Nonverbal Reasoning and Test-taking
Children with nonverbal challenges may struggle to apply information and become thrown when questions on exams are ambiguous or presented differently than on homework.
Children with nonverbal challenges may struggle to apply information and become thrown when questions on exams are ambiguous or presented differently than on homework.
Apply Information | Ambiguity or Appearance
| Apply Information | |
| Look at overall relation rather than matching to a single aspect | |
| Ask explicit questions to help arrive at an answer to an open-ended question | |
| Engage in active studying (e.g. do something with the material, such as make comparisons, create notecards, re-group the information, etc.) rather than only passive studying (e.g. glancing over notes) | |
| Prepare for tests by paraphrasing the information, thinking of ways the information can be applied or compared | Tools: Spark Notes |
| Ambiguity or Appearance | |
| If the test appears different than expected, then take a few seconds to re-group and try to find a portion that is familiar | |
| When test questions are not directly stated in the manner that material was learned, think about what would make the most sense, given what was taught | |
| Teach how to re-write test questions that have convoluted wording in order to make the question more straightforward | |
| Learn how to respond to ambiguity by determining what seems most relevant; provide target questions and ask child to highlight what s/he perceives to be key aspects in order to provide with feedback | Activities to identify main idea or primary point |
| Games to help with patterns and strategy | Examples: checkers, Tetris, Unblock Me App, finding hidden pictures (Highlights book), Sudoku Junior, Little Solver-Figural Analogies, Zategy, dominoes |