Comprehension

It has long been assumed that Max’s autism does not affect his academic performance, by his teachers, by the specialists running his home intervention program. But we, parents, were certain that it did. Was it attention? Was it some type of brain processing? Over the years, we became determined that he didn't fully understand the information that was presented to him.

I tried to reach out to the school. They tested him for reading comprehension and he tested average. Perhaps they didn’t use the right tests. There exist tests specifically for vocabulary. If they used these tools, I’m sure Max would test manifestly below his age.

He didn’t know the word “splendid”. Okay, nobody says “splendid” these days, but a 14-year-old would know it. He didn’t know the word “steep”. 

He wouldn’t read books. He wouldn't watch movies. When he tried, his emotional reaction was spot-on, despite the myths associated with his diagnosis. But he missed crucial details, key information pointers about the characters, and as a result, failed to understand the message.

It took us long time to pinpoint the problem. At first, we assumed the problem was in the lack of focus. But the two are related. If you lose track of what’s going on, your mind drifts away. If your mind drifts away, you miss key information, and you stop understanding what is happening.

There is also the factor of interest. Max doesn’t have the social based motivation. He is not interested in things for social reasons. If he is interested, he shows utter brilliance. If he is not, he withdraws. The triad - comprehension, attention, interest. 

So — what are we doing about it? We are working on reading. Max has already decided that reading is an unpleasant chore. We started him with five pages once a week. Now he is at twenty pages four times a week. We also worked hard on finding a book - any book - that he will be looking forward to reading. It so happens that Max is now obsessed with fancy cars — Aston Martin, Lamborghini, you name it. Accordingly, we sat together and browsed online until we came across a book titled “The story of Porsche”, which Max was - finally - excited to read. Turned out it was a fascinating story. Porsche is actually the name of a person - Ferdinand Porsche, the manufacturer and the founder of Porsche the company. He was instrumental in providing machinery for the German effort during WWII. So, we drew on his perhaps odd interest to achieve what we thought was an important skill.