Homeschooling Special Needs Children Archives

Homeschooling with Special Needs: Sensory Overload

September 5, 2013 by Emilee Evans 97 Comments

In my last Homeschooling with Special Needs post I discussed Homeschooling Sensory Seekers. Having one child on the Autism Spectrum, two children with Sensory Processing Disorder, and having Sensory Processing disorder myself, it is just as common in our household to have the possibility of sensory overload. Unfortunately, this can trickle down from one of them to all three of them and myself as well. Then our whole day is compromised!
Sensory overload generally happens when there is too much sensory input be it sounds, touch, etc. I, for one, am quick to get overloaded easily by touch. Background noise can really bother me as well if I am really trying to focus on something. It’s easy for me to know what bothers me, though. It’s a little more challenging, though, to know exactly what will set off the kids. Their triggers aren’t really consistent, but we do the best we can. The best thing you can do is try to identify and avoid the possible triggers.

Noise

We definitely can’t have loud background noise. Soft background noise like classical music or white noise (like a fan) can be nice and therapeutic, but if there are other types of background noise it is almost a guarantee our daughter will have a meltdown eventually. It will start with covering her ears, and if it’s not stopped immediately she will start shaking her head and YELLING that she can’t think until she is in full meltdown. If I’m not in tune with the triggers I at least have that moment where I can see that something is bothering her before she totally goes into overload. Depending on what it is, though, depends on whether or not I can stop it immediately.
My husband doing dishes? Yes, we can stop that immediately.
Our 3 year old rambling on about nothing sitting right next to us isn’t so easy to stop. In fact, stopping him can lead to a meltdown on his end, which would escalate the noise and escalate our daughter’s meltdown! Ideally I try to redirect him before it gets to her or try to engage him in activity before we have this situation and hope it works!
Ideally, strive to keep noise to a minimum when at all possible to avoid a sensory overload.

Touch

Everybody has different sensory responses, so again you might need to be aware of what your or your child’s triggers are. Generally in a homeschool setting there isn’t going to be a lot of sensory input in the form of others being in their space and touching them, which has a major advantage. When we do hands-on activities we do try to give each other space while still having quality time because I, too, get sensory overload from “too much touch.”
Touch also comes into play when it comes to textures. You may have planned some really great arts and crafts projects or a science project that involves a substance that your child doesn’t like to touch. Encourage them to try, but don’t force them. Forcing them is surely asking for sensory overload. We always try to encourage touching and handling of different substances and textures. It’s a great way to include therapy in your homeschool day! Take cues from them, though, and if they are signaling that it’s too much it’s a good idea to move on before sensory overload occurs. I always keep a washcloth handy in case one of them decides they MUST wipe off their hands NOW.

Scent and Sight

We don’t usually have a problem with scent or sight causing overload though our daughter is really sensitive to scent. We do try to keep a pleasant scent going. You can even use beneficial essential oils!
For sight be sure to keep the lights at a level that is comfortable for everyone and try to keep background visuals (including people walking around) to a minimum as this can be a distraction. It may not make sense to those that don’t have sensory concerns, but for those of us that do, anything in the background – sights, sounds, etc. can be VERY distracting.

So what if sensory overload happens?

Well, only you know yourself and/or your children. Can you or they bounce back or is it best to call it a day? There are times that I know it’s better to just call it a day. I can usually bounce back from my sensory overload after a short break, but our kids can’t always do so. First, we take a break – 5 min, 10 min, 15 min – whatever we need. If they still are worked up after that time then I know it’s time to call it a day. They aren’t able to learn in that state. Sometimes we even pick it up in the evening! Find what works for your family and go with it!
My 5 Days of Homeschooling with Special Needs was meant to be part of a large blog hop by other Schoolhouse Review Crew members. Although my posts are coming very late, you can still check out the blog hop by clicking on the picture below! Many different topics were covered!

Homeschooling Sensory Seekers

September 4, 2013 by Emilee Evans 22 Comments

Day 2 of my 5 Days of Homeschooling with Special Needs is “Homeschooling Sensory Seekers.” Although our three children are very different in many ways they do all have one thing in common – sensory seeking. Our oldest is on the Autism Spectrum, and as you may know, many children on the Autism spectrum exhibit sensory related behaviors as well. His are fairly mild in the sensory avoidance area but plentiful in the sensory seeking area. Our daughter and youngest son both have Sensory Processing Disorder (I will be sharing a post soon on how Autism Spectrum and Sensory Processing Disorder are NOT the same) and both have sensory seeking and sensory avoiding behaviors.
I’m sure you’re wondering now if our days get pretty crazy. The short answer is “yes.” I have to be very in tune with what behaviors are present that day and work with them the best I know how. Sometimes one is having a high sensory day while another isn’t getting enough sensory input. So it CAN be a tough balance, but I just handle each day as they come. Tomorrow I will be covering Sensory Overload.

So, what is sensory seeking?

Sensory seeking happens when the person (I don’t say child because I have Sensory Processing Disorder as well – it is not limited to just children) isn’t getting enough sensory input. They will act “hyper” as some people may call it because they can’t sit still. They may chew on their pencil, kick their feet a lot, jump out of their seat often, draw all over their paper, and overall have a hard time concentrating. It can be exasperating, but instead of throwing in the towel we should look at ways to accommodate their needs and still make it through the homeschool day.
Every person is different, but I want to share some general tips we have found helpful for our household!

Change their seat

Many times movement can help with sensory input and still allow them to concentrate on their work. Instead of using a standard chair switch it up to something that can offer that such as: an exercise ball or wiggle seats. I also saw in a store recently a bungee chair. Even a rocking chair or swivel chair may be a good solution if you have one. The important thing is that they are able to move around easily without the need to get out of their chair often.

Take frequent breaks

We take a break in between each subject. Sometimes it’s simply a 5 min break or up to 15 minutes if that is what is needed. If I can tell one of our kids is in desperate need of sensory input I will suggest they jump on the trampoline for a few minutes. We have a small indoor trampoline that I got in the fitness aisle of a store, which was more reasonably priced than others I had seen, but it is still a little trampoline. We do also have a large one outside now as well. I don’t generally use the one outside in the middle of our homeschool day (though we will at the end for PE or just to play) because getting them to come back inside can be quite a hassle!
If you don’t have a trampoline available you can play quick, high-activity games that get them running and moving!

Provide other resources

Does your child fidget with or chew on their pencil? Our oldest son does this. Instead of replacing pencils a couple times a week it made more sense to give him things he COULD fidget with and chew on such as: fidgets, chew tubes, a chewable pencil topper, etc. That way he was still getting the input he needs without ruining the pencil and getting the materials from the pencil in his mouth.

Do more hands-on work

As I mentioned in my Homeschooling with a Chronic Condition post, it’s not always easy for me to do a lot of hands-on work depending on the day. Luckily, not all days are “bad days,” and a lot of hands-on work is the perfect solution when your child is in need of additional sensory input. Let them get dirty, make a mess, do their work outside, etc. You may feel at first it’s counterproductive, but you’ll learn that the more input they get will also mean better results on their schoolwork as well!

Have patience

The best way to tackle the day when your child is sensory seeking is to have patience. I know this can be a hard one because I, for one, am NOT a patient person overall. I find starting our day with Circle Time and prayer (and some at-home therapy) helps me to gauge their overall “mood” for the day. If I know one, two, or all three are having a day where they need additional sensory input I adjust the day’s plan accordingly and prepare to be patient.
I know you’re probably thinking “how do you prepare to be patient?” I simply change my mindset and expectations. There will be a lot of jumping out of chairs, yelling the answer, fidgeting, etc., unless I have fully utilized all the resources above, so I know to be prepared and not instantly correct with sharpness but rather with a reminder and redirection. If I discover I misjudged and needed to include more fidgets, then I do so. I also find praying that I will acknowledge that and move forward to have the best day we can really helps me to not overreact but respond lovingly and with consideration.
So where do you get those type of products? NationalAutismResources.com has a variety of products like the products I mentioned.
My 5 Days of Homeschooling with Special Needs was meant to be part of a large blog hop by other Schoolhouse Review Crew members. Although my posts are coming very late, you can still check out the blog hop by clicking on the picture below! Many different topics were covered, and I know you will find something amazing!

Homeschooling Special Needs Children – It IS possible! Our Story

June 25, 2013 by Emilee Evans 39 Comments

If you have a special needs child (or children) and are considering homeschooling I hope you will read through this post (I apologize mine is a little long) as well as the other great posts in this Blog Hop, which you will see at the bottom of the post and that you will feel encouraged and empowered! Homeschooling special needs children IS possible!

When I knew we were expecting our first I knew I wanted to homeschool. I actually knew that if I was blessed to be a mom I wanted to homeschool.
I am very blessed that I married a Godly man who is very supportive of homeschooling. There was hardly a discussion – more of a known agreement. God had really placed it on both of our hearts. We’re going to be parents! God is blessing us with this child (eventually, children), and it is our responsibility to raise them, which includes educating them.
It wasn’t based on anything we knew or grew up with. Neither of us were homeschooled and didn’t know very many people who were or who were homeschooling their children. We were excited to embark on the journey of parenthood and all the responsibilities it entailed nonetheless including their spiritual guidance and education.
Our oldest son was such a sweet, easy baby, and we were so excited to be parents. When he was around 15 months old we realized something wasn’t quite right. I was almost due with our daughter when we first discovered he had a definite speech delay and the first mention came up that he might have PDD-NOS, which is high functioning on the Autism Spectrum.
To be honest, we blew off the idea. He was a toddler! He was just frustrated because he had a speech delay, which is probably genetic because my husband had one. This is what we told ourselves until the behaviors escalated.
To make a long story short we went through a few more evaluations (and a few misdiagnosis) before there was a roundabout that came back to – you guessed it – PDD-NOS. Our son is on the Autism Spectrum. They say that with a diagnosis a little bit of your hopes and dreams for your child dies, but mine started fading in the evaluations, referrals, etc. Everything I thought I knew about our plans as parents, as a family, were becoming blurry.
Homeschooling? How? We had to request a disability-based move from two-story to one-story housing because I couldn’t control my child and my pain disorder and still feel like everybody (including his little sister) was safe. The feeling was overwhelming.

So, by the time he was 3 he was in a special education preschool class, and he did very well. Of course, I would get reports back about his typical triggers, but overall, it seemed to be really good for him with the exception of his bad attitude. I figured he was just cranky from no longer getting a nap.
I talked to his teacher who was wonderful, and one of my biggest concerns I expressed was how would I explain to him later on why his siblings were going to be homeschooled but he wouldn’t. Yes, I had made up my mind. There was no way I could homeschool him. He NEEDED that environment, right? It seems to be what so many people recommend and we’re led to believe. I took my focus COMPLETELY off of God and gave into my fears.
By the time Kindergarten rolled around God was using people he had placed in my life to speak to me and encourage me. Some were homeschooling children on the Autism spectrum, and they were telling me how much BETTER their child was doing since they were homeschooled. Some didn’t have special needs children but were just amazing, loving examples that shared their hearts with me.
I may have hardened MY heart to His Will, but they were listening and He was working through them to reach me. Would you believe I ignored them? I sent him to Kindergarten at the public school I was so convinced he needed. It was a nightmare. This decision that I thought was so right finally slapped me in the face as being clearly WRONG. I withdrew him from public school the second week, and we have been homeschooling ever since.

Not everybody will have that “A ha!” moment like me, and I pray they don’t have to. I pray that if you are feeling like I did – like you can’t possibly homeschool a special needs child – stop. Take a moment (maybe a long moment) and just listen to what God is trying to tell you. He may be talking to you through your friends or a nudging at your spirit, but consider the cost if you don’t listen.
I pray nobody has to have negative experiences to say “woah! this is wrong!” That is what it took for me, and that is exactly why I created this project. I wanted others to share their experiences as well. I want to encourage others before they hit that wall. Maybe you have hit that wall and you’re still uncertain. I’ll pray for you. Maybe your child still has a couple of years until they’ll be in Kindergarten but you’ve already made up your mind – I encourage you to open up again! You CAN do it!!
We are proof that you can homeschool special needs children. Yes, children. Plural. All three of our children have special needs. Our younger two children have Sensory Processing Disorder – as it turns out – so do I! Can you imagine the despair I would have felt if I hadn’t decided to trust God and homeschool our children. I would be homeschooling none of them because they all have special needs.
We’re definitely not the most likely family to homeschool. We DO have hard days. I have pain flare-ups still, the kids have hard moments and meltdowns, and my husband helps when he cans, but he has had cancer twice, so he has his bad days as well.
But do you know what? We’re doing it! The kids are happy and healthy and plugging along! Our oldest son’s behaviors have improved considerably since we started homeschooling. You see, what “they” said we needed was the exact opposite. He needs his parents who love him, understand him, and care about his spiritual life. He needs to be taught how to live out in the world, not in a class room with same-age peers. They all do.
There are things about our special needs children that we cannot change, but what we can do is pray for them, love them for who God made them to be, and learn from them. Yes, I’ve learned a lot from my children, and our whole family has been blessed by homeschooling. I pray we will be a blessing to yours as well.

In addition to the Blog Hop, some homeschooling moms with special needs children wanted to share some words of encouragement:
“Nobody cares about your child like you do. Being there daily to help them deal with all the challenges can make all the difference.” – Karen @ Harbor Lights
“When I took my son (high-functioning Autism Spectrum) out of school it was because he was small for his age, needs were not being met at school, and {he} would have been entering a middle school that would have been disastrous for him. It has been hard at times, but we’ve never regretted our decision. He has come a long long way with learning life skills and educationally too. We still have difficult days, but we just keep looking forward…..” – Susan G.
“Trust that God has a purpose for putting this desire in your heart and move forward with faith and prayer. You know your child best and no one else is more invested in his/her best interests and education than you are!” – Sara @ Embracing Destiny
“It’s very possible to homeschool a special needs child. No matter how bad you think your day has been your child has learned more that day than being in a classroom!” – Houry
“You may be on the fence about homeschooling your child but that all changes when you see your child’s face just light up because they finally start understanding and they get this look of I CAN DO IT! :)” – Sharon

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But it's Summer…

May 28, 2013 by Emilee Evans 10 Comments

Unfortunately our pool bit the dust between last summer and this one. It got a hole in the bottom, which is impossible to find. My father in-law got the kids a 14′ trampoline for the boys’ birthday, though, so we’ll have a new kind of summer fun this year! All of the kids have a bike this summer as well! Only one can actually ride one due to the developmental and motor delays our oldest has. Our youngest, who is three has a tricycle just doesn’t “get” peddling yet. I have a trailer on my bike, though, that seats two! So we’ll definitely come up with something! There is ALWAYS something we can do!

We’ll also be continuing our homeschool year through the summer. Oh, here it comes… “But it’s summer!” I know, I know. Well, I might have another week before I actually hear this depending on where the concerned party lives and what the typical school year is where they live. I honestly couldn’t even tell you when the schools down here get out. I have no clue because I don’t even follow it. I do know I’ve been seeing end of school year posts on blogs, Facebook, etc. from homeschoolers and those whose children attend public or private school as well. Why not us?
For one, we’re not done yet. Plain and simple. We’re just not done with the year yet! I learned A LOT this year, and it was very eye-opening for me. One of the main things I learned is that our homeschool doesn’t have to fit in a perfect little box. Realistically, it won’t. One of the reasons I love homeschooling is the flexibility! I can cater to our children’s special needs while ensuring they get the spiritual guidance and education they need. Some days they may need more emphasis on the spiritual guidance and life skills, and this is very important! Some days they may need a complete break, and this can be important, too, to avoid a complete shut down. This is ultimately what I learned this school year:

The traditional school year doesn’t work for us

The September – late May/early June school year doesn’t work for us. I keep pretty good records of what we’ve been doing through the year, and I even wrote this post about how it stressed me out when we were missing days for very legitimate reasons. I use a WONDERFUL app to keep track of projects, notes, grades, field trips, etc., and there were times I just about panicked when I saw we “weren’t on schedule.” One day, though, I finally came to terms with the fact that a traditional schedule just doesn’t work for us. At least not in this season of our lives with my husband’s many doctor appointments (some of which have been 3 hours away), the kids having therapy first three times a week (which changed to two times a week and has helped greatly), and the days we just needed breaks for health reasons (whether it be of the medical or social/emotional variety). I realized a large majority of days missed were right at the beginning, which means realistically OUR “school year” is from January to September, and our main “break” is October through December. Of course, I’m not setting that in stone, either, but taking a year-round approach and moving them up when they are ready, but realistically I expect January will be the beginning of our “new” school year most of the time – if not all of the time.

A full grade boxed curriculum doesn’t work for us

After all my anxiety about NEEDING a curriculum for 1st grade I learned after a few months it really wasn’t best for us after all. Having a guideline was great. Having a schedule was great. The Bible-based curriculum was great. The problem was our kids are at a higher level of Math but a lower level of reading than the curriculum. As you probably know, I was blessed to join the Schoolhouse Review Crew at the beginning of 2013. This has been a blessing in SO many ways, and I discovered so much about our kids’ learning styles and that they are on different levels in different subjects. I also learned that one of the great aspects of homeschooling is just because they may need a little more work in a specific subject (in their case – reading) doesn’t mean I have to hold them back in Math – in which they both excel! We have all been happier using varied curriculum according to their learning levels rather than one curriculum based on one set level for all subjects.

We need frequent breaks

And that’s OK. We need breaks in between each subject. We need a few breaks every couple of months. We need breaks if one of us is having a high sensory day (because chances are high that will trickle down to the rest of us anyway if we don’t take a break). We might need a break or have a more “relaxed day” if I’m having a particularly bad Fibro flare-up or headache or if I am overwhelmed sensory-wise because the last thing I want is to lose my temper and make it a bad experience. Sometimes these days are a complete “do nothing” day. Sometimes the kids will do school on the computer, which actually feels like a break for us, but clearly is not! As you’ve seen in some of my reviews we have had the opportunity to review some amazing computer based curriculum! The kids still get a great learning experience, and I feel like I get a little down time! We also do some “app schooling” as well. Again, there are some amazing educational apps, and we’re able to do this when we’re on the go as well. So although I feel like we actually “took a break,” chances are high we just did things a little differently that felt like a break. (And that’s OK, too!) 🙂
So, I won’t be sharing our school year wrap up in the next couple of weeks, and I won’t get to share the fun “first day of school” pictures in September. Last year this would have bothered me because I really felt the need to blend in. It’s hard enough to “stick out” as a homeschooling family – particularly a homeschool family with special needs! How much MORE will we “stick out” now that we won’t be going “back to school” in September? You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m OK with it. I’ve prayed about it as well, of course, and feel at peace. I have to remind myself that when I feel like I need justification I shouldn’t look at what’s going on around us but rather I need to look up. He knows our hearts, and He knows what is best for our family. If something so silly as not having first day of school pictures in September is more important than His guidance for my family or worrying about what others might say because our school year is “different” then I know I’m not trusting the One who has called me to guide and educate my children in this way. So another important lesson I’ve learned this year IS to trust Him more, to talk to Him more when I have doubts and turn to the One who has blessed me with this calling. It has turned that anxiety and fear into peace. And so, I’m happy to continue homeschooling through the summer, and the kids are, too! I have no doubt our summer will be a blast!
Linking up! I’m linking up with some great blog linkups! Be sure to check them out!