Homeschooling parents

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My understanding is that they are interchangable to a point, I think though that NVLD does not adress many of the personality quirks that come with AS, while an AS diagnosis typically does incompass most NLD traits... I just want to say I only asked about why you think your son has NLD or AS not to question or doubt you! Sorry if it came across confrontational! It is just that by saying what traits you child has or does not have may help narrow down a DX, as it sounds like the psychometrist who did your sons evaluation was an idiot! (blending the scores and all! )

The fact your son has obsessions, the VIQ / PIQ gap, the difficulties you are having with him being out of routine, to me I agree, it does sound like AS! Is it possible to put your son on the waiting list? I don't think you have any reason to doubt the DX, just that the more proof you have towards it, in some areas the school has to make better accomidations for your child. Interestingly in other areas it works against you though!

I know when I brought my son home at 8 years of age, I was so sick and tired of professional "opinions" that we just ignored the medical community for a few years! So I understand if you really want to back burner the DX at this point too. The important thing is to get ideas on where to go from here with him, as to improve your families day to day quality of life!

As for Calvert, if that is the way you want to go I can understand, expecially starting out. Can you customise the levels he is working at, say, go Gr. 4 or 5 math, and lower levels in other areas?

And trust me, I know what it is like with young kids who are always up to something or needing something! My kids where very demanding as infants, my daughter was more easygoing, she just had to be "attached to me" but my son... that was another story! I just know that it is very hard in balancing homeschooling an AS child who needs a lot of one on one support, and having a demanding baby on your hip (or holding pieces of poo! ) But I also know, that as much as I "needed" my son to work on his own, it was just not something he could do.

*sigh*.

Best of luck! I am sure many of us are more then happy to help and support you if you need it, and the net if full of homeschool support too!

I don't know what's in Bloomington. My husband is at Purdue. I know there is some sort of autism research center in Bloomington and the woman in charge is extremely knowledgable. But I already called and talked to her and it is just WAY too expensive, and again, they don't take Medicaid. There is nothing at Purdue but the club I mentioned my ds sometimes goes to.

I'm just holding off on any more testing/diagnosing/etc until my husband graduates and we move back to somewhere civilized. Indiana sucks. We're from PA, so this has been very hard for us the last few years, and the issues that came up w/ the public school this year were just icing on the cake. I have HAD it with this state!

I don't really understand it, myself. We were there from 01-04 and I remember a news series discussing the "brain drain" that happens, once intelligent kids graduate high school or university-they're outta there! Your husband is just a tragic statistic in their point of view.

That is really unfortunate!

At least you can research states to figure out which are Autism friendly and move to an area that has better services.

I can understand the not wanting to DX or investigate any further until the insurance is straightened out, it will do no good to see people who are not really qualified or know what they are talking about.

We were already homeschooling when we started to notise the signs of AS in our daughter. We use Rod & Staff which is Mennonite and Bible based, so not a great choice if are looking for secular curricula. We do unit studies for Science, History, and Social Studies.
I would look into K12, its an online virtual "school" - I have heard mixed reviews, some people love it and others don't.

A fantastic book to read is "Homeschooling the Child with Asperger Syndrome" by Lise Pyles. It covers de-schooling, different homeschooling approaches, and reintegration into school when neccesary. I love it because its real world experience - all of the families interviewd for the book have children with AS.
The book has some great websites too, for working on things like facial emotion recognition, idioms, etc.

My child doesn't have the official diagnosis yet (we're sure she has a PDD, and most likely its AS, but we don't know for sure) but this has been an invaluable resource fo rus. I also recommend it to my friends with NT kids because so many of the suggestions work for most kids. It's a great book.

I just wanted to chime in and say thank you for the discussion on NLD issue. I never knew it exisisted.

We homeschool as well.
We use Waldorf and unschooling.
I also said I would NEVER unschool because I needed a structured day. Well , so much for that notion.
I am wondering what I will do for this fall though.

This year was tough for us as a family, and our first year of "officail" schooling by the state rec's., but he had his assesment and passed with flying colors and I honestly did nothing. They really do learn quite a bit in spite of what you do or do not do.

We are starting the 2/3rd grade stuff this fall. He will be 7 in 3 days.

hth

If you are looking for a good math program, that is not too "math bookish", I would highly recommend Boxcars and One eyed Jacks if you have not heard of it before.

http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson ... cars.shtml

I really think it depends on the child to if they can unschool and still fly through standardized testing. For a child who struggles in school, this will not be the case. However, they probably are not worse off at home doing nothing! I know my son benifited greatly from it!

That said, a child that is struggling acedemically may be able to learn more at home, in a one on one environment then they can in a class, but this will take some structure and "work" *gasp* each day! We did this to some extent, taking long breaks of unschooling, and then doing some pushing on the acedemic side of things...

But it is amazing how even my son, who has always been a "D" student in just a few months back in school after 4 years was treading water with the rest of the class in non core subjects, like science and history and social studies! It really makes you scratch your head and wonder what the point of spending all those hours in a class room like his peers really is...

Wendy,

If you are from PA, you may want to consider going back -- PA is one of the few states that, depending upon where you live, is really good for autism. We are in the Pittsburgh area, and we have moved away once to California (don't go there) and came running back because this area was better for our son.

Kris

We are definitely planning on trying to get back to PA. It all depends on where dh can find a job when he graduates. He's getting a PhD in chemistry, specializing in mass spec, and he DOESN'T want to work for a pharmaceutical company, so where we'll end up is a mystery. Our goal is to end up in PA eventually, even if we have to go somewhere else first.

I'm from Johnstown, btw, and dh is from the Phila area. Indiana SUCKS. It is truly awful.

I didn't read everyone else's posts, so I might repeat some stuff. My advice is to read with him from really good interesting books. Talk about what you read. Make sure he understands the vocabulary of age appropriate books.

Join a homeschooling group. A lot of college campuses will allow field trips for homeschool groups to see their cool labs and stuff. See what is already set up with your local homeschool groups and then get involved organizing interesting trips for your group.

Go on lots of field trips. We went to some really great places like COSI (hands on science center) and the zoo during the winter when it's basically empty and you get to spend a whole day in the butterfly room identifying the different types of butterflies. We stayed the night at the Toledo Zoo (it's called a zoo snooze), we saw real VanGogh paintings at an art museum, we explored caves, camped out and identified the constellations, learned to identify plants and what medicinal purposes they could be used for, took Homeschool Biology classes at the University of Michigan, spent hours in hobby shops, and more hours putting together rockets and electricity kits and doing science experiments.

I did use an online program for math. It is called Aleks and gets kind of boring, but it is very good. My kids have a really strong math base because of Aleks. It is at www.aleks.com

I addressed weak area as needed, but my main goal was to get my kids excited about learning. We didn't sit around the house. We got out and did stuff. The only T.V we watched during the morning hours was educational T.V. They could watch whatever they wanted in the afternoon, but my son usually choose Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel anyway. We watched a lot of videos too. I checked out the Schlessinger videos from our local library. (I probably spelled that wrong, but they are usually pretty good.) We had library day once a week. We met with a home-school group once a week for Math Pentathlon (look it up, it's a great program). My son belonged to a home-school chess club that met once a week. Both kids took music lessons. My son plays the flute and my daughter plays sax and sings. We went to a home-school co-op once a week and took art classes and geography. Both of my kids attended the local public school for band. I basically kept them very busy with planned activities and they didn't have time to get bored.

Homeschooling my kids was the best part of my life. I had a blast. I only stopped because I got divorced and had to go back to work.

Oh, I almost forgot, there are good on-line groups that you can join. My son with Aspergers is very bright. The best group I found was one called TAGMAX. It is all about homeschooling gifted kids. A lot of these kids are on the spectrum and the discussions and suggestions are worth their weight in gold.

Hope this helps.

By the way, I'm a teacher and I am going back into the classroom to teach students with Autism. I'm not sure if that makes my opinion more or less valuable. I guess it's all how you look at it.

We live in California. All I can really say is that I can understand why homeschooling is becoming more and more popular here. I am not ready to even consider homeschooling at this point, but I did find some common ground in this thread that I wanted to comment on.

Interestingly enough, my son has trouble passing the timed math tests as well - and yet the child can do complicated math problems in his head. I really think it's about boredom, and I am "really looking forward" to seeing what he ends up getting on his timed math tests this Friday. He has to pass addition, subtraction and mixed facts (I think each test is 1 minute and they have 30 problems to do?) with 90% on each test in order to meet the districts "benchmark". It's not that my son doesn't know the answers - it's that he can't finish the stupid test fast enough. I have to ask - who cares?!? I really hate the timed math tests and the fact that our schools think it's OK to teach the kids in order to "pass" the state tests that they took earlier this month. We won't find out how our son did on them until mid-late summer, and that test sort of helps to determine where he's placed next year. *grumbles*

Is it wrong to hope he doesn't pass? It's not that I want to cause him more pain - I just want the school to wake up and smell the coffee here. I know that's too much to ask for, but one can hope.