Home educating our Autistic Spectrum Children

[Brook]

Hi all,

 

I bought this book about four months ago, its called:

Home Educating Our Autistic Spectrum Children.

Edited by Terri Dowty & Kitt Cowlishaw.

 

It does not tell you how to home educate, it has many personal stories from

people who either have or do home educate their autistic and aspergers children.

It gives many accounts of 'why' they do/did it, and also offers some advice about

the Law on home edding, what you can expect from an LEA visit etc.

 

I found this book very interesting reading.

 

Brook

[mom on a mission]

hi brook,

ive not read the book yet but i have ordered it from amazon a few days ago i allso orderd home schooling the child with aspergers (or somthing along them lines) i ordered them to see if they give me some insite into home schooling as i think we will be starting to home educate or son due to the lea wanting him to go to mainstream rather than staying at the special school he currenyly attends, glad you found it interesting i hope it gives me insperation and the confidence to go ahead and deregister my son.

[Rabbit]

I've been home educating my son who is 9 and has ASD for the past year. I didnt want to do it but was forced into being a home educator by my LEA. I refused to remove my sons name from the school register because I knew that once I did that, then his educational needs would become my responsibility and as far as I was concerned my son was entitled to be educated within a suitable educational setting and it was the LEA's duty to provide such a setting.....they couldnt do that....so I pulled him from school.....got the GP to sign him off from school on medical grounds and then managed to secure a Link Education teacher paid for by the LEA to come to our home three mornings a week to teach him.

 

Finally after many long and heated battles (and I dread to think how much money we lined our solicitors pocket with) the LEA awarded J a placement at the local Special School.....so no more home educating for me from Sept

 

 

I loved every minute I spent watching J's self esteem improve whilst he was being home educated....BUT it was blooming hard work. I never had a minute to myself during the day and the days just seemed to be so long!!!

 

I would suggest that you look at this site to help you with your decission to home educate http://www.education-otherwise.org/

 

and I wish you all the luck in the world if you decide to go ahead.....it really was most satisfying and so very rewarding.

 

HTH

 

Rabbit

[Tez]

Hi Brook,

 

Yes, I've read the book. It was interesting to read about the many varied reasons why people decide to home educate their autistic children and reassuring to hear how successful they all were at it.

[Flora]

Hi Brook, I haven't read the book but probably will (when I can make time). However, I have done alot of research in to home educating and definately think that for many ASD children it is the best option (sometimes the only option).

 

I was poised to home educate my 11 yo AS son, but as the school and LEA have provided us with the option to allow him to repeat year 6 at junior school (there's a long history to this but briefly... he originally started school one year later than normal as we'd been living in America...then he changed schools in year 4 when we moved down south and the new school moved him last September up to year 6 instead of year 5... big mistake). However, even though he has now been moved back a school year I'm still prepared to home educate when he's due to move up to secondary next year if I'm not satisfied that the move is going to be appropriate.

 

You can click on the 'my website' link below which will take you to my website. On the links page there are many links to home educating websites, and loads of other links leading to useful info on other topics relating to ASD.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Lauren

[Brook]

Lauren, what a great webpage

 

Brook