Changing things up when homeschooling SN kids

[GoVanGogh]

I received "Home schooling children with special needs" in the mail today so have spent a quiet (yeah!) afternoon curled up on the couch reading.

 

I am reading sections unrelated to my child's dx as there is some good info tucked away in each chapter. This passage on autism really struck me:

 

"Because autistic children resist change, and anything new is seen as a threat, teaching situations and materials must be changed periodically, or the child will not be able to generalize learning to other situations."

 

From 1 1/2 years of age, our pediatriican insisted child had autism due to child's inability to accept change and their strong desire for rigid structure. Ten years later, multiple autism screenings later, we find out child has a mild brain injury do to birth trauma and does not have autism. Strong overlap of symptoms.

 

Child's brain injury affects part of brain that controls balance, coordination and muscle memory/planning. Once child figures out how to do something, nothing must rock that boat.

 

Therapists are working with child on accepting change - and making child do quick motion/activities that force them to use their brain and body differently than they otherwise would. It has been tough!

 

Say therapist lifts weights in one sequence one day, it is tough to get child to accept doing them in any other sequence from then on. If therapist does an activity on a balance beam at facility and tells me to try at home on a balance ball, it is a battle to get child to accept.

 

But - reading that passage made me think about this in terms of our homeschool.

 

I would love to hear other thoughts on this - and what others are doing to promote change in their homeschools.

[*Lulu*]

Punk's OT plan involves regular challenging of him. It reminds me of teaching any other skill, you want to stretch the student, but not frustrate them to the point they give up.

 

We do this a lot with his ability to be flexible. We will purposely deviate from our routine every so many days if some deviation does not naturally present itself. The trick for us is making sure we do not do it when there is upheaval anywhere else. He needs the routine, but the longer he goes without being challenged the more rigid his thinking becomes.

[nitascool]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this statement: "Because autistic children resist change, and anything new is seen as a threat, teaching situations and materials must be changed periodically, or the child will not be able to generalize learning to other situations." Though I did see resistance to change some in the early years I don't think it is something that has to continue throughout a child's life. Also I don't believe (at least in my sons case) that all new things were seen as a threat but rather unprepareness to changes was what he saw as a threat.

 

My son does like routine but we (dh and I) are more free spirits. It has made life hard on all of us. Ds has had to learn to adapt to us and we to him. We learned to give him time with transitions. And he still has some minor issues with wanting to do things the same way. We keep our dinner table arrangement the same. Chores change only once every six months (he's learning to do dishes now). But the order of school work changes daily. We focus on the core curr. daily, but change when and where we do our work. At 11 he can go with the flow of life fairly well (thought we'd never get here). We just have to remember to inform him of changes 5 min. in advance along with what that change is.

 

When he was first dxed with ASD we were told strict routine was the key to helping him get better. It turned out to cause anxiaty for him though. When we flow more smoothly with a looser routine (not strick with exactly 15 minutes or 5 minutes doing this or that) he does better overall. Right now his routines look something like this.

Up and showered by 7:30-8:00

Breakfast after shower then Breakfast dishes (this order never changes but time may vary)

Start school. Do core subjects (takes 30 min. a piece most days but we don't use a timer anymore) with a movement brake between each subject.

Lunch and play time

Finish core subjects and do fun subjects.

Play outside or get on tablet depending on the day and weather

At least once a week we go do something... take a nature walk, go to the park, out for pizza. Something to change up our routine.

 

I think the key to teaching flexabilty is to insist that thier way is not the only way. And not to give into the temper tantrums that sometimes occur. Discussion of what is going to change and why is important but I've never allowed my son to be the dictator of our lives. We work toward flexability and give coping skills for the times when things are not in his perfect order.

[geodob]

Perhaps it could be helpful to introduce him to what is termed as 'reversible thinking'?

With a routine, we have a defined order to follow from beginning to end.

Where any change, means defining a whole new order from beginning to end.

 

Though with 'reversible thinking'? We start with the end, and look back at how we arrived there?

Where we can see each step that we used to arrive there, as a 'variable'?

So that with 'balancing on a beam', balancing can be viewed as the end point, with the beam as a variable.

 

Where the crucial thing, is to be able to reframe a routine as being made up of variables, to arrive at an end point or outcome.

To be open to exploring different ways to get there?

 

2+A-5=10.

[GoVanGogh]

It reminds me of teaching any other skill, you want to stretch the student, but not frustrate them to the point they give up.

 

We do this a lot with his ability to be flexible. We will purposely deviate from our routine every so many days if some deviation does not naturally present itself. The trick for us is making sure we do not do it when there is upheaval anywhere else. He needs the routine, but the longer he goes without being challenged the more rigid his thinking becomes.

 

Good points!

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this statement: "Because autistic children resist change, and anything new is seen as a threat, teaching situations and materials must be changed periodically, or the child will not be able to generalize learning to other situations." Though I did see resistance to change some in the early years I don't think it is something that has to continue throughout a child's life. Also I don't believe (at least in my sons case) that all new things were seen as a threat but rather unprepareness to changes was what he saw as a threat.

 

My son does like routine but we (dh and I) are more free spirits. It has made life hard on all of us. Ds has had to learn to adapt to us and we to him. We learned to give him time with transitions. And he still has some minor issues with wanting to do things the same way. We keep our dinner table arrangement the same. Chores change only once every six months (he's learning to do dishes now). But the order of school work changes daily. We focus on the core curr. daily, but change when and where we do our work. At 11 he can go with the flow of life fairly well (thought we'd never get here). We just have to remember to inform him of changes 5 min. in advance along with what that change is.

 

When he was first dxed with ASD we were told strict routine was the key to helping him get better. It turned out to cause anxiaty for him though. When we flow more smoothly with a looser routine (not strick with exactly 15 minutes or 5 minutes doing this or that) he does better overall. Right now his routines look something like this.

Up and showered by 7:30-8:00

Breakfast after shower then Breakfast dishes (this order never changes but time may vary)

Start school. Do core subjects (takes 30 min. a piece most days but we don't use a timer anymore) with a movement brake between each subject.

Lunch and play time

Finish core subjects and do fun subjects.

Play outside or get on tablet depending on the day and weather

At least once a week we go do something... take a nature walk, go to the park, out for pizza. Something to change up our routine.

 

I think the key to teaching flexabilty is to insist that thier way is not the only way. And not to give into the temper tantrums that sometimes occur. Discussion of what is going to change and why is important but I've never allowed my son to be the dictator of our lives. We work toward flexability and give coping skills for the times when things are not in his perfect order.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience. I had wondered if people actually dealing with autism found this statement to be true from their perspective. As I said, we are not dealing with autism - but it really rang true with what we are dealing with. Child struggles to gain muscle memory, so wants to keep doing things the same exact way time after time because it is so much easier on him. But therapists say we need to push him to change, change, change so the muscles are always getting new input. Child resists change so much that it has been a struggle!

Perhaps it could be helpful to introduce him to what is termed as 'reversible thinking'?

With a routine, we have a defined order to follow from beginning to end.

Where any change, means defining a whole new order from beginning to end.

 

Though with 'reversible thinking'? We start with the end, and look back at how we arrived there?

Where we can see each step that we used to arrive there, as a 'variable'?

So that with 'balancing on a beam', balancing can be viewed as the end point, with the beam as a variable.

 

Where the crucial thing, is to be able to reframe a routine as being made up of variables, to arrive at an end point or outcome.

To be open to exploring different ways to get there?

 

2+A-5=10.

 

This is an interesting idea. :thumbup1: