Homeschool World Forum

[ardeur]

I formerly worked as a special education teacher. I saw a lot of children who were diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, ODD, Aspergers, etc. Many of these children flourished under the one-on-one, personalized instruction we gave them.

I am curious... have any of you ever had a child in public school who was labeled with any type of learning or behavioral disability, only to have those "disabilites" disappear once you took them out of public school and gave them instruction at home?

Don't get me wrong, I know some children DO have very real disabilities. I saw this on a daily basis. But on the other hand, I also saw many of these same children do a complete 180 once their learning environments changed.

[elliemaejune]

I did not, but I have many friends who did. In particular, I knew a mother in the Fairfield area whose 10yo dd was severely developmentally delayed; she'd been in special ed since she was 2yo. The mother had been told that her dd would never read, never learn to tell time, never learn...anything. So she started hsing, and by the end of the year her dd was *reading* and telling time and so much more. The third year she enrolled her dd in CLASS--*not* special ed material but "regular" materials. The mother told me she alternated between being ecstatic and angry--ecstatic because of how much her dd was learning, angry because the poor child had been in *special ed* for 8 years and all those professionals had not been able to teach that child to read.
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Married to Mr. Ellie for over 30 years
Mother to 2 dds and 2 dsil
Grandmother to 1 sweet boy
Caretaker of 2 dear kitties, 1 French bulldog, 1 dachsund, and 3 budgies

[tinky wink]

As a special educator and a former HS mom, I believe that I can answer that. Some kids are never going to read unless someone can sit with them 1-on-1 and work with them every day. The chances that we will ever have that kind of resources in a public school are very small. We do manage to divide them up into small groups, but sometimes that's not small enough, b/c special ed kids are all so different in their needs. Let's say we have a group of 3--one may have autism, one may have dyslexia with AD/HD, and one may have moderate developmental disabilities. Then the teachers are kept extremely busy writing IEPs and keeping up with that paperwork, and meetings and etc, and there's not a lot of time left for your child. At the end of a day, we all feel terrible about what we haven't been able to accomplish, b/c we know that the kids aren't getting enough of what they need and there's not a thing we can do about it. If I had a special needs child right now, I'd be HS for sure. After all, no one knows your child like you do.
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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Mark Twain

[WImami]

My child was labeled ADHD in public school and kept that label for 2 years until we tried a virtual public school. Once it was one on one, me and him, he did great. They always said that he couldn't sit still and stuff, but you know that's pretty common with kindergartners haha. Anyways, now we are 3 years after the first diagnonsis and I cant get the kid to put down books to get active. Not that Im complaining too much, really.

[dkocur]

Our oldest had several learning disabilities due to epilepsy. In the middle of 3rd grade we took her out of PS. Despite all the school's special ed classes and tutoring (yes, one on one tutoring) she still could not read at that point. After three days... yep, after just three DAYS of homeschooling she was reading. Like elliemaejune's friend, I was both elated and angry at the same time.
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David Kocur
UberSmart Software