He has been in 4h, and he did well on his demonstrations, but I haven't looked into the speech/communications projects yet. I will look at those. How wonderful to have your son's speech improve with his martial arts class! My son did take taekwondo for awhile, but his teacher had to stop teaching the class. But then again, his teacher wasn't the type to stress strong responses and eye contact, either. I will keep this in mind, though, in case the possibility of any future classes come up.

This was kind of what I was thinking, too. Since he doesn't have trouble making the correct sounds when he is thinking about it, I just need to help him with replacing his poor speech patterns, Reinforcing the good speech patterns through constant awareness and reinforcements is what I think would work best. When you say voice lessons, do you mean singing voice lessons or acting voice lessons or some other specific type of voice lesson? I ask because I want to know exactly what I am looking for when I start looking. Thanks.

Good point. Yes, I was hoping to get a diagnosis, because we can get speech therapy for him with a diagnosis. But the speech therapist said his speech was fine (which I told it her it would be unless she could make him forget his was being evaluated for speech) and then went right into trying to start a diagnosis for Asperger's and Sensory Processing Disorder. We are almost certain he does not have either one of these other disorders, and we do not want him labeled as such. If I allowed her to do the evaluation for these, and then allowed her to proceed with working with him for these conditions, she would fit speech/communication with others in. But I don't want to go that route, because I think the labeling would do him more harm than good. As of now, he doesn't think anything is wrong with him, and I don't want him to start questioning that. I'm afraid he gets enough of that from me with his speech and a few other things.:)

The communications class sounds like a good idea. I would love this for him. If it is a regular Monday through Friday class, we would have a hard time being able to attend, as we live so far out of town and can't afford the gas to go to and from town five days per week. But I will at least look into it. If not, I was thinking of a class like the one you have described but online. And affordable. I am probably dreaming, though.

Thanks for the suggestions. He does read-aloud sometimes, and he does better with this, but he tends to rush over his words. I guess I really need to emphasize the importance of s-l-o-w-i-n-g down. I really the poetry memorization suggestion. I have never tried this, but I bet it would help since he would be presenting it to me (he usually does well when giving presentations). I also like your last suggestions for exercises to strengthen his tongue and stabilize his tongue. I will try to google for information about this. Is there a specific word that describes this condition? A diagnosis of some sorts that would make it easier for me to find on the internet? Thanks again.

That's the thing. I know he can make the sounds. When he is talking passionately about something, he speaks strong and clear and even articulates his words. His speech sounds really good. But when he is not speaking passionately about something, he either mumbles or speaks without almost no movement in his mouth area and with his voice held back. It is so hard to listen to, and it is so hard to stop. He doesn't mind me reminding him about it, but I don't want to remind him in public (he is almost 14 yo so I don't think it would be appropriate). And even though I remind him at home, I can't seem to remind him enough. By the time I can interrupt him in order to remind him to focus on his speech, he has already spoken in his poor speaking manner...thus his bad habit is constantly being reinforced. I live 40 minutes outside of a small town. As far as I know, there is nothing out there around here that can help him. I was hoping to find out about something online or in DVD format. Free would be nice, but I don't think that that is going to happen. So what do you do/have you done to try to help your kids with their speech?

My almost 14yo ds needs help with his speech but I don't know where to go. I have tried getting him help through regular speech therapy twice, but both times my son did very well when he was being evaluated. The first speech therapist didn't think he had a problem, and the second speech therapist said his speech was fine but got all happy about trying to diagnose him with Asperger's and Sensory Processing Disorder instead (I don't want to get into this now because it will take me a LONG time to explain it, but I feel pretty certian that he does not have either of these). He is capable of pronouncing words well --- sometimes; he is capable of projecting his voice --- sometimes; he is capable of speaking strongly --- sometimes. But most often, he does not do any of this. He has a very bad habit of holding his mouth and lips and tongue very still, so that there is not a lot of distinction between his words and it sounds like he is actually holding in his words. He doesn't do this when he is being evaluated, because then he is very conscious of how he speaks and does really well. I've tried to explain this to both of the speech therapists that have evaluated him, but they don't see it so to them the speech problem doesn't exist. That's understandable. But it does exist, and I really want to get him some help, but I don't know where to turn. He is very intelligent, but I am afraid that his poor speech habit will be a disadvantage to him in his life. Already people tend to tune him out when he starts talking like this. I have a hard time listening when he is talking like this. The poor speech seems to drown out anything that he is saying. Any ideas on what I could do to help him? On where I could go to get him help? Thanks for any help you can give me.

Thank you for this. I know I can't set in stone anything about HIS future. It is his, after all. I guess I just don't want him to have to rush towards college IF he is not ready. And from some of the posts in this thread and from other sources I have read, it sounds like some older students are more focused and directional, but that younger students can be that as well. It is great to know that we at least have the option of extending the high school years if he so desires. Thanks to all of you.

Thank you, JanOH, for sharing with me. It is great to know that this is a possibility for us if our homeschooling journey takes us in this direction. I am glad things worked out so well for your son.

I thought that a gap year was when the student took a year off between high school and college??? What I am thinking about is extending the high school years. Would you please explain what you mean by "I have a couple of kids that would have been smothered under that approach"? In what way do you mean? I definitely don't want to smother either of my kids.:001_smile: Good point about how quickly they can change. At this point my husband and I just want to know our options. Even though we have homeschooled both of our sons from the beginning, we are starting to get into homeschooling territory that we are much more ignorant about (high school and college and all that goes along with that). We want to start thinking about how all this high school-college stuff works now so we won't be hit with too many "uh-oh" surprises later. Thanks for any more information you can give me.

Thank you so much for sharing the experience you had with both your son and daughter, JanOH. This is exactly what I am looking for...if it can even be done and the logistics of it. I would really like to know more about how this worked with your son. Do you mind answering a few more questions? With your son, was it a gap year, was it a five-year high school plan, or was ita four-year high school plan, dropping his initial first year of high school out of the transcript picture. How did you do his transcript? Did you have to list by subject, or did you do it by years? Do you think that adding in that Super-Senior Year affected his ability to get scholarships? I don't think my kids will not be "scholastically" ready, although I do know we are still a long ways off, so that could happen. I think I am just more concerned about their ability to handle the whole experience. We live far away from town, and although we discuss life outside of our home with them, they don't get a whole lot of experience with dealing with it. I was thinking that an extra year (or two?) might give them time to mature a little bit more and thus be better able to handle college life. Also, both of them are very self-motivated, so I could envision both of them furthering their education in their own interests during that time. You said that I probably should not decide at this point what their 17-18-19 years will look like. I agree that it probably shouldn't be set in stone because as you said, "changes and opportunities arise", and as another poster pointed out, the students might not want to do this. So I wonder...is this something that can easily be adjusted to? I mean, if we start the high school years following a four-year high school plan, but then later decide to do the five-year high school plan, do you think this would be something that we would be able to easily change? Likewise, if we decided to start out following a five-year high school plan but then decided to follow the four-year high school plan, would this be easy to do? The other thing I want to mention is that, as of now, my oldest son is thinking about studying physics. He also likes mechanics. My husband and I were thinking that if he took longer to finish high school, he could complete a mechanics course during this time, if he wished. Since high school students get dual credits, I was wondering if doing something like this would be possible??? I think that my husband and I are mostly concerned with how doing something like this could affect his ability to get scholarships to a four-year university and his ability to get into a four-year university of his choice. Any ideas? Thank you again for your response. It was really helpful.

Thank you for your response, Creekland. Yes, I do realize that my child/children might not want to stay in school and/or home in longer than what is "normally" required. At this time, I just want to know my options, how it could potentially work, and anh pros and cons that would come as a result of doing it this way. A few days ago I read an article from a college professor who had been homeschooled. She (?) said that many new college students weren't truly ready for college. She said that her older students seemed more serious about their schooling, more directional, and more eager to learn than her younger students. Even now both of my boys seem directional, but her article just made me wonder what the benefit of going to college following the "normal"schedule would be. And, it made me wonder if there could be a benefit to waiting until the student is a little older. What pros and cons do you foresee happening as a result of taking one's time to complete the high school years? I do see your point that they might be ready to go to college. Again, I wouldn't try to hold them back if they wanted to follow the "normal" schedule for going to college. If they did like the idea of taking a little longer to complete high school, do you see any potential disadvantages? And do you think completing high school in five years instead of four years could hurt their chances of getting scholarships? One more thing...you also said that there were a few scholarships available for students transferring from a community college. What do you mean by a few? Are there not near as many scholarships for these students as there are scholarships for students going directly from high school to a four-year university? Thank you for any help and insight you can give me.

Thank you so much for your response, Margaret in CO. Homeschooling in the high school years and toward college entrance is something very foreign to me, so I really appreciate any information you or anyone else can give me. If you don't mind, I have a few questions stemming from your response. 1) You said I could wait to start high school. If the student were okay with this, what do you foresee as any potential problems, if any, with schooling this way? 2) Also, you said that I could homeschool the high school years over a five-year period. Again, what potential problems may arise because of doing it this way? It sounds like I would need to do the transcript differently than how it is "normally" done. Would I have to do the transcript differently? I mean, would it "look bad" to have my child go through high school in five years instead of in four, especially if they were to cover more material? And just curious, do you know why some universities will not allow the transcript to list "by subjects" instead of what sounds like to be the normal "by years"?

but...lately I have been thinking about extending my ds' at-home education. Currently my oldest is in 8th grade and my youngest is in 5th grade. Neither one of them is "behind". I have just started wondering, "What's the rush?" "Is there a benefit to rushing through high school graduation and immediately entering college?" I feel like they would be better prepared and more able to handle any situation that they may encounter in college IF they were a little older than 17 or 18. I men, theoretically they would be more mature, right? But I don't know if this is "allowed". And I don't know how doing this could effect their ability to get scholarships. Do any of you have any experience with doing something like this? Or do any of you have knowledge that could help me understand the consequences of making a decision like this. Of course, in the end it will be up to my boys. If they want to "graduate" on normal schedule, I will totally support that. I just want to present delaying high school graduation as another option for them. And before I present this to them as a viable option, I need more information. Can anyone help me? Thanks