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Homeschooling, please help me to answer some questions???
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Question:
Just to clarify things here abit. Not everyone with an autistic child home
schools simply because they are tired of fighting for appropriate programs
or watching a program disintegrate because a key member left. Some
homeschoolers started out homeschooling NT children and decided to
homeschool their autistic child as well. Others did pull the autistic child
out of school and then brought the NT children home. Other families have
some children in school and some out of school depending on the needs and
learning style of the child. Some families decided from day one to
homeschool and having an autistic child did not change that decision.
In our case, we did pull our autistic daughter out due to long-term
dissatisfaction with the schools. But, our satisfaction with Pamela's
progress has influenced us to choose homeschooling for our NT son as well.
Homeschooling has benefits for children of all abilities.
Answer:
- How involved is your autisitic child? Does she understand what you
say and can appropriately responded to you?
I have a child with a limited understanding of language. He is on
steroids to see if this will help with language. He has seizures
on both the temperal lobe(langage) and parietal lobe( sensory inter-
gration). This type of autism is like Donna Williams. My problem
is the school does not want to fund a home school program. They say
go ahead and do one if you feel that's what you want but they will
not help in anyway if that's my choice. They want to continue to in-
tergrate him in a normal classroom with twenty other students and
give him an aid to help drag him around.
I need help from the system with a home school program. I can't do
it on my own.
Does your school system help with the program you have going?
- Your school has to provide a home teacher if the child has too many
difficulties with school or if they get ill a lot, like my kiddo.
Even if you decide to homeschool or put him in some other private school,
the public school has to continue to provide any therapies (speech,
occupational or physical) that they qualify for. Qualification would depend
on what your child is currently getting and how extreme his/her deficits
are.
BTW, Zek is currently in the public school sped preschool program everyday
from 8-11:30, then comes home and I homeschool in the afternoon. I will
homeschool him fulltime beginning in June 1997 and will get O.T. and speech
from the school at least twice a week!
I hope this helps!
- Pamela understands the basics when I communicate verbally to her. But, if I
want her to remember something long-term or academic, it has to be visual.
Through diet, supplements, SI approach, etc, Pamela is not that involved
anymore. I also find that she is less involved because she is noise
sensitive and just not being exposed to a high level of noise on a daily
basis reduces her frustration level.
She is autistic and her expressive language is still at a 3 yo level, but
she is succeeding at academics at K-1 level. The tricky part was figuring
out ways to teach her visually and allow her to express her knowledge in
nonverbal ways. Of course, we work on language every day (all day because
she does talk spontaneously thanks to gf/cf diet and I reinforce language
goals when she talks).
We have moved around alot--every year since 1994!!! So, I have not had the
energy to involve the school system. As Erika wrote, they are required
services that your son qualifies for whether or not he is enrolled in
school. In all likelihood, you will have to fight to get them to pay for a
home program, but parents have been able to do this successfully.
What I want to know is how does a sensory defensive child benefit from being
in a noisy classroom?
I am lucky. The new district has offered help, but we're pretty happy with
what we have going. I have not asked for services, but, from what other
hsers have told me, our district would be more helpful than most. Much of
your district's reaction will depend on the attitudes of the people there,
whether or not what they are saying is really illegal (ie, some have tried
to deny hsers services required by federal law).
It may help you to connect to a local homeschooler group to find out what
the local situation is and the laws for your state. There are also
organizations for homeschooling special needs or autistic children that
might be able to give you ideas of how to fight these battles. And, we have
an email loop going on homeschooling autistic children and you can join that
for ideas too.
- This is our fourth year we homeschool our now 14 year old PDD son. We
pulled him out of the school system because they were not meeting his
needs.He would come home from school more stressed and withdrawn than
ever.Our school system provides an instructional assistant that comes
into our home for 11 hours a week(2hours 10 min. a day) We had to be
persistent to get this request approved by the school system. It took
time,energy and several letters and meetings. We have to reapply every
year but now they seem to accept it. We live in Regina,Canada.
We have not regretted this decision and our son,Mark is responding
well.He is for the most part very happy and content.The days of him
being spaced out are gone.
We also utilize funding from social services to supplement our program.
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