April is Autism Awareness Month. Last year, on World Autism Day which is held on April 2nd each year, I attended the TACA & Volcom Community Day. It was a fun-filled day with skate lessons provided by OC Skateboarding School. There were bounce-houses for the little ones, Skee-ball, free custom screen printed hats and plenty of GFCF snacks. The skateboarding was held indoors making it too dark to get good pictures, but the Volcom staff did a wonderful job working with the kids.
Parents helping parents... Do you homeschool your child with autism? Sharing your story can be encouraging to other parents that are homeschooling their autistic child or are considering it. Do you have a "golden nugget" to share or maybe an encouraging word? What advice would you give to someone considering homeschooling their autistic child? What methods have worked for you? What has been your biggest obstacle?
More about Autism:
- Autism Awareness Printable Worksheets
- Autism Homeschooling Resources
- Discovering Nathan - Autism Awareness Month daily post
Comments
I don’t have a child with autism, but here is a boy I know with it who is homeschooled:
http://www.kylestreehouse.org/blog-detail.aspx?id=496
We were accidental homeschoolers when we began homeschooling our son with Autism. We had several problems with the local district concerning their program and it became clear that homeschool was our most viable option. We are finishing up our third year and have had such a positive experience that we are also homeschooling our other children. I feel that by homeschooling we can focus more on the aspects of his life that will require years of extra work to achieve independence rather than the focus being on how many minutes a day that he can be mainstreamed. My biggest complaint with public school is that they never seemed to understand that the least restrictive environment may not be the most beneficial. Homeschooling is not a decision I regret, even on the bad days.
We have been homeschooling both of our children from birth. Our son was diagnosed with autism about a year ago and we have continued our homeschool journey since then. Homeschooling has been a God send to us because it allows us to work with our son one on one, which he needs and be able to provide him with the treatments he needs without having to miss so much time from school. We have been using the Charlotte Mason approach, which has worked wonderfully with our son.
My best advice is for families to do their research. Understand what is involved in homeschool and the committment it will take to be successful at homeschooling. There is so much information and so many resources available to homeschoolers today. It is also important to assess your family’s needs and abilities. Homeschooling is not for everyone. It requires a great deal of patience, dedication, and committment. It is really easy to get off track if you are not careful. But, it can be a rewarding and wonderful experience if you work hard at it.
I homeschool my boy who is on the autistic spectrum; I used to be a public school teacher and share my journey and insights at spectrumhomeschool.com (no advertisements – just help)
I have been homeschooling my 14 year old son with high functioning autism for two years. While he has improved academically, he has also improved socially and emotionally. My golden nugget…having the academic learning separate from the social learning has proven successful. My son has several friends on and off the spectrum. His best buds are in his chess club.
This fall, I start homeschooling my son with autism! While we are an established homeschooling family, this will be a new adventure for us.
I have started a blog
http://learningyesican.blogspot.com/
and am hoping this will be a way to encourage other parents who are traveling a similar path.
I just started homeschooling my 7 year old son with pdd-nos yesterday. His school had major budget cut-backs and doubled his mainstream class size to 30 students. He cried every morning for a week and a half. I discussed homeschooling through the county with the principal, and she said that right now they couldn’t accomodate IEP’s. A little over a week later, I took my son to school, left him in the office crying. When I got in my car to leave, I saw him run out of the office and try to run across the parking lot. I took him back, but decided that that was his last day. So far, I don’t regret it. For the past two days, he’s been much happier.
I’m a 33 yr old mother of 2. My oldest is 7 and diagnosed with Autism. I have just started home-schooling him as I feel the schools and staff in general just don’t get how he learns. Or how overwhelmed he gets when trying to change topics ever hour. And also how stressful it can be to sit in a busy classroom I know that everyone needs social interaction but I think it’s even more important to make sure that experience is a positive one and school can be too hectic. This is to the detriment of a child’s education and social skills development. Since we’ve been home-schooling we do one topic a day. Ex: History on Monday. Math on Wednesday etc. I always found this style of studying the best for me and my brain and he seems much calmer now than he was before. It’s also great because the days where he’s working on his favourite subjects feel like days off. And the two areas were he struggles get the in depth attention they need but at a relaxed pace (peppered with plenty of breaks) throughout the day.
I’m a 21 year old with PDD NOS, and after watching me progressively worsen in typical schooling, my parents started homeschooling me in grade 7. With the exception of grade 10, I continued being homeschooled until university – at which point I took the SAT, passed with flying colors, and entered university. Now I’m a 2nd year psychology student and doing well.
When I was 12, my parents didn’t know I was autistic, and didn’t know anything about homeschooling. All they knew was that standard schooling was not working for me. They could tell I was intelligent, but I wasn’t doing any schoolwork, and my psychological health was getting worse and worse (depression, anxiety, meltdowns, running away, etc). So they pulled me from school and went with their instincts.
They ended up basically reinventing ‘unschooling’, a method of homeschooling where the child completely directs the curriculum – the parents are only there to assist the child’s learning when needed. I spent most of every day on the public access computers at the university, typing search terms into Google and reading everything I could find on whatever had caught my interest that day. Then I began coming accross some information (such as older journal articles) which was not available online, so I started using the library catalogue to find the books that held that information.
We don’t give kids enough credit, especially autistic kids. I’ve heard people say that autistic kids need to ‘learn how to learn’ – that’s nonsense. Many autistic kids need to learn how to be taught (I know I’m learning that now) but self-teaching is usually a big strength in autistic kids. Almost every autistic savant was self-taught, and most higher-functioning autistics have taught themselves a lot about their area of interest. The trick is to figure out how to facilitate this self-teaching rather than interfering with it.
I began home school with my 3 yr old daughter who was recently diagnosed with Autism. Before her diagnosis, I knew I wanted to home school and her diagnosis did not change a thing. It only changed how I went about helping her learn. If you are contemplating homeschooling your autistic child, I say go for it!! Do your research and make sure you know your state’s laws
The public school wasn’t going to provide what my daughter needed and the decision to homeschool was the best choice I could’ve made! Even on the bad days, I do not regret it. She is thriving in our highly structured learning environment and learning SO much! The beautiful thing about homeschool is that she can learn at her own pace and I can figure out how she best learns and give that to her and as she grows, changes can always be made! The internet has been an invaluable tool for me, I’d be lost without it. I also schedule in lots of sensory breaks and do therapy with her everyday…OT and Speech…so she’s learning her academics but we are also able to focus on sensory integration, problem behaviors and other life skills she needs improvement on. There are good days, there are bad days and it can get frustrating and overwhelming at times….however, there is nothing more rewarding than this!!!!
I’m so excited to read all the comments. I’m a great grandmother raising a 4 yr. old. He was diagnosised 3 months ago. After going to meetings, reading tests and reports we decided that homeschool would be the best option for our beautiful little boy. Our public school wanted our child, who is high functioning to come and be a role model! I want him to have the best opportunities that life offers and homeschool is it. Thanks for the incouragement. I feel like the little engine that could, I think I can, I think I can.
Askate.org is an organization that solely holds skateboarding clinics for children with autism and has for many many years now… they have chapters all over the world including several in southern california. Many companies are partnering with autism organizations to hold an annual skate clinic such as Volcom and TACA but if you want the opportunity to do it year round, hit up askate.org… the founder self funded the organization for 4 years because there was no help and still is very little help. Skateboarding companies should be partnering with Askate to help them continue making a hands on difference. Their organization is 100% volunteer.