Perfectionism

Sample of Mike's work

Michael has a tendency to unknowingly be perfect.  He has signs of perfectionism.  An example of this is his writing.  Here is an example of a story problem he wrote for his first grade class.  His handwriting is extremely neat, It almost looks like a teacher wrote the story.  Now I'm "all about" neat handwriting.  I guess being a teacher makes me smile at the perfect letter being formed whether it be printing or cursive.  Yet in Michael's case, it might take him an hour to write one sentence for his teacher.

Michael takes so long in his class, he is the last one done.  He got an "Approaching Expectations" mark on his writing for his report card.  It isn't that he has horrible handwriting or letter formation, it isn't that he has a lot of great ideas up there in his head.  The fact that he got such a low mark was because his teacher never gets to see all of his ideas up there in his noggin for the simple fact that he doesn't get enough written down on paper.  He is so busy making each letter absolutely perfect by the rules, that he never gets to tell his story.

Michael came home the other day from school and I asked him, "How was your day buddy?"  He said, "It was good until the end.  I took a math test but I was too slow and didn't get to finish.  I think my teacher was mad at me."  Now math is something this kid knows how to do.  He is absolutely brilliant in math.  He probably got 99% correct on the problems or maybe even 100%.  The math is pretty easy for his mathematical mind.  The problem was is that he was so busy making his numbers perfect on the paper, it took him the whole class time plus more to finish his work.

Michael has an IEP (Individual Education Plan), and in the IEP there are accommodations for him.  One accommodation is to give him more time.  This is great, but how much more time do you give him?  There isn't enough time in the day to give him all of the time he needs and to get other work done too.

We had this problem with Chris's older son Dale (also on the spectrum...Aspergers).  Dale would take three times the amount of time to do his homework.  He needed someone to write notes for him in high school, because it would just take too long for him to write with his very neat handwriting and actually pay attention to what was going on in the lesson.

I believe this problem of Michael's and Dale's is not just their "perfectionistic" nature, but it is a part of their whole processing system.  We find at home that we have to give Michael enough "wait time" to actually answer a question verbally.  Chris always says I never gave Dale, and now Michael enough wait time.  I need to be even more patient.  As a teacher, I always thought I was really good on the whole "wait time" thing.  Instead of counting to 10 in my head, sometimes I need to count to 20 in order to hear a response from Michael. 

So I'm wondering if anyone else out there who has a child with HFA (High Functioning Autism) has seen this perfectionism in their writing?  Does it take your child 3 times as long to finish anything?  What has helped?  Do you set a timer and say, "It needs to be done by the time the buzzer goes off?"  Being as black and white and rule driven as they are, maybe this will actually help.