Why is homework difficult for ASD students?

Experts in the area of autism offer two explanations as to why homework is problematic for students with ASD. One is the profile of their cognitive skills and second is the immense stress and mental exhaustion they experience at the end of a school day, according to Atwood (2000).

The exhaustion comes from learning the traditional curriculum while navigating a social curriculum for which they are sorely unprepared. Few rules are posted for this secondary curriculum and little to no instruction is provided. Each encounter, situation and interaction has a set of often undefined rules. To survive students with ASD expend tremendous effort and energy deciphering social cues and codes. Each situation requires them to cognitively determine what to do or say. More often than not they spend the day making social mistakes, but not learning from them. The resulting degree of stress is extremely high and the amount of energy expended is exhausting.

The second difficulty is a result of students’ cognitive profile. One aspect of the profile is impaired executive function (EF). Over simplified, EF is the ability to plan, execute, and thoughtfully monitor behavior directed toward a specific goal. Much like children with Attention Deficit Disorder, students with ASD are unable to organize and manage their time, belongings, and activities in order to accomplish a task. They have great difficulty generating new ideas, planning, organizing and prioritizing, determining what is relevant and redundant and controlling impulses. They require guidance and supervision with time management and tend to be inflexible when problem solving (Twatchman-Cullen, 2000).

The deficits in EF leave students with ASD ill-equipped to deal with the demands of homework. Unless assignments are individualized, a homework plan is in place, and strategies are developed to compensate for these weaknesses homework becomes a war and the home a battleground.