Homeschooling Aspies With Switched on Schoolhouse

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Permalink Reply by janet on March 27, 2008 at 5:23pm

Hi Allie,
My name is janet from TN. I also homeschool my Zach. He was not doing well in public school and
they were not receptive enough to help so rather than fight with them I pulled him out to homeschool
I purchased sos as well but we bought a laptop and it has vista on it and will not support the SOS, but
I wanted to tell you about ed helper.com it sure does help. I can build all kinds of worksheets for Zach
and he loves them. If I run out of puzzles especially he will come and ask me where his puzzle is at. It
is a great website and helps us out alot. You might want to check it out.
janet

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Permalink Reply by Holly on April 14, 2008 at 4:11pm

I am hoping you can help me. My son is 9 and in the 3rd grade mainstreamed as of now, but I am getting almost daily phone calls because of meltdowns. I am concerned with what homeschooling would mean for his future. How long have you been homeschooling and what made you decide to go this road? I just want my son to feel better about himself and to feel successful.

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Permalink Reply by Allie Marmion on April 14, 2008 at 8:42pm

Holly,

We have been home schooling our son since he finished kindergarten. He did well in a mainstream classroom, but we were beginning to see the signs of coming problems. He was diagnosed when he was 3. He is now 10. He complained about the humming of the lights and the sounds the other kids made etc... We have home schooled him for 5 years now. He has been very successful with his work and feels good about himself and his work. He interacts with kids in our neighborhood and a couple other kids. We hand picked his friends, basically. It works well for him and for his friends. Home schooling is becoming more mainstream. There are battles here and there, but we have learned a lot of the last 5 years. I changed my teaching style with him, he has an 8 year old NT sister who is also home schooled. He can take breaks between subjects and he can take his time to do his work. I give him a time frame and he gets it done in that time each day. As he has gotten older he has become more independent with his work, but there are still days when he wants me sit next to him while he does his work, most days he just does it without me. It is a very personal decision. We thought this would be the best environment for him to do his work and grow. It has been a great experience for our family. He is a great artist. His skills far surpass most adults. He wants to be a cartoonist. We have looked into the possibilities for him and there doesn't seem to be a problem as far as acceptance by these types of schools of a home school student. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

Allie :-)

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Permalink Reply by Leslieanne on April 23, 2008 at 9:11pm

Holly, I seem to be in the same boat as you. Our son, Mack is 9 too and is still in public school. Although, as of today, I am really considering homeschooling too. Maybe we can chat sometime. Stop on by my page.

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Permalink Reply by Wendy on March 3, 2009 at 2:09pm

Well, I have been home schooling my seven kids for 18 years now (three aspies). I have three graduated, two high schoolers (one of them aspie), one in jr. high, one in elementary school (aspie), one college grad & two in college, including one of the aspies). We didn't get our aspie diagnosis until the aspies were 8, 14 & 18. In retrospect I'd say that it was the homeschooling that kept us going so long without the diagnosis- in fact, the only "negative" I see is that now when I'm burned out & needing help, the kids are too advanced academically to get support services through our local schools. (around here they figure gifted kids don't have special needs! If they are above grade level when they are totally nonfunctional 30% of the time, imagine where they'd be if I could overcome the handicap!)

Pro's: individualization & adjusting rate of instruction & expectations are easier at home, you can work around meltdowns without them falling behind a class with a rigid schedule (my youngest daughter melts down in the morning, then is ready to work in late afternoon), ability to use their obsessions as a learning tool, socialization is more conrolled/less overwhelming because you choose when to subject them to people who may invade their space on any given day, consistant expectations and environment, ongoing therapeutic activities interspersed in their day that aren't normally available to high-functioning kids in school.

Cons: it is harder to get help if you need support, especially for us low income types, expensive if you must pay for support therapies like OT, social skills groups, etc. (though ask me about library home schooling! I'm the queen of educating on a shoestring!), hard to find/maintain friendships when they are teens (Particularly the ones with impaired social skills. My 14 yr. old aspie, after a trimester part time, has decided to go to full-time public high school specifically because it was easier at school to find the social contact he craves right now), isolation for the parents and kids (can be overcome through support groups or community groups, though it's a lot of work & depends on the level of understanding of the other people- not every scout troop, community athletic league, church, 4-H group or homeschool coop welcomes those with aspie behavior issues

-Wendy

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Permalink Reply by Holly on March 3, 2009 at 6:01pm

Hi Wendy,

We went ahead and started homeschooling Austin this year, he is 10. We tried 2 other methods before we discovered that the S.O.S was the right path for us. I totally agree with all of your pros and cons. He is a much happier child now and seeing as last Spring he was borderline suicidal that is saying something! He simply needs all of the opportunities he has here at home to go at it in his own pace and to take as many breaks as he needs as long as the work gets done. He is doing much better.

Allie, thank you for suggesting the S.O.S program to us!

Wendy said:

Well, I have been home schooling my seven kids for 18 years now (three aspies). I have three graduated, two high schoolers (one of them aspie), one in jr. high, one in elementary school (aspie), one college grad & two in college, including one of the aspies). We didn't get our aspie diagnosis until the aspies were 8, 14 & 18. In retrospect I'd say that it was the homeschooling that kept us going so long without the diagnosis- in fact, the only "negative" I see is that now when I'm burned out & needing help, the kids are too advanced academically to get support services through our local schools. (around here they figure gifted kids don't have special needs! If they are above grade level when they are totally nonfunctional 30% of the time, imagine where they'd be if I could overcome the handicap!)

Pro's: individualization & adjusting rate of instruction & expectations are easier at home, you can work around meltdowns without them falling behind a class with a rigid schedule (my youngest daughter melts down in the morning, then is ready to work in late afternoon), ability to use their obsessions as a learning tool, socialization is more conrolled/less overwhelming because you choose when to subject them to people who may invade their space on any given day, consistant expectations and environment, ongoing therapeutic activities interspersed in their day that aren't normally available to high-functioning kids in school.

Cons: it is harder to get help if you need support, especially for us low income types, expensive if you must pay for support therapies like OT, social skills groups, etc. (though ask me about library home schooling! I'm the queen of educating on a shoestring!), hard to find/maintain friendships when they are teens (Particularly the ones with impaired social skills. My 14 yr. old aspie, after a trimester part time, has decided to go to full-time public high school specifically because it was easier at school to find the social contact he craves right now), isolation for the parents and kids (can be overcome through support groups or community groups, though it's a lot of work & depends on the level of understanding of the other people- not every scout troop, community athletic league, church, 4-H group or homeschool coop welcomes those with aspie behavior issues

-Wendy

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Permalink Reply by Becky B on March 31, 2009 at 3:12am

Hi,
I have an 11yo ds who was just dx as an Aspie. I have known he was different since he was little, but I chalked it up to ADHD, which it seems he may not have at all. From a very early age I could tell he wasn't going to do good in a classroom. I had hoped at some point he might settle down enough to be integrated. So I started HSing him with Kindergarten. My biggest regret is starting on time. I really wish I had waited a year. The first year was horrible. I spent more time dealing with behavior problems than he did learning. When he started 1st grade I threw out the curriculum and started over. He couldn't read and has absolutely no interest in learning. I took his competitive streak and used it against him, I guess you could say. I went to a teacher's store and bought all the phonics games. It worked wonderfully.

He unfortunately is one of those Aspies that has trouble reading. He can read however he gets nothing from it. With this understanding now we have adapted and read things to him which makes things much quicker. HSing relies a good deal on reading. I started college about two years ago and my sister began HSing him which has worked pretty well. This year we are doing SOS for the first time. I have two complaints. First the software is buggy. It seems like they should put more effort into good software rather than releasing something every year. The second complaint is assessments. It seems like they stress points with the comprehension and then test on something else which has led to more than a little frustration.

Now that we know he is an Aspie I am very glad I chose to HS. I am hearing horror stories from parents who have had their kids enrolled in school.

As far as socialization goes we have lots of activities (but one at a time) that he does. He recently wrapped up in a production in my college's play and has discovered that he loves theater. He has done swim team and will do so again this summer and it looks like we may do a local fencing camp. BTW his dr is very much pushing the fencing. She says it is great for smart kids who don't do teams well. They have to plan on their feet. She says that team sports aren't great for children with Asperger's. We will probably do a debate style team next school year. I'm already excited!

ETA: I didn't realize how old this thread is. I hope posting to it isn't a problem.

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