BellaOnline Forums Education Homeschooling Special Needs Homeschooling?

In many states school services such as speech therapy (as well as sports, music, advanced sciences, gifted classes, etc) are offered to all students in the district per THE LAW, even the home educated. Pressure to enroll them might be there but I think it depends on the therapist. The school itself can pressure but won't have as much individual clout on a parent as the actual therapist.

It's a shame private insurance doesn't cover more services like this!

and Samten, I know you..you will antagonize the school in order to get your son what he needs, not for fun (ok, not solely for fun, LOL!)

Meg

Samten,

Also, i know Michael really didn't start speaking until around age 3, and he didn't have any physical limitations on his speech. It's just that some kids on the autism psectrum are slow to speech - so this may not be a thing to be overly concerned about. (We have enough things with kids on the autims spectrum to be overly concerned about!) <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

It's hard to know sometimes what is supposed to be happening when; when you have a child that doesn't follow the "norm".

I wanted to ask Bry's speech therapist the difference between the two for a two-year-old before I replied. This way I will at least look like I kinda know what I'm talking about <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

For those of you like me who are going "huh?" my son's speech therapist explained that the big difference is Language trouble is when it is when the child has trouble with his receptive language. He/she doesn't understand what is being said to him. Speech is where the child is unable to reciprocate (omg did I actually spell that correctly?) verbally.

Bry is unable to articulate the sounds needed in order to talk. He has less then 25 words he uses regularly. Even with those few words he is now able to mix them so that his meaning is somewhat clear. At least to immediate family members.

He understand perfectly listening, however, is a different matter.

Samten,
I have and am homeschooling special needs children. I have 5 and have only had one with no LD. At present I am hsing my 11 yr dd who has Inattentive ADD and my 13 yr old dd who has Asperger's and OCD. Two of my oldest had the same. Ironically my only son never had one LD! My 13 yr old has tactile sensitivity but doesn't attend therapy of any kind. In Texas, spec.need hs'ers may use therapy but not extracurricular activities such as band or sports. But the therapy offered in this county is poor. It also seems to give the county the false sense of security that they can require about her education.

We've sued; we won but now we don't even attempt to use their therapy. My 13 yr old is high functioning however and between my OT sister and my Phys Ther. past work experience, we do a lot of her therapy at home. I did the same with her 22 yr old sister and now she is in college. So apparently something worked!

Aviv,

This is so OT, but I love the Susan B. quote you have at the bottom of your signature. How true!


BTW - We are in our 1st week of HS with Michael, and it seems to be going well (how bad can it be after only 2 days, right?) I'm not using any "curriculum" so to speak, although I am ordering a math system (because he will outstrip me so fast on that it is not even funny) and I am going to order a language system, too (Spanish) because I think it will do him a lot of good in the area we live in.

But since I was a surgical tech and have pretty good knowledge of the human body, we are starting with Human A&P, doing a LOT of literature (Romeo & Juliet right now), some practical home economics (like home budget, check book, credit cards, cooking, grocery shopping & budgeting) I want him to be able to function on his own one day!

Am I setting myself up by not using a set curriculum? (Am I asking this in the wrong section?) <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

NO!

If your goal is to help your son become self suffient one day (a great goal) then you are doing more to help him then the PS could do by having him is a classroom book learning 7 hours a day.

Learning to write a check will help him more in life then listing the presidents of the US in order.

Actually, Terrie, this is not quite accurate. Many districts do true speech therapy. Both my girls have had 1:1 speech therapy in public schools since age 3 in both Illinois and Massachusetts. I think a lot has to do with what the district can accomodate for funding and services. But, speech is technically different from language developmentally.

I have to say that neither of my girls speech issues would have improved without speech therapists - it was beyond what we could have done at home.

Also, I'm finding in practice many kids are labelled as "speech and language delayed" who are very normal. There is a wide bell curve for normal language development and speech intelligibility. Sometimes time does the trick.

Many large medical centers do have speech therapists that are covered by insurance. Many folks are not aware of that.

I have two daughters, both of whom went to state or private schools. The older would have been classified by many, but not by herself as multiply handicapped. before she went to high school we had a dry run as the school were worried that she would not be able to cope physically - she was about half the height of her peers and had a degree of deafness. She did not recieve extra help in class but her progress was carefully monitored with reviews every fre months.She came through with flying colours and has recently obtained her Batchelor of Science - without any extra help. She thrived at school - not just with the work but socially - something she would not have done in the sometimes overprotected world of home schooling.

Maggie

I have some of the same sensory problems as my son and a communication disorder. I am also (to my disadvantage in public school) extremely bright.

My sensory problems were misdiagnosed as ADHD and because of that I was put on all different medications non worked. I still couldn't cope with my sensory problems and because of that I was labeled a "problem" and "problems" were not allowed to take the advanced classes. So I spent twelve very long years bored out of my mind being forced to stay seated when I have a medical reason that I couldn't.

Because I was bored I stoped caring. Learning was no longer fun. I still have trouble getting my self to start learning something new.

I spent my entire time in school telling the teachers and anyone who might listen that I can not learn in the regualar class set up. I do not understand concepts when the teacher is standing at the front of the room explaining them. I need to read and ask questions about certain points and then do the "busy work" to reinforce what I have read and learned. Doing the work at my own pace was not allowed. I was told that people can't learn that way. I figured that since people can't learn that way then I must be stupid. When I realized I was stupid I stopped trying and started getting in trouble. In the begaining of 8th grade I managed to get thrown ou of regular classes and I was put in the Behvior Disorders class. The teacher let us do our work on our own because their were kids of different levels. I finished my years work in 3 weeks- something that should have tipped them off that I was not ADHD but didn't. That I could do all my work on my own and in an extrely short amount of time was completely lost on the school and I went in to high school in the regular classes again bored out of my mind.

2 years after I graduated high school I found that I was able to function better after I did certain things so before each work day I would head to the company fitness center and flip, climb and do whatever else. I did fine sitting at a desk for 8-9 hours. I did the same with every other class I have taken since and I do fine.




I'm afraid I don't know what the overprotected world of homeschooling is.

If by that you mean my son isn't thrown into school at age 3 and forced into a mold then I guess it is overprotective.

If you mean HS don't get out and see the world and learn to deal with people in the real world like they do in public school then I have to say you don't have a clue what your talking about.

Every homeschooler I know doesn't have friends because they are within a few months of their age and they met in school. They have friends of all ages who have similiar interests. I have seen homeschool kids better able to carry on a conversation with an adult (and people of any age) much better then their public school conterparts because they know that someone doesn't have to be their age to have a similiar interest. I have learned more about gardening from a 7 year old homeschooled student then a high school junior who is taking classes at the local career center in green house management.

If you are under the assuption that we stay home then you are mistaken. We do not stay home in fear of the outside world, we embrace it. My son may only be two but he has seen more of the cultural diversity of our area then any public school student will see from a text book. He has gone with me to hear the Choir at the Cathedral (He loves music.) He has watched the creation of a sand mandala by Tibetan Monks. He has been to the Vietnamese temple to watch the Lion dancers at new year. Just to name a few.

I actually have some professional background in speech & lang therapy as well as audiology (no, I don't like to tell people about it because I'm always asked by someone to diagnosis kids I don't know very well).

IMHO very rarely is speech therapy needed before the age of 8. many *speech* problems resolve themselves by the time a child is 9 when their face is literally bigger and their muscles more coordinated, especially if they are exposed gently to the correct pronunciation. One exception I have seen is a bilateral s. The other biggies like r/w substitution, th- or -th substitutions often resolve themselves and in themselves, when found alone and not associated with a biological problem, are not call for speech therapy.

Language therapy is *not* speech therapy and is often very beneficial to young children who have hearing problems, are recovering from hearing problems due to ear infections, are recovering from brain injury or surgery, have some kind of biological problem leading to a speech problem, etc.

There are other considerations that require earlier than later intervention, such as the child I studied in the early 90s. She was 6 and spoke as if she had a full cleft lip but she did not. Her mother, however, did have one that was left uncorrected. The child spoke like the mother because it is what she heard every day of her life. I would see this quite often, parents who didn't outgrow the r/w substitution, for example, have children who have the same problem simply because that is how they learned to speak. Last fall I met an entire family who spoke with the r/w substitution. The kids were older (9 & 11) and in public school so I'm not sure what the issue was unless the parent didnt want them in the therapy or the children were resistant due to outside peer pressures (I've seen that too)

All of that said, it also takes more cognitive ability to sucessfully complete these therapies than many people realize. Your child has to have the ability to remember and self-correct.

back to the original issue, do I think schools should actively be on the look out for kids with problems that are not in public school? No. I dont think the school needs to worry one little bit about what the non-public ed students are up to. It's not about accountability, that's just what the media, school supporters and schools want you to believe. It's never been about accountability, it's about numbers and money plain and simple.

Does it make a difference if 1 child who qualifies for services isn't served? To the school, not at all. Multiply that 1 child by the estimated 1.2 million homeschooled children and that is a HUGE amount of money lost.

I just finished reading an advanced copy of a book everyone interested in this thread has to buy when it is published. It's titled "The Mislabeled Child" by Brock & Fernette Eide.

I won't spoil it now because I'm about to release my official review. All I can say is read the review that I will get up in a few minutes (it's currently 1:40pm EST 8/9/06) and pre-order this book if you have EVER had a child diagnosed with any kind of learning difference/disability/ADHD/whatever!

Meg