Cost Of Specialist Tutor

[2006hildy]

How much are you paying for a Tutor out of school hours.

I want G to do better than he is. Somebody to make homework fun for him.

Neurotypicals have tutors why not ASD children.

Should I ask his 1:1 Learning Support Assistant? She gets on well with him and they both adore each other.

If you are wanting his LSA to help him this is not really tuition, this is homework help. If he is needing support only with homework rather than teaching then this will probably be cheaper. Is it to deal with his motivation issues? I hear that ASD kids struggle with that.

Specialist tuition is another thing, it obviously requires more training. My dd's specialist tutor (Dyslexia) is £30 per hour.

I know a child in my dd's class who has ASD and goes to a tutor. But I have no idea what training qualifications are appropriate for ASD children.

Handy x

I have used tutors for my ASD DC in specific subjects at secondary school. I made a list of potential tutors from tutoring websites then carried out 'interviews' with them on their knowledge, experience and approach to working with ASD children. Get the right person and it can really help, more than 1:1 in school even.

Generally I have found that finding someone who has a good understanding and is willing to really work with your child costs more than the average. I am lucky in that I can afford to use their DLA to fund the help as I don't need it for day to day living.

We have recently started using a tutor for DS 16 AS, OCD, dyslexia. She is a specialist dyslexia tutor but is mainly focussing on the bits of his GCSEs he finds difficult to get him through them. He is academically able but has difficulty transferring his thoughts to paper. He knows her well as she formerly taught in his school and did some 1-1 work with her until the funding for her post was cut. Because she knows him she charges £25 an hour (lower than her usual rate).

She wouldn't have been able to tutor him while she was teaching at his school. I'm not sure if that also applies to TAs.

It also depends on what you want. A TA should be able to do homework help at a lower rate than a qualified teacher. However if you want learning help you probably need a teacher and as creamteas says interview them carefully to ensure that they can work effectively with your child.

If you are thinking of asking his TA it might be worth considering whether your DS has the home is home, school is school split which a lot of children with ASD have and which often causes homework problems. Certainly true for my DS.