Wednesday, March 3, 2010
What's the Best Homeschool Curriculum for Children with Aspergers?
I'm sharing the small amount of information I already know (about my own Aspie) on this subject as well as requesting your thoughts. If you've homeschooled a child on the autism spectrum, specifically a child with Asperger's, then I have a personal interest in hearing what you have to share. If you're seeking information as so many of us are... I hope something I share here will be beneficial.
What I'm specifically wondering about tonight is whether any of my readers are familiar with Larel Springs? They actually offer a homeschooling program recommended for children with Aspergers. Seems unusual that such a thing would exist and I'm eager to learn more about it. I have no clue what this program costs... it's considered a private school, which immediately makes me see dollar signs, but I'm going to look at it anyway. Can't hurt, right? I'm also not certain whether they'll cater any of their homeschooling classes for aspies, or if there's a specific line of classes for these special students.
My son has been homeschooled with My Father's World and K12 curriculum and done well with both. What he didn't do well with was the unstructured environment of being at home with mom. Our homeschooling career was riddled with problems and currently he's in public school. I have a hunch that I'll one day be bringing him home again and consequently do a bit of research from time to time trying to determine the best course of action to take when he re-enters the homeschooling world.
I had always said I'd go back to K12, but if there were a curriculum developed for kids on the spectrum?? Hmmm... would that be a good thing or a bad thing? The bigger question for me... if the lack of structure at home is in fact the real problem, then does it really matter what curriculum we use? Won't our struggles look the same regardless?
Here's what I can share, at least about my own son. He does best with short lessons, frequent breaks and routine. If he knows what to expect, how long it will take, and that he'll be able to get up from the table and focus on something else after about 20 minutes, we do much better. If he hits a roadblock, meaning he doesn't understand something, he shuts down and decides he either hates the lesson or that it's "stupid" and won't cooperate at all. I could see that happening with virtually any curriculum and could also see that possibly being more a personality thing than an Aspie one??
Finally, I suppose we need to decide what our goals for our children are, before we know what approach to take. Do we want them to be something they can't be? Are we trying to make them look and function like the rest of the world? I think one of the reasons we failed was that I was trying to do just that. I wanted him to master every lesson and he just couldn't do it. Some subjects he soared in while others seemed to go nowhere day after day.
I guess I have more questions than answers and unfortunately one of the challenges with kids on the spectrum is that no two are exactly alike. lol Oh... well, I guess that makes them human right? Seriously though, they may have the same diagnosis, but face different challenges and respond very differently to the approach you take in schooling them.
As for my son, he's currently doing very well, so long as the school gives him the breaks he needs... even during testing, oh and they allow him to take his tests outside the classroom in a more isolated environment. This has helped him too, which tells me outside stimulation is definitely a factor. He's also given some help getting his homework together... which he has a history of forgetting, then freaking out at night with worry about what will come the next day. Poor guy. Anxiety is not his friend.
Ok.... didn't mean to write a book here, and I fear I'm rambling on and on! So, I'll share more and ask more later!
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5 comments:
I used Laurel Springs for my Aspie son in the Spring. The curriculum was project-based, which my son really liked. However, math was a nightmare for him. It was a Saxon Math program and we bought the manipulatives separately because we knew he would do much better with the manipulatives. The actual daily math lessons took A LOT of time. Math is supposed to be taught four days a week, and it sometimes took us about two hours just to get through one day of math... and the was in first grade! Once he finally got the basics down, things went smoother and a little more quickly, but he had TREMENDOUS anxiety about math because it was so time-intensive. Taking breaks really did help, but it was still A LOT of work for him to complete. We ended up having him answer problems verbally and wrote the answers for him, and they were okay with that at Laurel Springs because of his diagnosis. They even gave us a little extra time at the end of the school year to get all of his math lessons completed. Thank goodness we were able to do that and not have to pay the extension fee!
He loved the science projects and he loved the art projects that were incorporated into the reading assignments (ex, making masks for a book he read and writing his own
play based on the same book). Very cool, interesting things to do!
It is pricey for us, though. We would love to use them again. For second grade, I believe it's $2,000 for the year, and we just can't afford it.
Perhaps you could go the route of finding a charter school that has the homeschooling option. Then it would be free! We just found out we won't be able to do that because our son's old school never closed out his IEP as we requested, and charter schools don't want to deal with the level of services they claim he needs. And my son's old school would have to write into his IEP that homeschooling is appropriate for him, which we are certain they would never do. So we, personally, will have to go the private homeschooling route. Hope you don't encounter the headache we have. Good luck!
I homeschooled my 11 year old son last year. He has a diagnosis of Asperger. He suffers from really high anxiety to the point where he gets panic attacks. He was not functioning at all in public school so I opt for the challenge of homeschooling. I used the Jubilee Academy curriculum, and it was ok to me. My son is very visual and I liked the fact that their entire curriculum uses videos as a suppliment (extra cost.)
Home schooling was very strenuous and costly to me, especially in a single parent household. I would have loved to continue homeschooling for my son's 6th grade year, but I was advised to place him back in the school environment for the social development part of growing up. That was a big mistake!! Starting September, my child have had multiple detension per day every day, every month till present. He is now serving the first of a three day suspension in school. He is required to report to the dean first thing in the morning where work would be brought to him by his teachers. Today the dean has reported that my son behaves fantastic when working one on one with him, but he cannot seem to figure out why he cannot behave among his peers in the classroom. They are quite familiar with my son's diagnosis, and expressed that they do have other asperger students that are functioning better than my son in the classroom. I did mentioned that there are no two aspie child alike.
My son takes Intuniv in the smallest dose, but it doesn't seem to help. We are looking to increase his dosage and secure a para for him. I am anxious to see how it turns out for him when he receives the para.
I still think that homeschooling was a better option for my son because of such low self control in the classrooms, and such problems with high anxiety. If the para does not work for him, I will have to secure a lawyer and see if we can get him transfered to a private school, paid for by the state. If all eslse fails, I will have to explore the option of homeschooling him again. The Laurel Springs curriculum seems interesting, I will have to check it out. THANKS!!
QUEENLEEN
I wanted to respond directly to your concern that staying on task might be more of a personality problem, especially when your son "hits a roadblock". I can assure you that it is definitely an aspie thing. My son reacts exactly the same way.
It sounds like your son is getting the right kind of IEP support. I wish I could get that much assistance. My son has an IEP but getting them to implement anything that makes more work for the teacher is next to impossible. And with her philosophy of making the kids become more responsible for their own orginization, a suggestion that she make sure he has his homework every day has proven pointless.
Also, a no bullying policy only works if ALL of the staff are trained and onboard with it. Children learn how to provoke aspies in a way that leaves themselves looking like an innocent victim of an autistic meltdown.
We are trying to decide if I will quit work and homeschool next year. It will require a complete life style change since I bring in about 50% of our income, but will be worth it if my childs education and quality of life will be improved.
I have found some computer based curriculum that is not an online school at a fraction of the online school costs. We can make a homeschool environment as structured as we want. It just has to become your full time occupation.
Good luck with your search!
Crystal
I am a mother of two boys and have homeschooled them both since they were three, they are now eight and ten. I struggled for many years and wanted to give up so many times. I kept changing things every year looking for that perfect school or curriculum that would click. In the fall of 2009 we found out our oldest son has Asperger's. We had already bought our curriculum and started school, so we just went about things differently. I checked out as many books as I could and read many websites online to learn about this disorder. I picked up one book which was so similar to our circumstances it was like I had written it myself. After reading as much as I could I turned to the school for testing. When denied services because my son was too bright and could function well for their testing I turned to outside services. These are few an far between, but they have given me useful information as well as some structured socialization. Once I understood more I conducted our homeschooling day differently and last year was the first year that I didn't want to pull my hair out or give up. So this year we continued in the same fashion and it went even better than last year. For me it was learning that my son wasn't giving me a hard time because he didn't want to do it, but because he just couldn't do it or he couldn't do it in the way that I thought he should have been able to. Next year a new challange awaits us. Our curriculum we have been using only goes up to the sixth grade, so I am left looking for another curriculum. One that will work for him as well as myself and hopefully carry him through high school and that is how I came to be at this site. I checke out Larel Springs as mentioned, but just too pricy for me to try not knowing if it will work for us. I wish all of you the best in your journey and I hope you all find that little something that works as it can be quite challenging.
I was in a similar situation. My 11 year old son was diagnosed with Aspergers. He was in a very good public school program where he was identified as developmentally delayed. We didn't even know about the aspergers at that point. He was placed in special education for one year (1st grade) then moved back to the general setting where he received speech and language, OT, APE until he was 9. Eventually, they eliminated all his services. In his IEP, the did not recognize our doctor's and our therapist's written diagnosis for Aspergers.
They told us he didn't meet "their" criteria for autism. The psychiatrist told me discreetly on the side that my son would benefit greatly from a smaller class size. However, in their report, the stated he should remain in the general setting (a class with 21 students).
My son was also being ridiculed in his own classroom for the accommodations he was receiving for dysgraphia and the teachers knew it and didn't tell me anything. I only found out when my son finally told me what was happening. Even when I confronted the principal, he response was that "they dealt with it."
So I decided then to take him out of school. It wasn't an easy decision. I was making 50% of our household income. Our lifestyle has changed. But my son is so much happier and his anxiety level and dropped so much. I purchased the Switched-On School House curriculum and it was the best thing I ever did. My son works at his own pace; he gets multiple attempts to answer questions and he really loves it. It has automatic grading which is a blessing for me. I give him breaks throughout the day in between subjects. He gets structure but it is his structure. He can play his video games or watch a 15 minute video in between lessons. I don't make him sit at the table to do his work - he'd prefer doing it on his bed in his room.
I think the best thing you can do for your child is to let go of the notion that he has to do things a certain way - your way - and that he has to make a certain grade. All that is really important is that he feels good about what he's doing. No child in private or public school remembers every single thing they've learned in childhood so don't expect your child to.
I am going to be homeschooling again this year - 5th grade - using the SOS curriculum I purchased at AOP. (About $400)
It's a bible based program but you can skip that part of it if you like. It has interactive work, projects, video enhancement and a voice program that will actually read the lesson to your child if he has difficulty reading himself. It also has automatic grading and record keeping.
You should definitely try it.
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