If anyone suggested iron supplements, I missed it. After my DS's sleep study turned up no problems, the doctor had his iron levels tested and they were very low. So we have him on iron supplements now in addition to melatonin. My DS also has a small set of Christmas lights to help with his fear of the dark (which would spark his anxiety). And sometimes his various music and meditation CDs help. We've had lots of success from severely limiting his sugar. Sugar doesn't make him hyper, but it aggravates all his medical problems: insomnia, migraines, moodiness, etc.

I think it would be possible, but it will be more work. You'd not only have to know the answers but you'd have to come up with practice work. I know I could do it, but I'm not sure that I'd want to. However, that may be because that was one of my informal jobs when I still worked outside of the home. In a department of ten, I was easily the strongest in grammar. And while I was handling R&S 6 without the TM, I did order one once I discovered it. Yes, I'm that new to homeschooling! As for diagramming, I'm using it because my DS is very weak on grammar and he's very visual. I learned how to do it just so I could teach him, so a person can definitely learn grammar without it. I should mention that I did have a grandmother whose skills were quite keen and an absolutely terrifying 10th grade English teacher, plus two years of Latin before 10th grade. (In fairness, I must add that this teacher was extremely talented and dedicated. She became one of the best teachers I had in high school.) Not everyone has that kind of advantage, making me rather supportive of diagramming. I could go on about just how fun diagramming is, but that is only my opinion. ;)

I'll add that the author is Teresa Moon. The ISBN was very helpful as there is another book with the same title.

I can sympathize. I've had this problem with my older son and his allergy/asthma meds. He's mature for his age and the closest our family has to an NT. Now that he's 15, we're finally making progress with the whole self medication thing. It can be very hard to hand this responsibility over to your child, so I sympathize. My younger son, who takes medication for ADD, has admitted that he hates the taste of his pills. So at least I know I have to watch him take his meds now.

My son has been on Straterra for a couple of years now. He has the inattentive type of ADHD and anxiety. It has helped him with paying attention and focusing. It hasn't helped him with his anxiety, though it was my understanding that it wasn't meant to. It's supposed advantage over the stimulant type drugs is that it doesn't aggravate anxiety the way ritalin and the other stimulant medications do. Before the Straterra, my DS was briefly on one of the stimulant medications (I don't recall which one). His anxiety spiked and he told his third grade class he was going to kill himself. We haven't had any nasty side effects once he started the Straterra.

We do social skills classes regularly and they've been a huge help. The psychologist who runs them is very talented. The boys work on how to talk to other kids and the kinds of information they shouldn't share with people they don't know well (those special interests they can ramble on about forever). They do a session on bullying each time because it's such a big problem. They have pizza once per session so they can practice eating in a social setting. Our psych who runs them believes that the biggest advantage is that the boys get to know each other and support each other. And since Aspies rarely have friends who aren't Aspies, the groups provide an opportunity for the boys to become acquainted. The psych really pushes for updates weekly to see who's going to the effort of planning activities outside of group, as well as coaching the parents on how to best support and their kids in connecting with other kids with similar interests. And in our case, the group participation has cut back the need for one on one time with the psychologist. (My DS went from seeing the psych every other week to once every two or three months.) So while group isn't cheap, it's a better deal than the alternative.

Lots of wonderful advice. I have two sons, but only one of them is on the spectrum. He got diagnosed after I'd already been totally disabled for a number of years. I don't know after two years if we still have a plan. We do target what's currently worst to work on and go from there. That's also how I prioritize my research and long reading list. My DH was in denial for a few months but he did come to accept it. I do believe that you should be very strategic in picking the people you tell about the diagnosis. For example, we have not and will not be telling any extended family members. (The level of dysfunction there is epic, plus my MIL believes that anything a psych can diagnose can be prayed away.) But our close family friends all know.

The only reason I'm making another post about seeing an optometrist is to mention another good reason to do it. The fast checks that pediatricians do often do not uncover vision issues. My DS was a classic example. He had weak muscles in his left eye. He could force himself to keep focused long enough for a brief exam. The longer exam with the eye doctor tired out the muscles, and the problem was revealed! It wasn't the last of his problems, but fixing that was a big help.

I think Nature's Way has a formula for kids; I use Solaray for myself. I've had success with both brands. I'm prone to candida problems, so I take probiotics every day. I'd know if I was taking a brand that didn't actually have what was promised inside the capsule. I'm not sure what a good dose would be. I had to wing it a few years ago when my Aspie was trying to get over some weird stomach thing. I don't know if you can overdose on probiotics. That's more of a question for a doctor, if you're lucky enough to have one that recognizes the value of probiotics. My DS is going to be in braces soon. I cannot describe how much I dread that experience. And his dentist could retire at any point.

Semple has four sets of curriculum and recommends everyone start with set one (addition) and work through set four (division). The site says it can be used as a full curriculum for kindergarten or first grade. It can also be used as a supplement at any grade level, including for adults. That's how I'm going to be using it when family vacation is over this month. The concept is to teach children new ways of remembering math facts, and it starts out with very basic flashcards to help with number recognition and tips to help kids who sometimes write their numbers backward. So it's going to be overkill for many children. But with my 12 yo DS still counting on his fingers to calculate 2 + 5, I'm going to give it a try. It's mentioned some on the special needs section of the forum, but I couldn't find a lot of information. Therefore, I'll try to post more information after I've used it.

You might want to look at the special needs board too. I think, if possible, an evaluation for LDs would be great. My son started out with an ADHD - Inattentive diagnosis in 3rd grade. (Diagnosing for this varies lots. Some doctors send a kid to psychologist for a full work up as our did. Some pediatricians will do their own diagnosis in 10 minutes and miss stuff.) My son was re-evaluated in 5th grade to formalize his new Aspergers diagnosis. That round of testing turned up a gifted IQ and multiple LDs. His worst LDs are in math. Our summer project is to start on Semple Math and add in MUS gamma. But Semple would probably be overkill if she's "just" behind and doesn't have any LDs.

That's where I am, but my son was in the middle of sixth grade when I pulled him out this year. He spent the second half of the year secretly finger counting and guessing and seemed to be doing well using Aleks. (He's twice exceptional, but I had no idea it was that bad.) We're about to start in gamma. Everyone's comments have been very helpful.

Thanks for the link, it was helpful. I'm totally disabled and had to pull my younger son out of ps mid-year. He's an Aspie and twice exceptional. It's cold comfort that he was at least two years behind grade level when I took over. Lots of times it had been really hard to keep on going, for example, when he got spring fever and the weather change made me feel even worse. But the push forward is worth it. He's no longer living in fear and he is learning.

I'm glad it's working for you. It gives me hope as I set out on my own journey with it and my DS. :001_smile:

Thanks for the information. Despite having read lots, I hadn't seen anything about the sugar addiction. We did see his psychologist today and I mentioned it, the doctor wasn't surprised at all. Yeast in a 12 yo boy hadn't even occurred to me, so thanks again.

Any update on this? I'm not seeing much discussion of Semple Math, so I was curious if anyone was making progress with it. I'm probably going to start the first section of the program over the summer, so I'm curious. My son understands math concepts well but not the actual calculations at all. When he was last evaluated by the psychologist (to offically confirm his Aspergers diagnosis), he was in 5th grade and had to add very simple equations such as 5 + 2. His ability to memorize and retain math facts is slim to none. If anyone has any tips, tricks, success stories, even horror stories, I'd like to hear them.

My son had a very thorough evaluation with a psychologist for his diagnosis. My DS actually enjoyed the testing part; the people who worked with him were very good. And I filled out lots of questionnaires. If you suspect your child is an Aspie, it's important to get a diagnosis. The social deficits are easiest to address if you start young. Aspies vary so much that I found the official diagnosis in the DSM IV to be useless to me. My favorite book is Dr. Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome. It's not one of the shorter books but it was by far the most helpful to me. Before I read it, I was extremely skeptical of the doctor's diagnosis because my son didn't fit the brief blurbs from the DSM.

I know my Aspie has many sensory issues that affect everything in his life. He's over sensitive to some kinds of pain and is able to completely ignore other kinds. I've finally figured out that he forgets to eat. He's prone to blood sugar crashes, so that's a problem. While I know many families have found improvements with removing gluten and casein from the diet of their kids on the spectrum (and many have seen no change), sugar is my son's problem. He's addicted to it. Large quantities of sugar make his migraines worse, make him dizzy, ramp up his insomnia, and make him really moody. Sugar does not make him hyper at all; he's more likely to need a nap after a major dose. I think one of the biggest challenges of raising a kid on the spectrum is figuring out all the various idiosyncrasies of our particular child. At least we're the best suited to the job, and teaching our kids how to cope is a big part of raising them to be on their own.

I compared them last May and picked the Kindle. I've loved it; the screen is very easy to read. The only thing I don't like is the weird keyboard layout. You don't need keys often, but it's still annoying. The newer Kindles have a qwerty layout. The color Nook that came out after that is really spiffy. I think I'd still stick with the Kindle though. One caveat with either, do keep an eye on your child's downloads. I do know a child very interested in sex who downloaded lots of books that his parents would never have approved of. He's not a typical kid, but do keep an eye on things.

I thought to check some of my books today; I still have a few Loeb Classical editions from college. In case this is useful, the Latin doesn't use any of the markings, for example, long vowels, that the textbooks do. The Greek texts, however, do have the breath marks. That's what I thought, but I'm glad I found some texts to back up my memories.

I didn't study Greek until college, so naturally I had to learn all those breath marks. But how old are your children and want do you want to get out of Greek? I'd want to know that before even trying an answer. I do think that if you want them to be reading Greek, eventually you'll want them to learn the marks. This isn't an exact parallel, but my older son is in 9th grade this year and has been in a ps Spanish immersion program since 1st grade. It turns out that no one ever taught the kids about the proper use of accent marks. By 9th grade, my DS was supposed to be writing Spanish fluently and reading at an advanced level. This hole in his education suddenly became a big problem, and he had to do lots of cramming to get where his teacher expected him to be. I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to breath marks in Latin. I took three years of Latin in high school and majored in it in college. We never used any breath marks. The textbooks marked long vowels for reference purposes, but we never used the marks in our own work.

Although I like R&S, I agree with the comments about too much copying of sentences. When we hit assignments that expect my son to copy an entire sentence in order to add punctuation at the end or another small change, I copy the page and let him write on the copy. When it's helpful to write out the entire sentence, I frequently have my son do half the sentences. I think if we tried to do every sentence in every lesson, my son and I would both go crazy.

I'm the only one in the family that loves and understands grammar. (Probably the love comes from the understanding.) Therefore, I wanted my son to learn the grammar he hadn't been getting in ps. R&S does just that. I'll admit that the cover isn't pretty, but I find the interior clean and well laid out. The lessons are systematic and logical. I love the frequent review as it's very helpful for my son. And when it comes to basic building blocks of knowledge (grammar included), I'll choose effective over fun every time. My son isn't any more unhappy with R&S than with anything else that covers grammar, and he's actually learning it with R&S. It's also been helpful with my older son (still in ps) and my husband. They've often listened in and learned something from a lesson. My only off-putting experience was a religious brochure I got when I ordered directly from them. I didn't care for it all; it was far more conservative than we are. While many of the practice sentences in R&S use Christian subject matter, I haven't seen anything approaching the radicalism from their brochure in the textbook.

I recently bought two disposable fountain pens for my 12 yo DS to try. He really loves them. I got them primarily for cursive, but he's using them for many subjects. For applying too much pressure, I've found a mechanical pencil to work very well. We use a Papermate model that has a slightly larger barrel than a pencil and is very easy to grip. But I think the pencil is going to be more for math now than anything else.

Absolutely My grandmother taught me many life skills, including tipping. From a young age, she'd have me calculate tips in my head regularly. Did anyone mention reading a map? That's another she taught me because my mother absolutely could not read a map. And remind the kids that GPS gadgets are not always available nor are they always correct. I have to agree. I started mine out young with the original.