5 Tips For Homeschooling Autism

Hi everyone. I'm Penny from Our Crazy Adventures in Autismland.com

And today I am going to speak with you about five tips on homeschooling your child with autism

So it's very easy to homeschool your child with autism. Lots of people think it's super tough, but it really isn't

Tip number one is to know their developmental level. Lots of times kids with autism, ADHD, things like that

Their executive functioning is about, studies have shown about 30% of the students

behind their peers. So for example, my son Logan is now 20. His developmental

age is about 13 to 14. It's always been about the same age as his sister who

is five years younger than him. So I teach to his developmental age, which means

that I teach like he's 13 or 14, so he's going into 6th or 7th grade is what

we're working on. So it's important to know their developmental age and level

and work there. Now the caveat is that they may be on different levels for different things. Logan is a math whiz, but he's not quite a writing

whiz. So he is in high school math, so he's doing algebra, geometry, things like that

But on writing, he's still, you know, beginning middle school. So you just have to know their level

and you have to teach to that level. That's why a lot of times out of the box, curriculums aren't

going to work for special needs children because their levels are so different all the way around Number two find out how they learn best Most kids with autism have they think in pictures So they very hands very visual

Both my typical child and my child with autism, Logan, think they're visual like their mom, like me

So we do lots of hands-on, lots of, they have to see it, they have to feel it, they have to

you know, we watch movies, we take lots of field trips. Don't discount, you know, we play games, don't discount all that

Don't discount all that as they're not learning because they really are

Those are perfect opportunities for them to learn. However, if your curriculum's not working, please, please, please, please stop it no matter

where you are in the year because if they're not learning the way you're teaching, then

you just, you have to change the way you're teaching because you can't pound a square

peg into a round hole. And lots of times our kids with autism are square pegs, so they're not

going to fit in the hole you know in the round hole so you really a lot of it is

trial and error we have tried many math programs we have tried you know many

many different programs and have had to stop and and try something else so

don't don't get married to a curriculum and just sort of of do some trial and

error there and figure out the way they learn best because they're going to learn more by working at their level and they're going to learn more by

teaching to how they learn the best. So always include therapies as part of their learning process They spend a lot of time on therapies speech therapy O physical therapy all of that social skills training All of that counts here in Autism Land as part of Logan homeschooling He works hard at those I mean he works really hard at those So I feel like if you work that hard at those you should get some credit for it So when you planning out your homeschool day it okay to say he read a book and speech So

So that's our reading for the day. Or you know you're going to go to occupational therapy

and he's going to work on writing some sentences and things like that. So it's okay to make that writing for the day

There's no need to double up. So sort of use the different therapies if you're doing them in centers

as part of your homeschooling time. But even if you're doing them at home

we do a lot of DIY therapies here in Autismland. I just sort of incorporate his homeschool subjects into his therapies

so that we can kill two birds with one stone. Take lots and lots and lots of mental breaks

We call them brain breaks here and not to them land. After like 10 or 15 minutes, even now that he's older

after 15, 20 minutes tops. He gets to get up, he gets to walk around

he gets to get a drink, you know, just sort of stretch and kind of move around

Always the sit-down work comes and then something physical comes because it's just a great way for them to sort of

of reset their bodies. He doesn have to do it Sitting at the table he can he done his math hanging upside down in his chair he you know we do reading on the trampoline you really

have to think outside the box but remember that you just have to take it may

take all day to get two works of school work done two hours of school work done

but that's okay so take lots of those little breaks make the lessons short

sweet to the point and then the final tip for you is probably the most

important one. Relationship trumps academics every single time. Never, never is my

relationship with, never our academics, excuse me, I'm just said that backwards. Never

are his, is his academic success more important than my relationship with Logan

So if we're on the point of tears, either him or I, for math or science or whatever

then we just stop and we come back another day. That's the beauty of homeschooling

You can always come back to that subject when everybody's sort of calm down and de-stressed

because you want your child to trust you that you're going to push him just a little bit past his comfort level

but not so far past that you're going to frustrate him. So trust is a big deal when you're homeschooling autism or any special needs

So your motto should always be that relationship trumps academics. So those are my five tips for homeschooling autism

You can find me over at our crazy adventures in autismland.com. And thanks for watching