A question about starting HE and ability

[streakybacon]

Sorry, forgot to add a subject heading.

This may relate specifically to autistic children being home
educated, I'm not sure, but please bear with me.

J was deregistered just before half term and is emotionally very
unstable as a result of what went on before. I'm not fully 'de-
schooling' because his autism (Asperger's) needs routine and
structure, so I'm having to be very careful about how much activity
and interaction with others I give him at present - his ability to
cope varies greatly day to day and I need to judge him cautiously.
At present I'm giving him a lot of downtime but also giving him
regular KS2 workbooks (a page at a time) to keep him in the habit of
routine schoolwork.

But I've noticed that his work is of a much poorer standard than it
used to be. J was always a long way ahead of his peers at his
previous school, quite gifted at Maths especially and being taught in
the higher group of the year above, and achieving well. When marking
the workbooks I'm finding that he's making lots of careless mistakes
and getting rather simple calculations wrong. I don't know if this
is a) because the emotional stress he's still clearly suffering from
is affecting his thinking ability, b) his academic standard has
dropped during his time at this school, or c) this is a normal
initial response to home education. Or is it a combination of all
three? And what can I do to help him get through this difficult time?

I'd be especially interested in hearing what other Aspie parents have
experienced in the early days of home edding their children, but of
course this could be a general matter and not specifically related to
special needs so all views welcome.

Thanks for listening!

[milou2]

My 10 year old has just been diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. I deregistered him in Jan this year due to his unhappiness with life.

Looking back I was clearly very unhappy and stressed too. We took things very gently, stroked the cat, ate nice food, watched unchallenging tv.

I regarded our house as our private haven, the equivalent of a nursing home or safe house.

I had to take my time, deal with the many issues which came up and continue to come up. Some are stress at school related, some are HFA related, and some must be bog standard pre-teen related.

One thing has helped me, going to a group counselling session once a week. I fancied doing it and it came at the right time. Now I feel the big need to have 1 to 1 sessions so I have altered from a group setting to individual sessions.

I could put so much more. There is a he special needs list someone linked me to....

www.he-special.org.uk then click on the JOIN HERE and our discussion email list section on the top right hand part of the web page. Joining that has helped me loads.

[julienoshoes]

I second that.
Join the HE special needs list and ask your question there Streaky, you will get a wealth of considered views from people who have been through what you are going through right now.

I can't recommend that list highly enough.

[streakybacon]

Thanks both. I've joined HE Special yesterday so will post there when I have time to come up for air! It's hard to get anything done at the moment as he needs full time attention, which is one reason why I feel I need to work on his emotional stability as a first priority.
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