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Thank you for all the ideas and comments from my last post. I am grateful to all of you.
One question that came up was why I would homeschool a little one Micah's age. Typically, with a special needs child you would enroll them into a headstart type of program once they reach age 3 and no longer a part of the early intervention program. With autism, I am quickly learning that the more helpo you give them at a very young age, the better they make progress. You don't want that gap between early intervention and school age to be left without some type of therapy or work.
We have chosen to begin working with Micah on the preschool-type activities, but incorporate the fine motor skills and such that he lacks. We are doing it in a relaxed setting, but it must be done daily to help him retain the information and skills learned. He quickly "forgets" new skills if not practiced daily.
Thank you again for the ideas. I am gleaning through them and working at coming up with more. We recently were notified that Micah is approved to receive SSI/disability funds and plan to use it exclusively towards his therapy & education. What a blessing it will be.
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Hi Paula,
I did not hear from you about whether you wanted more information about Montessori or not. I do not want to push it on you, but there is much out there. The yahoo group, Montessori By Hand has some actual Montessori teacher albums that you can upload, if you are interested.They are under links and are Meg's Box files, if you are interested. I think you could use much of this for Abby's lessons also. The albums are more than 100 pages each, and there are albums for Practical Life and Theory (in one), Language, Mathematics, and Sensorial. When I looked at these albums today, I thought that there are many wonderful ideas that you could use for little or no money. The language album talks about ways to develop vocabulary and pre-reading skills. Best wishes. Rita
I'm glad you received so many responses to your previous post that were so helpful to you. I wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that when a child qualifies for SSI they often qualify for benefits of various sorts through the state. My son qualified to receive educational materials and occupational therapy aids but we had to go and apply from them seperately. What is offered depends on your state of residence so you might wish to look around and see what's offered in your area. The best place to start is your local Medicaid and Foodstamp office--if you don't apply there then they can at least tell you where to go to apply for materials that you need. Now...if you can get your hands on these kinds of aids, realize it can take a while to get through the paperwork process and to receive the actual items so you should keep that in mind when choosing which items to pick out. If you stay with basic things that can be used in a few different ways you really can't go wrong.
Oh, I forgot to mention this on the other post so I'll put it here: never, never underestimate the benefit of getting some of his energy out before you try to get him to focus. Don't exhaust the poor child obviously, but if he gets some physical activity out before sitting down to focus in on a task he will gain much more from his experiences. The best bet for my son was to go outside and swing on the swings...and on colder days or when we just wanted to change it up a bit we'd dance around or use the little trampoline we had for inside (it was one of those things we ordered through the state). Best of luck to you.
I understand now why you would want to start homeschooling so soon. Makes complete sense! Good for you!!
Happy New Year~ Andrea
xoxoxoxo
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