Severe Autism

[Guest]

I noticed on another thread on here that many of you have severe autistic children that have very little communication. Are you homeschooling your child or do you have them in public school? If you are homeschooling...what have you been doing academically for them?

 

Our ds(10) has a quite a bit of language but does not use it. Much of his language is things or phrases that he has memorized to go along with the object or action. He knows the names for animals, vehicles, food; and he can ask to eat, drink and use the restroom.

 

This year I tried homeschooling him because he was learning nothing in school...but I am feeling down about it all right now because everything I have tried has went over his head. I am strongly considering putting him into public school next year...especially since I am going to have a new baby at home in November. But I am worried about all the bad behaviors he will learn at school....because last time they just let him run around and scream and yell all day. In addition my DH is not really liking the idea of sending him to public school...but he will if I decide thats what I want to do. I would love to hear what everyone else is doing with your severe mostly non verbal autistic child.

 

Thanks

[SkateLeft]

I'm looking forward to seeing the responses on this one.

 

My little guy was originally diagnosed with severe autism, but his functioning has improved considerably with anxiety medication. He's currently in our district's special education preschool class. I did worry about him picking up behaviors from some of the other kids, but in a general ed class, I'd worry about him just being left to his own devices.

[hsmom27]

Well, I'm not homeschooling my kiddo yet. But in conjunction with the school, I do something they call, "front-loading". I teach him all the academics before the school gets to it, and then they just work on his social behaviors and trying to encourage speech. Their part is not going well. My DS just turned 7yo and has a very, very large labeling type vocabulary. He doesn't talk or carry on any conversation. He can (doesn't mean he will) answer "what's this?" type questions.

 

Anyway, OT we pulled his NT twin brother out of 1st grade this year and intended to put him back next year. But he doesn't want to go back, and we like having him here. So at the encouragement of my ASD DS's teacher, we're keeping him home next year as well. She's helping me pick out curriculum and we're going to go very slowly to start. I'm sticking to speech, reading, speech, writing, speech, and math. Did I mention speech? His verbal skills are REALLY holding him back at this point. I'll have him sit in on his brother's science and history, but not have him do the work on those.

 

I'm also building in an actual skills type class. Without a miracle, he's going to need constant supervision for the rest of his life. We're going to start very simply with a cooking class, learning how to do his own laundry, and earning his allowance and how to pay for stuff. I'm going to make some situation book things and start breaking things down to their smallest steps. These things take him a really long time to learn.

 

The main reasons he's probably never going back to ps are the other kids. The fourth and fifth graders are starting to make fun of him, and he's starting to realize it. In our hs groups, he won't get that. And he's very smart, he just really needs stuff broken down into little pieces to learn. He'll never get that in ps. I'm totally rambling now. Hope some of that responded to your actual question!

[SkateLeft]

I don't know about the original poster, but I appreciate hearing your plans!

 

Can I ask what materials you're planning on using? Obviously, I have time before I have to worry, but I do tend to stress about my little guy's future.

[Guest]

Well, I'm not homeschooling my kiddo yet. But in conjunction with the school, I do something they call, "front-loading". I teach him all the academics before the school gets to it, and then they just work on his social behaviors and trying to encourage speech. Their part is not going well. My DS just turned 7yo and has a very, very large labeling type vocabulary. He doesn't talk or carry on any conversation. He can (doesn't mean he will) answer "what's this?" type questions.

 

Anyway, OT we pulled his NT twin brother out of 1st grade this year and intended to put him back next year. But he doesn't want to go back, and we like having him here. So at the encouragement of my ASD DS's teacher, we're keeping him home next year as well. She's helping me pick out curriculum and we're going to go very slowly to start. I'm sticking to speech, reading, speech, writing, speech, and math. Did I mention speech? His verbal skills are REALLY holding him back at this point. I'll have him sit in on his brother's science and history, but not have him do the work on those.

 

I'm also building in an actual skills type class. Without a miracle, he's going to need constant supervision for the rest of his life. We're going to start very simply with a cooking class, learning how to do his own laundry, and earning his allowance and how to pay for stuff. I'm going to make some situation book things and start breaking things down to their smallest steps. These things take him a really long time to learn.

 

The main reasons he's probably never going back to ps are the other kids. The fourth and fifth graders are starting to make fun of him, and he's starting to realize it. In our hs groups, he won't get that. And he's very smart, he just really needs stuff broken down into little pieces to learn. He'll never get that in ps. I'm totally rambling now. Hope some of that responded to your actual question!

 

 

Thank you for sharing what you are doing with your ds. It sounds like you have a very good plan for your son. I think at this point if I do keep homeschooling him we will be focusing on increasing his speech and life skills also. I tried unsuccessfully to increase his fine motor skills for writing...and I used an ABA program with him trying to help him learn things such as shapes, colors, etc. But he doesn't seem to be retaining anything.

 

He was doing really good and making progress until he was four years old and started having absent mind seizures. Even though the seizures have now stopped...it has really taken a toll on him.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Guest

[amydavis]

My oldest ds is going to be 16 in May. He is diagnosed with Moderate Autism w/ Moderate MR. We did an at-home ABA program with him until about 3 years ago. He is currently in a special education classroom during the school day, but we continue the ABA afterschool. The school is good bc it provides structure to his day. It also gives me the time to concentrate on my other dc. My Matthew requires near constant supervision, which would severely lessen my time with the others. So for now, this compromise works for us. I can't say enough about ABA. Matthew had no eye contact, no receptive language, no expressive lang, and no imitative skills. He can now label, knows categories, and is working on sight words! He does not conversate, but can say things like, "I want to bye-bye" or "cookie please." This has been incredible for him. I hope this helps! Sorry I went on so long!

[hsmom27]

My DS has absence seizures as well. They told us we could probably expect him to develop grand mal seizures when he hits puberty.

 

Right now the actual programs that are working the best for us are MUS, ETC, Word Attack, ZB Handwriting, and lots of homemade speech stuff. If you look around at SN sites, they have a ton of expensive stuff you can duplicate pretty easily. Yours may not look as nice, but it works fine.

 

As far as the MUS, DS hates writing and needs tons of repetition before he starts answering in a timely manner. It's not that he doesn't understand, but he needs more practice in getting the answers out. Does that make sense? Anyway I get an old totally used student workbook and then type the lessons on my computer. That doesn't take nearly as long as it sounds. The pages are all formatted the same, you just change the numbers. But that way I can change the numbers as much as I want to print out 40 different worksheets on any lesson. Plus I do them in color and put pictures on them sometimes. Then it's not so boring for DS.

 

Honestly it's still slow and frustrating going sometimes. We are looking inot the possibility of trying meds because his ADD just has him all over the place. And we get him TONS of exercise. Exercise before school just really seems to help all little boys (and girls) settle down for school. HTH

[chiguirre]

My oldest goes to a private ABA-based school. Problem solved for me and I'm extremely grateful that he has that opportunity. If we didn't have that option, I'd try to set up an in-home program with a BCBA (Board Certified Behavioral Analyst) to guide me through the teaching. It's very hard to break things down into manageable chunks without a lot of trial and error and frustration. Will you have help during the day to keep an eye on everyone and keep him engaged while you work with the others? I couldn't keep both my dss safe and try to teach at the same time, I just don't have enough eyes and hands.

 

If you do need to send him back to school, I'd look into finding a special needs advocate with experience in autism to accompany you to the IEP meetings. You'll have a much better chance of getting the school to provide an appropriate placement.

 

Good luck!

 

:grouphug:

[Ibbygirl]

Congratulations on your new baby!! :grouphug:

 

My son is in the Autism cluster in Public School. He gets speech, occupation and physical therapy there. He's had the same teacher for 3 years now and she loves him. The class has 6 students and there is one teacher and 3 aides. I think they've done a good job with him. He is learning and improving all the time. He used to be in a different cluster and they were absolutely horrible! Night and day from where he is now. The other cluster was awful and after only like 6 weeks there I took him out of school because he was crying all the time and he NEVER cries unless something is really wrong. We got him into this other cluster and he's doing great so my best advice to you is to shop around. I know I would love to bring him home at some point, but right now he is better off where he is. I wouldn't have a clue how to homeschool him at this point, plus he wouldn't have access to therapies that he gets in school. My daughter on the other hand who is high functioning, she has Aspergers, she I homeschool and she is doing great. :)

[Guest]

Thank you all for sharing what you are doing with your children. I still am not 100% sure what we are going to do yet. My dss is very good at minding here at home. When I work with the other kids he plays quietly in his room that is right off the kitchen where we do school. But his room is moving downstairs because we are going to need that room for the new baby. I am thinking if we do keep him home I will have him sit at the table while I work with the other kids and he can color or look at books. I am thinking it will be beneficial for him to watch the other kids learning...and I will have him sit in on all our history, science, literature readings.

 

Sending him to school sometime seems like a good option for me because it would be nice to have a break. But I know that nothing they do at school will help him...he didn't learn anything in the six years he was in public school. Many of those years we fought for ABA and several other services and he had great teachers; none of it helped him. At least at home he can follow his diet and have positive role models from our other children.

[specialmama]

 

My son is in the Autism cluster in Public School. He gets speech, occupation and physical therapy there........I think they've done a good job with him. He is learning and improving all the time......Night and day from where he is now.....he NEVER cries unless something is really wrong. I know I would love to bring him home at some point, but right now he is better off where he is. I wouldn't have a clue how to homeschool him at this point... :)

 

Wow. Again, I could almost quote your post word for word LOL! Too funny! Are you my twin??? :D Brown hair, blue eyes, dimples? About 5'8"? Fangs by any chance? Just sooo weird! :lol:

 

My guy is in an autism program at the public school. There are 8 boys with autism, 1 teacher and 4 assistants. He has OT, Speech, Psychologist, and Music Therapist there. I would love to be able to homeschool him, but his needs truly are being met there, and I think they're doing a better job than I could at this point. Some day, maybe... but for now he's doing great there. The routine is great for him and I'm just too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants!

 

We do run an at-home ABA program for him. He gets anywhere from 6 to 12 hours of therapy from trained therapists per week, plus an hour a week of OT and speech at home. Aside from that, I've had a lot of training and do work on some things with him, but they tend to be more functional skills rather than academic. I did teach him about clocks and telling time! But really, day to day, it is more about eating nicely, toilet training (STILL!) and communication and appropriate play. We're always trying to up the ante *just so* so we set him up to succeed.

 

I do love the TeachTown software program. It would work best for a child who loves the computer. http://www.timberdoodle.com/TeachTown_6_Week_Trial_p/390-390.htm

 

Please do not be hard on yourself. I understand because I wish I could handle homeschooling my son, but really, I just don't think I can right now. If I knew he'd be better at home, that is one thing, but right now he is better off at school. It takes SO much to work with these kids, it is mentally exhausting, so please be easy on yourself.

 

I don't know where you are, but there are special education support people who can help equip you so that should you put your son in school, you would know how to fight for your & his rights and acquire an appropriate education for him. In Ontario, there's a great guy named Lindsay Moir who runs workshops equiping parents of special needs kids. Even if you're not in Ontario, do check out his website as it has some links and can guide you in finding someone close to you. Oh, here's another one, I took her seminar and she's a great advocate: http://www.afase.com/About_us.html her site is full of great links as well.

Edited May 4, 2009 by specialmama
forgot Teachtown link