Reading Comprehension in some areas but not in others

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My son typically has no more trouble with reading comprehension than the average kid, even though he has language issues. When reading history or science, he has no problem understanding what he reads and answering questions, even if the reading is stories about people or events in time. He has recently been tasked with his first book report.

My question is this: He's in 4th grade. He read his first chapter book, read it fine in school, never complained, was the good student he always is. When it came time to write his book report he had no idea what the story was about or what he just read. I asked him to forget about the report part and read 2 chapters in the book. I then asked him about the first chapter and he could not tell me what was in it. I asked him a specific question "Did you get to the part about the fire?" which was in this chapter and he said no. My son has a meltdown every time he gets less than 100 on anything. He's a great student. I am sure that he's not slacking or avoiding, I truely believe that he can't comprehend fiction. He likes to be read to, but he can't seem to get anything out of the book if he reads it himself. I even had him read outloud, and it still didn't sink in.

Is there anyone out there who is like this? Is this a black and white thing? (he is very much like this) Can you help me understand a little about why he can comprehend textbooks but not fiction? and is there anything that I can do to help him with this? or anything that I should not do or expect from him? I want to help him and I'm not sure how since I don't really get this.

Thanks in Advance for your replys!! !

For people with ASDs, comprehension of fiction is a lot harder than information.
(I'm not sure how old 4th grade is, but these work for 7 and 8 year olds...)
A few suggestions:

Read 1st chapter, and as he's going through it, make notes/draw pictures on what happens. Ask him to pick out the most important point of the chapter- not all the information is relevant, so just choose 1 or 2 things.
Repeat this for the other chapters one at a time, then look back at the pictures/notes/important points to attempt retelling the story.
Read the book together- read it aloud and follow words in book together.

You make list of most important parts, and he puts them in order once you've read book together. Generally sequencing events in stories can be hard for most children, never mind those with ASDs who find this even more challenging.

After every page of reading, talk about what happened in the story- try to link any events/characters to things in his life as this will help with comprehension.

Maybe focus book report on something different- don't know how he does it in his school, but you could focus more on opinions of the story and thinking of a different ending than retelling the story, or you could recreate it as a comic strip using his pictures from earlier.

If he likes it, try acting out part of the story with him so he can remember what has happened: often children remember things better by doing things.

You could get him to create a character profile of the main character.

Ask the teacher at school exactly what he needs to do for his book report- if you are clear with what is needed and expected, then you'll be in a better position to help him.

Hope some of these ideas help...

I am not know of this much... but I do like the attempt.

I am notice that textbook can have more 'if, then' and 'this is this' and stuffs. Is is direct. Fictition is use of dialogue, relationship, and pretty language.

Textbook is for increase of scientific/language understand.
Fictiion is for increase of artistic/social/language understand.

I think.

Please to the try of rewording the fiction book to be a more direct. That is my suggested.

I can't read fiction at all. I haven't read a novel since school. Even then I couldn't answer the questions or do book reports. I don't even know if I would be able to understand even children's books. Yet I can read psychology books without any problem and also news reports. Generally my reading comprehension is low but in fiction it is non existent. I can't follow the story, I don't understand all the words ( my vocabulary is limited), I don't know the characters and relationships, when an event is taking place in the book I can't picture what is going on and I am 28! I honestly don't know how I passed school but in high school I didn't have to really read novels. Same with college. I am sorry that your son is struggling reading chapter books. I have been through it myself. With me non-fiction is just straight to the point without any imagination required. That is why it is easier. I don't have much of an imagination because I just like facts. I don't know is its because of my autism.

I'm doing a little review work on this at the moment (working on a paper on a related topic, and also learning more about my own reading comprehension difficulties).

From the research I've read so far for the review I'm doing, there's multiple levels of reading, some of the lower being issues with phonics. Usually problems with phonics (which may be more of an auditory issue rather than visual) is usually defined as dyslexia. Autistics, however, more often have problems with higher order reading comprehension when they do have difficulty rather than classic dyslexia. That means that they're fine at translating over the written word into speech sounds but then translating that over into something that's actually meaningful is another story entirely. Such reading deficits might be more akin to the deficits which can sometimes occur with hyperlexia (a conundrum I realize since most think of "hyperlexic" as an enhanced reading ability, and while that may be the case for some, for others it can be restricted to the ability to sound out words but not necessarily have a similar strength in reading comprehension).

From my own personal difficulties, I have problems with reading comprehension, such that I can read an entire passage and by the end of it not be able to tell you what I read. This ability is variable: it depends on the day, my mood, how awake I am, my level of motivation (which also ties into whether I inherently find the material itself rewarding), the style of writing (concrete vs. abstract, the former being MUCH easier to comprehend), as well as the talent of the writer him/herself. I've also noticed that the design of the book can make understanding the material easier. E.g., if there are pictures that enhance learning, differences in how the layout looks such that each page is somewhat unique rather than page after page of monotonous text, and even the size of the text itself. (At the moment I'm trying to get into a book for my work, one which I have chosen to read, which is a seminal book in its field, and one which I really have quite a bit of motivation, but the writer is just so boring and the text is small and I find within just 30 seconds or so my attention drifts off elsewhere.)

In short, I'm capable of reading and comprehending, it just takes quite a bit of concentration and me at my top form. Unfortunately, we are rarely ever consistently at our top form throughout the entire day, and so that means at my lesser moments, reading becomes a real struggle.

In my brain, to me if feels like I am first translating the visual written word into an auditory grouping of sounds; this for me is almost effortless. The next step, however, which is translating that auditory sound into a comprehensible visual image is, well, a b***h. And the less familiar a text or the more abstract the language (for instance, philosophical texts tend to kill me for exactly this reason, because it's hard to translate abstraction into concrete visuals) the worse my comprehension becomes.

This isn't to say that this is the precise problem your son is having. However, some of the things you described did speak to my own difficulty. In addition, the idea of autistics having deficits in longer range connectivity within the brain may mean that, for instance, some may have more difficulties in coordinating vision and audition. And for those who truly learn in a visual-dependent manner, that may mean that learning from text is a process which simply takes more effort.

Some days, to just understand a single word can be like pushing a boulder up a hill.

A few things I'd recommend if you're not already using them. First off, using other means of learning for him that aren't text-dependent could be really help to supplement what he's missing. If he is a visual learner, then helping him to translate the materials over into visual information may bolster his learning, e.g., through other visuals, drawing diagrams, etc.. In addition, if his auditory reception is better than his reading comprehension, you may try books on tape when they're available-- especially for things like literature classes. It may also help him to discuss what he's read (or listened to) afterwards, to try and sum it up, just in case he has difficulty with conceptual things (i.e., figuring out the bigger picture), which is pretty common in ASCs.

To be honest, I've tried using all of these things, and they do help me get by sometimes. But more recently, I've had to come to accept that reading for information just simply isn't my strong suit, and nobody in the world is going to take the time to translate everything over into tv documentaries for me. Throughout most of my education, I got very good at bullshitting about texts we were supposed to read and for the most part I got away with it great. I hardly read any books until high school, and even then only those I felt like reading. In all honesty, I can't remember a single school textbook I've ever read the required reading for. I just couldn't do it; it was way too much work for me. Everything was still going fine on up through college; once I hit graduate school and had to take some medical school courses, things changed. And try as creatively as I might, there just wasn't any accommodation in the world that was going to keep me from making B's and C's despite my maximum efforts.

Sad but true. However, it has taught me to think more for myself and to make up my own mind about things without necessarily having to read everything that other people think-- not that it's not good to learn from others, but I would go through texts so slowly that I would make up my own mind before I got to the part where the author would translate that into his/her own opinions. And going through them slower, I ended up sucking them entirely dry of everything they had to offer. So when more rapid readers go from book to book and rapidly forget all the details, I end up making use of a multitude of little gemstones for my research. There's been drawbacks, but then there've been advantages too. So I guess I'm okay with that.

Hope my personal experience is helpful to you and your son in some way.