Re: [VerbalBehavior] Re: homeschooling

[Guest guest]

Bobbie,

I am assuming you mean home schooling in the traditional sense, though

maybe you mean doing a full time VB program at home? Either way, I have

been a home schooling parents for many years, off and on, more on with my

middle kid who does not have a disability.

My son, Isaac is a bit older than your child, and he has been in a home

program a few times, and at times we had staff doing ABA and fitting in

community and recreation to round things out and generalize and at times it

was a lot more like home schooling, because of the lack of staffing, etc.

When I don't have staff, and when I am organized and try to keep busy and

so on, with best intentions we pick a couple objectives from an IEP or keep

a couple goals in mind and focus on those, because I'm only human. There

was a period of time for a few months last year that Isaac had four to six

hours of DTT by therapists, and occasionally zero, and that left a great

deal of the day and week open.

We read a lot of books, and we made simple snacks and practiced following

simple directions. We went on car rides to places, and continued O.T. twice

a week. For a while we did speech therapy, but she was only available

during the summer.

I took Isaac to the library, the stores, the mall, and he went to the

Science Musuem several times. He went to the zoo a few times, and once or

twice to a working farm.

He watched too much Sesame Street and Zoom, and he viewed his beloved

videos all too often to give me a break. He is unable to initiate or stay

with a constructive activity on his own, so he requires total supervision,

and attention. Either that or we have a stim fest in short order.

Fortunately, he loves going places, so I dragged myself out of the house,

and we also went hiking in the woods once or twice a week when the weather

was decent, and decent took on a whole new meaning home alone with Isaac

for days on end. Rain didn't stop us, but hail did.

I home schooled my eldest for a while, and my middle kid has been home

schooled almost her entire life and she is seventeen now, so I am used to

the home schooling life, but autism adds an entirely different slant.

Jennie