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Playing, is really the best way, in my opinion especially when they are young. We did not do anything formally other than what the school district provided -- which was speech and occupational therapy (work with fine motor skills) My son was verbal, but the reason for speech was help with pragmatic language like idioms and social language, but they did everything with games and play.
Keep in mind though, I stay at home and did a lot of interaction with him at home and so to me this was better than something where I could not actually see what the issues were and what he was open to. I read a lot, and just tried things until they clicked, but I tried always to make it fun.
We had a lot of issues with school, so I had to pull him from there, and so now, I work with him all day, which for us seems to work better because they were just not equipped to adjust enough for him. I have some experience with teaching undergraduates from my college days, so it is not too far out of my skill zone. He is much calmer and happier, and I think he is learning better because on an individual basis it is much easier to refocus someone who needs it as opposed to being in a classroom full of kids.
He is very smart, but his brain is going in many places at once, and he does need to be redirected. He is 2 years ahead in math, is in an a rigorous science program but needs help with the social content of literature and hates social studies. So, for us it is much better to teach him in a customized way. He is 12 now, and we have been doing this since 3rd grade.
Most people are not going to be able to do that, and honestly, my expectation had been that he would attend public school. His path to college and beyond is likely to be different than his peers, and he may need to take online classes at home before plunging into typical college because I am not sure where we will be in terms of him not being taken advantage by others and other issues as an unsupervised college student.
We work on life skills, also, because those are also a thing he needs work on. We work on things like interacting with the cashier at the market and having him make purchases, and he is doing much better dealing with people he does not know but needs to interact with. This may not sound very impressive, but when he was first diagnosed he was measured at .01% (not a typo---literally 1/100th of one percent, in social skills, so I am very, very proud of him.
23 Sep 2017, 7:00 pm
