Homeschooling Autistic Children

Recently I decided to rebuild a homeschooling website that I had up on the internet sometime ago. I took it down for a handful of reasons, all of them the wrong ones. I have set to work rebuilding it. One of the things that I was upset that I lost was an article that I wrote for the website on homeschooling autistic children, something that I know more than a little about. I remembered my husband telling me about a page called The Wayback Machine that allows you to retrieve internet archives. I was able to find that article to repost it. As I was looking it over today I realized that I originally wrote that article in 2002. In the last five years a lot has changed.

The statistics that I have listed in the article is that 1 in 500 children have some form of autism. Today that number is 1 in 150. Autism has reached epidemic proportions and recently there has been an insurgence of arguments about the cause. Everything from vaccines to genetics has been blamed. No one knows the cause but what everyone with an autistic child can agree that autistic children present their own educational challenges. There isn't a day that goes by that I do not hear the story of a parent fighting to get a proper Individual Educational Plan (IEP) in place for their child.

Even with the number of cases of autism skyrocketing, many public school teachers are not trained to teach autistic children and yet these children are mainstreamed without the things in place to make not only the teachers job easier but make it able for the autistic child to cope with his environment and learn. Every time I read a news article about an autistic child being locked up in a closet for disciple, duct taped to a chair, or improperly restrained in some other manner I am thankful that I am able to homeschool.

Not everyone has the patience to homeschool, let alone teach a child with autism. These children can be a challenge to teach. Take a child with attention deficit disorder add some obsessive-compulsive disorder and sensory integration disorder, mix in some oppositional defiant disorder and a handful of learning disorders. It's a potential recipe for disaster depending on the school. It's no secret that quality of public education varies greatly from school district to school district across the country, special education is no different. Claiming lack of funds some schools will do everything that they can to get out of providing special education and following an IEP and parents are turning to outside advocates and lawyers well versed in educational law to get the proper education for their child.

There are many reasons I decided to homeschool, originally autism was not one of them. It was added to the list later. I can not imagine sending any of my seven children off to school, especially the two autistic ones. Where they are both high functioning, neither of them could deal with constraints of a classroom and formal education. My autistic daughter can't handle the noise in a mall food court without having a panic attack. I can not imagine her sitting in a school cafeteria. I can only envision the argument that would ensue if she was handed a text book that did not meet with her approval. The last time I handed her a test book that offended her because of how it was laid out and the material presented I had it thrown at me and she refused to use it. The book was not only confusing to her, but if was frustrating for her to follow.

The problem is, as a society, we have been brainwashed to believe that only those with a degree can teach, especially where a special education student is concerned. I will admit when I started homeschooling my daughter I was scared. I was already homeschooling her older sister with great luck, but teaching a child with autism was uncharted foreign soil. I could not get past her narrow all encompassing interests long enough to engage her in anything. There wasn't a day that didn't go by that I didn't say to my husband, "I don't know what to do with her, I don't know if I can teach her. I am not a special education teacher."

Then one day, well into what would have been first grade, the light came on, so to say. She was reading and doing simple algebra in her head almost overnight. I have no idea where she learned the math but I discovered that she learned to read by doing word searches. She was able to sit for hours and do word searches. I never stopped her because it meant she was being quiet and not tearing apart the house. I honestly believe that if she had been put in public school and forced to learn things before she was ready she would not have made the progress that she did.

The educational aspects of school aside for a moment, as a parent with an autistic child, you have to consider the social aspect of school. A mother shared with me some time ago about their reason to homeschool. The story starts with her going to the school to have lunch with her son. As she was pulling out of the parking lot she heard children laughing quite loudly and looked over at the basketball hoop. Her son was standing under the ball hoop where the other kids had put him and they were bouncing the basketball off of his head. She got out of her car and approached the teachers out there that were chatting with each other and they were unaware of what was going on. She took her son home right there and never sent him back to school. Much like every other AS child, this little boy did not realize that the other kids were being mean to him. He honestly thought that they were playing with him and that they were his friends, not that they were being cruel. They are more or less easy targets for other kids.

Autistics have impaired social abilities. They say what is on their mind, when it's on their mind, and they are rather blunt about it. They don't understand social games that people tend to play. They are, quite simply, a square peg in a round hole and the cookie cutter one size fits mostly all organization of public school has got to be emotionally draining at best for an autistic child. So many times I have read stories in online autism support groups about an autistic child starting school and how every day when they come home they have a meltdown.

I am no expert, I am just a parent with seven children, two who happen to be autistic. As a parent who knows my children better than anyone else, I know that if I had sent my children off to a formal education it would have done more harm than good. Only at home can a child learn at his own pace in an environment that he is comfortable with. As a parent I know how to accommodate all the quirks and obstacles that stand in the way of normal functioning. My daughter has sensory issues with wearing long pants, this would present problems as well as letters home about appropriate dress in the winter. At home it's a non-issue. My son often times needs wrapped in a weighted blanket to calm him and help him regulate himself. The transition from recess to class time would be hell for him and a teacher even on his best days.

The great thing about homeschooling any child is that you get to work with their strengths to develop their weaknesses and tailor their educational program to meet their needs. Another reason my daughter would never be able to function in school is because her sleep patterns are highly erratic and there are times that she goes for days without sleep just because she can not sleep due to the sleep disorder that often accompanies autism. She does her school work when she wants to instead of having it forced on her. Oddly, a lot of times I will get three weeks of work handed to me at once where she was unable to sleep and was looking for something to do. After a few days of this I usually won't see any school work from her for a couple weeks. It used to bother me. Today it doesn't because what matters is she is learning the material and retaining it. That is the ultimate goal of education at the end of the day. I am not having to force her to sit down to meet a deadline that is being imposed on her by someone else that she may or may not be able to make. Dr. Tony Attwood has presented a convincing argument as to why autistic children should be exempt from homework that is available on his website.

There are so many allowances that could be made for autistic children in school where they can learn easily, but can't be made because of the number of children in a classroom make it difficult. At home those restrictions are no longer there. If homeschooling is something that a parent has the patience to do, especially if their child is autistic, it is something I highly recommend as an educational option.