Learning Difficulties Autistic child... what steps to homeschooling?

[katykuns]

I am actually posting on behalf of my friend. Her DS is 5, he has just entered year 1 of his primary school. Reception was difficult, before he was diagnosed with Autism and he also has another disability which causes him muscular pain. The educational psych believes he is developmentally at 2-3 years old.
Anyway, the school have been useless, haven't encouraged him to eat or drink, have poor communication with my friend, and have not been understanding with regards to his emotional needs.
He gets very fatigued at school, he reverts to baby like behaviour, wets and soils himself, cries continually and refuses to join in with class activities. It's clear that the school just aren't suited to a child with his needs. He is currently having help from an occupational therapist and a speech therapist.
My friend was considering home education last year, but is anxious, particularly of receiving support from speech and OT if he is out of school. She does not work and receives benefits, so time commitment wise she can home educate.

Can I ask for any advice? Will she still receive the support? What should she do first to start the ball rolling?

Oh god, get him out. Poor little thing. In her shoes, I would focus on interacting with him as much as he can cope with, on his agenda (think Greenspan floor time therapy kind of approach). Don't bother with the academics - they will come in his own time when he is settled and happy and confident.

Find other home edders to hang out with. She will find plenty with children on the spectrum. Also hang out with families with younger children if he can cope with that in sensory terms. Or older children who will be kindly - may be even pay them a little for "baby sitting" for them to play with him while th mother is in the background getting on with other stuff.

Without rushing him, because toilet independence can come at 8 or 9 or even later for a child with sensory issues and developmental delays, I'd advise her not to think about putting him in school till he is independent with toileting, and completely confident with it.

Big un-mn hugs to her. Please tell her to remember that he will e so much happier out of a confusing and sensory nightmare environment like that, and he WILL get better at navigating complex social and sensory environments as e gets older, but that I think r job is to kep him happy and safe until those things start quietly to develop.

yes to everything ommward has said.

So often we see everything improves once school is taken out of the equations-especially where the child has SEN.

Do tell your friend to join us on the Home Education and Special Needs Email support group

It's a support group for parents who are home educating their child who has Special Educational Needs, or who are thinking of doing so.

There are people there with experience of all the issues that are troubling your friend.

This group has links to the EHE-SEN: ELECTIVE HOME EDUCATION AND SPECIAL NEEDS FAQ ENGLAND website:
www.ehe-sen.org.uk/

If you are on FaceBook, this page has a sister page there too:
www.facebook.com/groups/312513312123284/

Thanks for the supportive advice. I have encouraged her to get him out, especially when she said he really improved and was like a different child over the summer. The toileting issues stopped, he ate better and was generally happy.

I shall send her the links about support groups, she has got involved with sensory support etc already as she is so heartbroken and upset about the situation. She would be excellent at homeschooling, she is very involved and encouraging already... and takes him to events like historical reinactments which he loves. I think the school is a very destructive impact on him, and he is so young, it shouldn't be so hard and miserable. He will lose any love of learning before he's even really started!

She is also reluctant because the school are dragging their feet on getting his statement of educational needs sorted. Does she need this? If she is homeschooling I'd imagine it wouldn't be as important?

If she is home educating, there's no need for a statement of SEN at all - she just gets on with meeting his needs!

There's a lovely book called "Paths are Made by Walking" - that would be a really special gift to send her (about home educating children with ASD - so many different ways of doing it, and everyone thriving)

Just came across katykuns post - I just wondered as this post was a few years ago did your friends son get homeschooled in the end? You mentioned he was evaluated a as being a few years behind. Just wondered has he progressed now? Just going through something similar and just wondered how things progressed for your friends son. Many thanks

Hi Rxkxd, welcome!

I'm not the OP and my kids don't have autism. However, we mix with a big range of other home ed families, many of whom have special needs. Several years ago, a survey conducted by the biggest home ed charity in England found that unmet special needs was the top reason for parents to remove kids from school. So you aren't alone.

My younger child has a learning disability, was delayed across the board, and was also physically disabled until she was about eight. I was already home educating her older sibling out of choice, and when I saw that dd2 wasn't a typically developing child there was no question in my mind that I didn't want to subject her to the school system which was not designed for her. Even with great teachers and the best will in the world, there is no way the concept of differentiation can be right for a 6yo whose developmental need is to change dolly nappies rather than do a maths lesson. If you give her a TA, put her in the corner and let her do her own thing, what's the point of being in the classroom? She has been happier with family and friends.

She's 14 now. Her childhood has been all about what she wants and needs, not about making her fit. You can sometimes hammer a square peg into a round hole, but not without damaging the peg. She has developed in her own time, without feeling that anything was "wrong" with her. I have a confident, happy kid, which is the most important thing to me. This year she learned to read, having been assured by me that she WOULD manage it one day when she was ready and interested, that she might or might not need some extra help, that people learn this skill at different ages and there are all sorts of ways to do it. She was motivated by a desire to exchange messages with her friends during lockdown, and she used the speech-to-text feature of her tablet. The other day she read me a four-paragraph email from her uncle, almost without a pause.

There has been no hurry about reading, because she could learn in other ways until that skill developed: through conversation, experimentation, observation, watching documentaries, playing. She hasn't been "behind"; she has just been learning other things than how to write "Tuesday".

In home ed circles, it is often said that learning is a journey, not a race. Schools can't allow the time for that journey. Can you imagine a school NOT pressurising a child to learn to read, and just waiting until she was ready? They don't even leave five year olds who don't want to read!

My daughter still seems quite young and it feels surreal to think that many of her age peers are in the throes of GCSEs. She is starting to think about her future and says that she might like to be a bicycle mechanic or a mum, both ambitions which suit her skills and interests. We haven't needed an EHCP, but I plan to apply for one in case it helps with college. I somewhat doubt she will be focused enough for college at 16, but she can go later. There's no rush.