I am about to embark on a new journey with my 13 year old asperger son. After a year of grueling bullying and teasing and dismal failure within the school system,my son has asked me to homeschool him for this comimg year. Teaching him curriculum is not a significant problem, since we bascially did that all year anyway after school, but my concern is the socialization skills that he needs that worries me the most. I will be enrolling him in social skills groups with an autism center nearby but is that enough? He will be starting Karate too in the fall but am hesistant because he does have difficulty following directions. Any advice or websites that would connect me to other homeschooled asperger kids would be helpful.
Re: hoemschooling asperger child
Hi,
You might try contacting ANI (autism network international). They have a parent’s division and I think a lot of them are homeschoolers. BTW, this is a real radical group so you should be fairly ok with your kid being aspergers, not want to cure him or something. But they might have some ideas.
I don’t know how big a city you are in, but many areas have local social groups for the kids. These go every week or two and go around the interests of the kids.
Another thing is you might think about what your kid’s passion or obsession is, and then try to find some group for kids in that area. Say if he is a computer nut, find him an afternoon group— not just that would work on the computer, but also do projects (like robotics, where they have to work together); same thing for astronomy or whatever.
I have Aspergers.
Two things that I was in that were good: My parents signed me up for an art class. There were a lot of kids in this and it was a positive experience, ie I didn’t get teased.
I was in Scouts when I was a kid. I didn’t have any behavior problems like hyperactivity. My mom ran the scout troup so this helped control the group to some extent. I enjoyed this except when my mom signed us up for Charm School! What was she thinking!?
—des
aspergers and social skills
I attended a conference about aspergers and social skills. I think the presenter was with a group from Houston (for sure a large city in TX). They have found success using a variety of methods that incorporate:
!)watching movies without the sound and guessing what the speaker is saying or feeling
2)Filming themselves in skits watching the film with sound on and off and discussing a)body language b) tone of voice
3)Changing roles in the skits and re-filming with above activities
4)Improv with roles in social setting (examp. You are watching a game and want to join, or you are playing a game and someone is watching and asking to join) etc. Again, filming and analyzing.
5) Playing just the sound of a scene from a movie where they hear the dialog and guess what the visual may look like. Then watching the scene with the visual and auditiory combined. Discuss what they had guessed and what it really looked like.
some of this is my own ideas that I have incorporated with the conference report.
As far as following directions, Nanci Bell’s Visualizing while Verbalizing book reads like a cookbook. Very easy to follow. Once your child gets used to the activties, you can incorporate some social senerios in to your paragraphs and stories.
At my clinic, we have had luck with some of the above ideas. Good luck to you. Eileen
P.S. You may also think about a low key drama class or Reader’s Theatre Class.
Try the Special Needs board at http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/special/index.html
and also the Special Needs board at http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/special/index.html
to connect with other families.
Nancy