What to do about DS's education

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I'm not sure if I'm really looking for advice, or if I just need to write to get my thoughts together.

DS8 was in public school for 18 months -- kindergarten and fall of 1st grade. It was a disaster -- the school district was dragging their feet about support and DS would have two and three different substitute aides each week. He was having meltdowns at least once a week involving hitting, kicking, spitting, biting, and throwing objects, and even attacked a parent. The other parents in his class staged a two day attendance boycott to protest the situation, and the school's response was to try to move him to a special day class with a mix of kids who had Down's Syndrome, non-verbal autism, or mild intellectual delays.

We pulled him out to homeschool just after Thanksgiving. I tried it for about 6-8 weeks, but also have twin girls who were 3 yo and only in preschool 9 hr/wk. The schooling part when I was home alone with him was ok, but overall it was not working out logistically for our family. I discovered a tiny non-public school specifically for kids with Aspergers, and enrolled him in Feb, paying privately ($15k/yr). Within two months, they were able to reduce his stress and eliminate most of the problem behaviors. It took over six months for the social piece to come together, but DS has recently made friends at his current school, and is HAPPY there.

The problem is that academically they are very slack. In late spring I realized from the daily communication log that the teacher was only teaching reading 3 times a week! Instead of testing to see what he knew already, she just started over with the alphabet, based on my comment that "He basically missed kindergarten." So he spent several months on worksheets like "circle the objects that begin with the letter g", even though he already knew all his letters and the sounds they make. When I asked about which sequence she would be using to teach phonics, she didn't seem to have a list or anything to point to. I pushed for reading to be taught every day.

We knew from public school that learning sight words was very difficult for DS. You could drill 10 words for 15 minutes every night with flashcards, and by the end of the week he still would miss many of them. The teacher at the AS school said she would start using a Lindamood-Bell program called Seeing Stars with him. LMB is very well known and used to treat dyslexia, and the Seeing Starts worksheets for sight words did seem to work better for him than flashcards. But instead of testing to see which words he knew and which he didn't, she just stared at the top of the list and was slowly working through them. I recently found a Seeing Stars teacher's manual, and after reading it and asking the teacher, found she isn't truly using the method, only their list of sight words.

During the summer, DS was enrolled in the summer school, and we also paid his teacher to tutor him in reading 4 hr/wk. She switched to working on word families with him, but it didn't really seem to stick. I supplemented with Progressive Phonics, and Funnix at home. His reading is improving, but very slowly. In Sept I took him to a developmental optometrist for vision testing, and they found major issues with tracking, switching focus, visual processing such as form recognition. They also did the Dyslexia Determination Test -- my understanding is that you can't diagnose dyslexia with this test alone, but rather it is used to tell when more testing is needed. DS scored in the mild range for visual dyslexia, and borderline for phonetic dyslexia.

In parallel with all this, we sold our house and bought a new one in a different school district. We hired an advocate with a bull-dog reputation, hoping that he would be able to get the new school district to pay for DS's current school. I know that I don't want DS to return to general ed, at least not initially, but I'm no longer so sure I want him to stay where he is. I don't know what we're going to have to go through to get him placed in a special day class, or even if there is an appropriate one available. Now that it's looking like dyslexia may be involved, I'm not sure I trust ANY school district to do the right thing by him. There is a Lindamood-Bell school in town, but it costs $1000/wk, which is not feasible for us.

The new district has agreed to do his tri-annual evaluation early, and has started scheduling testing over the next few weeks. I'm sure their initial proposal is going to be general ed, perhaps with some aide support, and pull-outs to the Resource room. We'll see what the bull-dog advocate is able to argue for. My big fear is that we lose another 3-6 months to let him fail and prove that a different placement is needed.

We're considering homeschooling again, but can't pull the trigger until at least after the school district has finished their testing. If we do, we may have wasted a ton of money on the advocate. The twins are turning 4, and going to preschool 12 hr/wk. I'd be ok with bumping that up to 5 mornings (20 hr/wk), but have to wait for openings to become available. The problem I see with homeschool is that I absolutely suck at the social side of things. Playdates in the park and homeschool outings are not going to work for DS -- he needs to see the same kids on a regular schedule over and over for MONTHS to make a connection. I would also have zero time away from the kids to do things like grocery shopping and recharge (and I'm one that does need a lot of time away from my kids!) Any hybrid program or co-op classes would require me to remain on-site given his past behavioral problems.

There's a private school with small classes (10:1) that I want to look at, but I don't know if they can handle DS's behavior or if he would get thrown out. Ditto with Montessori and various charter options.

The bottom line is that DS needs the behavioral support (really environmental modifications) and social coaching he's getting at his current school, but also needs the level of academic attention you'd get at a school for dyslexia. I'm just not sure how to make that happen for him...

I don't know how things work in CA but in our part of MT we have Child Development Centers and we are currently receiving services for DS (his only dx at his time is HFA) 10-12 hours per week. He gets pulled out of school early every day by his CDC aide. Under MT law, our insurance is required to cover up to $50K/year for autism services. I have thought a lot about home-schooling him and using more CDC time to balance the hours I need to work. I have to keep up at least 30/wk to maintain my benefits. Might there be some assistance like this for you through the Regional Center that insurance would cover (I realize there are a lot of unstated IFs in that question)? If you are too low on the priority list to get services from RC, are there any private therapy providers that could spend a significant number of hours with him each week and that could be covered by insurance? If any services are available to you, that time could allow you to get other demands met and it would be an opportunity for working on social skills for him.

Sorry if these questions are all things you've thought of already.

Argh. I think you're in so far over my head that I basically have nothing to contribute to this conversation. But I want to help. So.

No matter how great the educational program is, he's not going to go anywhere if he doesn't get the Asperger's support. Correct??

Based on that assumption, I think my first recourse were I in your shoes and if I could afford it would be to leave him in the ASD school and continue to heavily supplement the education at home. I'd probably stick with that until the twins hit kindergarten (another year?? two??) and then, if they turn out to be able to more-or-less swim in the standard public school world, start thinking about re-entry to public school with supports (maybe, just maybe, he'll have enough of a handle on the ASD stuff to make it fly even if the advocate can't get you much) or home-school (by this time, you might have had the chance to hunt down those elusive acceptable social opportunities).

Now-- pour a whole pound of salt over that. Put out a salt block to lick on while you think about it. Because you can probably teach me stuff it hasn't even occurred to me to think about learning yet.

A thought to continue on what BuyerBeware said, would it be possible to do a hybrid of homeschool and the ASD school? They basically are wasting his time with their inappropriate attempts to educate him. Would it be possible to homeschool him in the mornings according to both his serious educational needs and his higher abilities, then drop him at school for an afternoon of social skills and behavioral training while you are out to pick up the twins? Maybe even be able to find a tutor a couple of mornings per week (which if he worked well with that person, you could have that time to yourself, even if it was just quiet time in your room while they worked in the kitchen). If there is any college nearby that has a special ed training program or a dyslexia teaching program you might be able to find a student who could tutor relatively cheaply. Or maybe your advocate could get the school district to pay for some kind of private dyslexia therapist for those couple of mornings per week.

He's in 2nd grade? Even if you have to read every word to him and transcribe his every answer, due to the dyslexia issues, 2nd grade programs are usually still light enough to get through the non-reading class stuff (math, social studies, science, literature) in two to three mornings a week with a reasonably cooperative child (assuming he is reasonably cooperative). Does the dyslexia affect his math abilities also? I guess that would be dyscalculia unless it was just a matter of not being to read the problems correctly. If it does that could make it hard to get through the math, but the other areas for 2nd are usually very light.

Zette,

I am going to chime in in favor of a half-and-half kind of set up. When my son was in special ed pre-k, the academics were laughable. My son is 2e (in some respects as he has a lot of splinter skills and deficits) and he was in a class where everyone else there was in there for cognitive issues. He was correcting the aides' spelling, so that should give you an idea of the quality. The saving grace of it was that it enabled him to be around other kids and then I taught him academics at home. We were 2 years ahead of grade level minimum and light years difference in terms of what was being taught. After K-2 general ed, we are down to one year ahead in math, grade level everything else except language arts where we have comprehension issues and I don't even know where we are on that and writing.

We also had behavioral issues, and I think they were happier than I was when we pulled him out after 2nd grade. We can't afford therapy or private school on our own, and our socialization is non-existent. I really do wish we had some kind of supervised (due to behavior) half day day with therapy and socialization and the rest of it as mommy school. That would really be perfect.

If you cannot do it through PS then maybe you can cobble something like that together in his current placement. The advocate is a sunk cost, so I know it hurts $$ wise but if what the advocate can do turns out not to be what is best for your child, you are still better off doing what is best for your child. That is why you hired the advocate, in the first place--to do what is best. So use the advocate as a resource and see how it plays out and then make a decision based on what is possible. Your advocate may have ideas about how to cobble something together that you would not have thought of, too.

I've talked to parents of DS's classmates who are Regional Center clients. It took them 12-18 months to get through the appeals process, and they reported they really had to exaggerate in order to get their Aspie children qualified. DS might get a few hours a week of ABA, and maybe 4 hours per month (that's right per MONTH!) of respite care. Our insurance covers 50 hr/yr total of speech or OT, with ABA specifically excluded. It's been on my list to pursue -- the initial phone interviewer is illegally acting as a gatekeeper. She told me they don't cover kids with an Asperger diagnosis (not true) and that they don't provide ABA beyond the age of six (also not true).



This sentence warmed my heart!

Because they have fall birthdays and California recently moved the age cutoff dates back to September, the twins are eligible for a special two-year kindergarten program starting next fall. Unfortunately, in this district kindergarten is only half-days, so enrolling them would help a lot with the expense, but would still only be 17 hr/wk. They won't be in full-day school until DS starts 5th grade (although I could pay for daycare or aftercare in the meantime).



Ironically, this is what we started with -- 2 days at home, and 2.5 days at the AS school. (CA has this weird thing where all schools have one short day a week.) DS didn't do well behaviorally with the mixed schedule, and was upset about what he might be missing during his at-home days. It would be interesting to see if a morning/afternoon split worked better... The school uses a local park for recess/lunch, so we COULD be there at the same time so he could continue his current friendships...



DS is reasonably cooperative, but does not work well independently. He needs a lot of 1:1 attention to stay on task, and frequent trampoline breaks. (And this is WITH ADHD medication!) I could see, however, where science, social studies, art, and listening to literature could be adapted so that the little sisters would participate, so we could do those in the afternoon.

Thanks for all the ideas! It give me new angles to think about...

Have you considered online school - nice because it is free . . . and it's a lot like homeschooling . . . without all the prep work.

I homeschooled our 10 year old for 5th grade last year. We were part of a school district program that provided 5 hours of class instruction and materials. It worked well for my son because it was a good mix of being alone and mixing with other kids. However, he really didn't like mom as teacher and we chose to enroll him in our school district's alternative middle school which has been great.

I ended up needing a part-time nanny to help take care of my 1 year-old while I was teaching because my son also needs lots of external structure to get though school work. It probably would have been cheaper to enroll him in a private school!

I really like the idea of splitting his day between home and school. In our district our son could have taken music, pe, etc. with his peers. We ended up not taking advantage of that because the scheduling was difficult for us.

Good luck! I look forward to hearing what you decide to try.