The nonverbal child
Many of us came into this journey of homeschooling in a far different way than others. It was not a plan from the start, the way we were raised or even a desire from the beginning to do something different. We are on this journey out of necessity. There are children the public system simply fails. In most instances the nonverbal severely delayed autistic child is very rarely ever successful in the public-school setting. And affording private school is not typically the answer for these children either. Homeschool becomes the only safe and reasonable option for them in most cases. But it’s hard. It is a hard that cannot ever be truly understood by anyone but another parent in the exact same boat. It’s a boat that doesn’t really float. It takes on water every single day and the task of offloading all of the weight before it sinks can be daunting.
But, we can support one another. I am creating my preverbal (He is starting to talk so no longer nonverbal) son’s curriculum as I go. I will be sharing all my ideas, all my lessons on the resource page links. I will blog his progress with the lessons, and I will blog our failures. We will have guest bloggers do the same. Even if you are not up to blogging if you have a particular incident, anything related to educating your child. Not just those with autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, ID and any of the various other challenges to schooling you can email me your story, and I can post it anonymously to share with the community.
Every school year is a new beginning. Every day we can start fresh. If we fail today we can still succeed tomorrow. I will be as detailed as possible in all lesson plans. ANY items I use will be free or be something I bought using EFA funding. This way all lessons are fully accessible to all student in the program that need to utilize them. Keep working. I have two other level 3 ASD children ages 23 and 25, even if your child never meets other people’s goals, they can meet their own. You can help them get there, and on the bad days, know you are never alone.
