't acknowledge them with recognition. My hope is that when we explain that there is a neurological glitch, others will be more flexible and accepting and won't misinterpret our struggling learner's behaviors in a negative way.

Turn Your Recorder On

My son, Josh, and my youngest daughter, Beckie, both have auditory processing difficulties. Although when they were officially evaluated by an audiologist they had some differences in the auditory tasks in which they struggled, they both demonstrated poor working memory. This means that although their hearing acuity is fine, they process the incoming auditory input in an atypical manner and they are unable to hold information in their minds long enough to remember it all and act on it. So they might remember the first thing they heard, or the last thing they heard, but if it's a long segment they are likely to lose information. I used strategies like pairing visual information with auditory information, and I utilized gestures and demonstrations nearly all the time. I had them look at me before I gave them directions. I had them repeat back to me what they heard so I would know if they were not complying with me or if they never got the information in the first place. This is an important strategy for parents and teachers, because you should not be disciplining a child for not doing what you've asked if he never received the information completely in the first place. I also did activities specifically to work on improving auditory memory and attention. One activity I did with all my children was have them repeat back exactly what I said to them, increasing the length of the segment a little at a time. For example, I would say something like, "The cat walked to his bowl." We would practice that until they could say say it verbatim. The next sentence would be, "The white cat walked to his empty bowl." The next sentence might be, "The white cat slowly walked to his empty bowl, hoping to find it full of food." This stretched their attention span and challenged their auditory memory skills a little at a time. I also reminded the children to make a mental picture about what they were hearing, since the internal visual cues would help them remember details. One day, while doing this activity, I noticed that Josh was tapping himself on the temple every time I started with, "Ready? Listen to this." I thought to myself, "Great! Now on top of the AD/HD, sensory processing difficulties and auditory processing problems, I've given this kid tics!" I wasn't sure I really wanted to know the answer, but I finally asked Josh if he realized he was tapping himself on the head every time it was his turn to repeat something. He promptly said, "Yes! I'm turning my recorder on!" My little hands-on guy could relate to pushing a button to record something, so he had implemented a tactile strategy for himself. (Whew! Big sigh of relief for me since his head tapping wasn't caused by tics after all and I hadn't done anything to cause them or mess up my kid!) Once a child comes up with their own strategy, we can use it knowing that it makes sense to them. After Josh showed me that he identified with "turning the recorder on" I generalized that strategy for other listening tasks. When teaching any subject, I would prompt Josh to turn his recorder on because the next point was very important. Before giving him a multi-step direction, I would prompt him to turn his recorder on and picture himself doing the task. His strategy became my strategy with him, because Josh taught me something that worked for him.