It wouldn't be practice, going to IKEA would be a vacation for me LOL, I love it there. I'm so not ready for Disney, but we will probably go when the boys are older. I can honestly say that this is the first time someone has suggested hiring a fairy godmother as a serious answer to a question lol.

Thank you! I have actually heard of this, I'm going to look into it more. It looks like they have some locations within driving distance.

Thanks, we get some respite care, but it's not really enough to apply to a trip. I've thought about paying someone out of pocket, but I think it would probably cost more than it's worth.

Hi there, I'm thinking that I would like to attempt some sort of family vacation this summer. Would anyone have any idea where I could look for something (anything) that has some kind of aide support or really any kind help available to children with autism? I have heard of autism on the seas for cruises, but I think I'd like to start with something a little more simple and work our way up. Has anyone ever heard of any programs or anything like what I am looking for? We are in the north east and plan to drive this time around. Thanks!

Thank you, these were helpful!

Hi there, is there a website where I can test my child's reading level? This is just for the sake of curiosity, but I would like it to be accurate. Thanks!

I gave up on my dream of running my own design business. It's actually pretty depressing for me to think about, but I'll share it with you. I knew for awhile that I really wanted to stay home and raise my children, and the idea of homeschooling them was there very early on as well (before they were born.) At the same time, I was interested in working independently and talented in design, so I created a goal for myself that I would become a freelance graphic designer/marketing professional and work from home while being a mom. I figured that if things grew, I could start to expand out and hire people. Fast forward a few years and I was actually on track with my ideas. By the time I got married and had my first child I was freelancing, and I managed to get myself a steady stream of contract work from a company that was located almost an hour south of me. I was starting to get smaller gigs here and there in addition to that, and things were looking good. A little while later though, my son was diagnosed with autism, and his needs and therapy took over my life. I tried putting him in daycare part time, but they were unable to meet his needs in a way that I felt comfortable with, so I quit and devoted myself to him. I had another child, and he also has autism - so I don't see myself having time to run a business any time soon. Not to mention, I have absolutely no clue what is going on in graphic design and marketing these days. By the time I get around to it, whatever I knew as standard will be obsolete. The only reason I would ever consider re-educating myself in this area is because my husband has since decided to change engineering disciplines and is now working in software engineering. It turns out that he is very talented, and we could consider working together in web development or something along those lines in the future (I design, he programs.)

You should read the book "Aspergirls" by Rudy Simone. It's spot on. I have two children with autism, they're high functioning-ish, but my older son still needs a 1:1 aide most of the time, and I still manage to convince myself that he's doing way better than he actually is (then I put him in a situation that he can't handle and get a reality check.)

I started researching REALLY early too, and here's what happened - I researched every philosophy and curriculum that I could find until I determined which one I thought would be absolutely perfect, and which ones I really didn't care for. We finally started homeschooling, and within just THREE weeks we had to completely toss the whole program. It was horrible for us and totally boring. I ended up with the exact opposite of everything I thought would be the right fit lol. If I could go back in time and save myself some effort, I would probably still research the philosophies and curriculum, but instead of going into it with expectations, I would probably just go in with a chart of what is out there, and as many free samples as I could get my hands on. When I had to revamp everything, I printed sample pages from math mammoth, life of fred, horizons, explode the code, the bible study guide for all ages, and I learned on this forum that progressive phonics is completely free, which is actually what we ended up using after trying it out. I was able to get a really good feel for what would work and what wouldn't work by doing the sample pages. At one point I really thought that my son would end up being a hands on learner, and I was moving in that direction. It turns out that he does much better with just plain old black and white work books and that he is actually distracted and overwhelmed by manipulates. Good thing I held off on purchasing Math-U-See lol. So my advice is to try to find free/cheap ways to experiment with different methods and try to hold off on making any major purchases until you have seen some kind of evidence that it will be a good fit.

There, I said it. I lost a close friend on Christmas eve 14 years ago. He was killed by a drunk driver in the middle of the night. It ruined the holiday for me, and I have never been able to enjoy it since. My father passed away a few years ago, and I haven't had much contact with the rest of my family since, making the holidays all the more miserable for me. I got a total of one Christmas card from a relative and it had a manipulative, dysfunctional message in it. I ripped it to pieces and threw it right in the garbage. My husband is *trying* to help with the stress, so he went to the grocery store today. He came back with a $52 (!!!!!) roast. I just about lost my mind when I saw it. I wouldn't even spend that much on my sons winter coat this year! I never saw him leave the house so quickly in my life (to return it.) Uuuuugh. Then I feel bad about being a Scrooge on top of it all. :(

I'm on the spectrum, and I personally found her depiction of "thinking in pictures" to be very in line with the way that I think. I didn't even realize that other people do not think in pictures until I saw her movie. I also attended one of her lectures once, and she compared her thinking to doing a google image search. I relate strongly with that as well. My son is only 5 (also on the spectrum), but he's already saying that he takes pictures with his brain. He has classic autism, but I fit the description of aspergers - so I'm thinking that we're all just different, plain and simple. I find the whole concept to be really fascinating though. I wonder if people who think in pictures have more trouble verbalizing their thoughts then people who are already thinking in words. I feel like I spend a lot of time struggling for words. On the flip side - I'm a graphic designer and I've never struggled with making things look a certain way. My son - he didn't start talking until we introduced picture communication. It was like he couldn't understand the concept of communication until he was able to SEE it. It's all very interesting, and it probably deserves more research.

My kids are only 2 and 5. Of course my 2 year old doesn't know what the internet is, but I don't think that my 5 year old really understands it well enough yet either. So, I think it's more a question of how they would feel in the future.

Hi there, I am wondering about something. To what extent do you think it is appropriate to mention children on a blog? I have a blog that I do not write in because my life basically revolves around my kids and I do not want to disrespect their privacy. I have thought about changing their names, or keeping it at "my older/younger son", but I'm never quite sure what is appropriate. I have also considered just writing about surface level topics, like curriculum reviews, but then I know what is going to happen - I'm going to sit there debating whether or not the topic I want to write about is surface level enough, and get stuck again. What is your opinion on this matter? Thanks!

You could breeze through progressive phonics as a guide (it's free). That way you know for sure that there aren't any gaps. It's very straight forward and to the point, and it can move very quickly if you want it to.

My son started reading a few months after he started talking. He could explain digestion using words like "esophagus" a year before he was out of diapers. I had to potty train him using diagrams of the large intestine! The kid can use a microscope independently but he can barely dress himself.

Thanks, you wouldn't happen to know where I can find out which other states have disability scholarships, would you? Whenever I try to search for it, my results are all clouded by college scholarships. It will probably end up being Ohio for us regardless though, my husband's job has a location there.

Yes, I checked his IEP and autism is already listed as the disabling condition :) And yes, I will make sure we're in the right school district. I want to have back up plans for my back up plans. We're also going to rent for a LONG time. Aside from the flexibility that it provides, it will honestly just be so nice to not have to worry about the responsibilities of home ownership for awhile. I'm so over it. Looks like the rental rates are beyond reasonable there too, so that's just another bonus.

Thanks, yeah, he is really in a league of his own. His academic skills are a year or two advanced, but his self care skills are a year or two delayed. Add in the impulse/attention/behavioral issues - no one seems to know what to do with him. I think that some kind of behavioral therapy program combined with homeschooling could work for all of us. Maybe they could even get him out into the community and work on some of our *real* problems. That would be amazing. OF COURSE - those services don't exist here. I'm doing a lot of research on Ohio. I haven't come up with any deal breakers, or even any negatives, really. We have nothing to lose here, so this very well could be the answer I've been looking for. The ONLY question I have about the state of Ohio is - Autism Speaks listed it as one of the worst states to be in for autism. How can that be? It's looking unbelievably good from where I stand.

Thanks, I completely agree with you - it is SO clarifying to talk to other people about it though.

Thank you, I really would prefer to homeschool with services, which I guess would pretty much require us to move or else it's just going to be more of the same. I can take him up to the elementary school (the one with the bad reputation) for therapy services if I wanted to. He qualified for something like 6 sessions, and I believe they are about a half hour each. His preschool team reacted very poorly when we told them that we were not enrolling him in Kindergarten (it was so bad that they wrote an apology note the next day.) Based on that, I sincerely doubt anyone would be willing to work with us on making it do-able, so I am just betting that signing up for services at the school would mean having 6 appointments sporadically scheduled throughout the week. I can't see that happening, nor can I see it improving the quality of our lives in any way. As it is, he was refusing to participate in the preschool therapy sessions towards the end, so he would probably get nothing out of it at all. I am considering flying out to Ohio (by myself) to look around. I keep going around in circles trying to figure out what is best. I think it might help to actually look at the place in person. If I am understanding this correctly, as a homeschooling family qualifying for that scholarship, we could hire an in home ABA provider? Could you (or anyone) give me an idea of how many hours per week a child would generally be able to receive? Is there a place where I could get more information, like a local forum? It would be a dream to get ABA. My older son has a lot of behavioral issues, which I've been able to improve on my own with the casual use of incentives, so I'm just betting that this is what's missing from our lives. Thanks again.

Thank you! Yes, we currently have 5 therapy appointments for my 2 year old per week, a private nurse once per month for his medical issues and homeschool classes twice per week (I try to double these up with therapy). His speech therapist is requesting an increase, we're increasing his teacher services (assuming he'll qualify) and doing a PT eval, so we will probably be at at least 7 therapy appointments soon. Ugh! What I've been doing for school is, I've been doing lessons while my 2 year old is working with a therapist. That way he's busy and not bothering us for awhile. This has been working out pretty well, and to be honest, the actual act of sitting down and doing school work is not an issue, it's just literally everything else that goes on throughout the day. I do have questions about Apraxia, and I will try to get in touch with you about it soon. His speech therapist printed me a bunch of sheets with pictures of hand ques, but the things are like a square inch in size and photocopied a million times, so I can't make out the pictures to save my life! Anyway, thanks again.

Thank you ... I did go ahead and put in a call to that program. It's after hours right now, but I left a message requesting more information and asking about the referral process. My son should have aide support, but they did not offer it. He would probably do fine sharing an aide with one other student, but nothing less than that. Some days he does need full 1:1 support, but most days he could share one. Either way, he wasn't offered an aide. Our preschools around here are not based out of districts, they are private schools that the districts fund for qualifying students. It's pretty confusing, and not everyone with a qualifying child even realizes that these private schools can be funded for them. I agree though, I feel like I need to make some kind of major change.

Thanks, this is a problem of making it through the days. Homeschooling is completely fine. My son is most likely gifted, so teaching him is easy, and he would sit and do school all day long if I had the time. We were even able to set up a beautiful school room for him, and it almost brings me to tears to think that I can't handle it. I'm just...I'm doing way, way too much, and school is the only option that I can really think of to get some of this off my plate. I hate the thought that he would have to suffer for it, because he is really doing better at home than he did in preschool.

I'm getting pretty desperate over here. If you don't already know, I have two children with autism and I'm homeschooling the older one who is school aged. My two year old was just diagnosed with apraxia as well, so his therapy services are increasing, and I'm losing my mind trying to manage everything. I'm looking into putting my 5 year old in school and it really doesn't look good. He does have an IEP in place for us to fall back on if need be, but the school he was placed in has a bad reputation for special education. In fact, they are currently being sued by the parents of a special needs child for something horrible that happened due to their negligence. His class would have 23 children in it with pull outs a few times per day (if that) for resource and various therapies. I have absolutely no idea how they concluded that this was an appropriate placement for him, being that he required a shared 1:2 aide (after graduating from a 1:1) in a preschool class of only NINE children, and even then he could barely get through the day without various behavioral issues. As it is now, I can't even drop him off for homeschool classes (gym, swim, art) without having a 1:1 aide with him. What am I supposed to do? I can't put him in a placement that I already know is doomed to failure, what good would that do? I don't have the energy to throw a fit over it right now either. He's currently up for re-evaluation (not scheduled yet) and they have a whole huge list of things that they (school district) are going to evaluate, so maybe that will do us some good, maybe not. I consented for it because I figured that it can't hurt, and it's free. Not to mention, I'm kind of curious about the whole thing. He hasn't had an evaluation in a few years. Our area has an autism program that has a decent reputation, but as far as I know, our school district would have to recommend it before we could even tour the class. They have never even met my son before, so I can't see that happening. Even still, this program is in high demand, so I doubt he would get a placement anyway. So what can I do? I WANT to homeschool him, but I just cannot keep going on like this. I am willing to do just about anything, even move, if that would make a difference. We live in the middle of nowhere, so it might :( At the very least, I'd have an easier time hiring people to come in and help me. I'm honestly considering renting an apartment just to get closer to town, and then worrying about the house after I catch my breath. Is that insane? I can't even think straight enough to know if that's insane or not.

Thank you, I really appreciate your encouragement! I read your reply last week and it really helped me to keep on going. I'm honestly considering letting her go - the problem is that I doubt I'll be able to replace her, and respite care is basically a complete necessity for me at the moment. I'm trying to figure out a way that I can use our YMCA's drop off program as respite care. The problem is that my 5 year old requires a 1:1 aide while he's there, and it's kind of difficult to work it all out when their childcare program is open (but maybe not impossible.) I really need the respite during the day (because my husband helps me in the evenings), but their 1:1 aides are mostly students who are not super available during the day and the childcare closes at 1. I might be able to work it out though. Yes, my 2 year old is already at the Y at least once per week, and I'm already having at least one therapist meet him there per week. I'm going to do a trial run of sending him to the Y this Wednesday (he doesn't normally go then, this is in addition to everything) and see how difficult it is adding that to the schedule. Too bad we can't just move in to the Y!