Question for other moms of special needs kids

I don’t have experience with a child like this but have you looked at setting up workboxes to help him be more self-directed? Basically, you would give him a set of play activities to do and as he does them he would move a velcro number or picture from the bin to a card marking it finished. When his card is filled up he’s done for the day. You could mix in breaks, snacks, etc by having a card for each. There are lots of alternatives to the traditional shoeboxes for containers, so don’t let her original idea limit you there. We’ve used shoeboxes on a rack, magazine holders on a shelf, and hanging folders in a crate before. All were great ways to lead my children to working a few things more independently because it was simply ‘do the next thing’.

If you need more information or examples google “workboxes special needs” and you’ll come up with a ton of ideas. Or just PM me.

What about alternating the concentration and fine motor skill learning with active movements (using it almost like a reward).  Perhaps 10 minutes of lesson time, then 20 jumping jacks.  When one of my children was learning addition, for example, we would do one math problem at a time — then she could run up/back our short hallway… as she got older I would ask her to do two problems first, and so on.  To keep it fresh, we alternated between the short run, jumping jacks, pushups and other things she enjoyed.

Two items that helped us were a mini-trampoline (used in the above scenario) and an exercise ball.  The ball was used for one child to sit on, since she just couldn’t sit still.  Being able to “rock” as she sat helped.  One of my children still, to this day, has a hard time concentrating on school work — books of any form.  But if I read to her and give her a “fidget” item — coloring, puzzles, etc — it helps.  But I have to go in short burst or she gets distracted and starts imagining stories with the items, LOL.

One more thing that really helps is making the school work into a game.  For us, we create our own file folder games using a favorite stuffed animal, book or cartoon character, then drawing, cutting out or finding clipart of that character (or characters) to use on our game board.   The gameboard path can be made with shape stickers.  Small playing pieces can be made — or use a race car, or My Little Pony, etc.  There are lots of websites and email lists that give great ideas or even have games all ready to print.  Have a few “question squares” (or different colored spaces) where you use a game card (flashcards, or homemade question or skill cards….. such as “cut out a star”) — ANYTHING you want to make the game to be.  One of my children STILL learns faster this way rather than traditional drilling and repetition with her math.

Every child is different, but I hope some of these ideas help!

Hi

I have a 10 yr old boy with SPD, diagnosed at 6.  I am feeling your frustration!  I started homeschooling after learning of his SPD in his first grade year at public school.  I know this may be hard for you (it was for me) but realizing that the running, moving, digging is actually soothing to him and he needs it may help.  My son could swing or bounce forever on one of those bouncy balls with a handle.  If he can do something for 10 minutes that is a long time for him to be still.  My son has to pace constantly and talk and just MOVE all the time. If he can’t he will act out or misbehave.  I can see it coming a mile away!  He is just getting to the point where he recognizes it in himself and knows what he needs to settle down a little.

I had to learn to ease up a little.  At 5 or 6 or even 7 he may not be ready for much.  My son really didn’t start to play on his own until maybe 8 or 9.  He still cannot do school work without my sitting with him and being very specific.  My teaching style, of being super organized and scheduled, did not work with SPD.  What I did and still do is short lessons (even as short at 5 minutes) then something stimulating and soothing for him.  For my son it was the bouncy ball or the trampoline or digging as well.  I don’t try to do many lessons in a day.  At 10 he is doing maybe 3-4 subjects a day with a total of about 2 hours.  Focus can be hard for SPD kids and fine motor skills take time and growth.  At 6 my son could barely write; now he writes his own stories.  His handwriting isn’t great but I don’t focus on that right now because his hands still cramp up and I don’t want to squash his love for writing.

Take your time, don’t worry too much, and keep it simple.  Use what he likes and try to turn it into a teaching moment.  Use the digging in the dirt to learn about rivers, dams, water.  Reading to him is a great thing as well.  Try reading to him while he is doing something else like coloring.  I know my son had a lot (I mean A LOT!) of problems with transitioning from one thing to the next.  So that is why we only do 3-4 subjects or activities a day, maybe even less than that.  Maybe you could try fewer subjects or projects.  One last thing, remember that what may be unproductive to an adult may be a learning experience for a child. 

Hope it helps.

At age 5, if he works with his art supplies for 10 minutes before stimming, that’s probably tremendous for your child. My son used to sit and rock when he needed to, and frequently. I have read (or been told) that stimming is really a response to an overwhelming world full of too many things he can’t control. The repetetive, highly active stimming helps them to focus their thoughts, feelings, senses into one repeated set of motions and leaves them feeling that they are controlling something, especially their bodies. It also allows my son to temporarily shut out the many sensory goings-on in his world. This is what he has described to me….it’s been a long time coming, since he couldn’t tell me why he did what he did when he was younger.

My son also banged his head quite a bit. He doesn’t do it often anymore, but when he was younger–wow! We were worried about his poor head. I read in one book (don’t remember which one) that the author said both she and her son had sensory issues, and they often suffered pain (headaches, migraines, joint pain, etc.) from the overwhelming noise that was really just everyday noise to most of us. Her son banged his head often and she came to realize that it was really the pain of banging his head that helped to shut out the pain of the sensory disorder.

For my son, time has been a big help and a big healer. When I would look at his progress over a school year or just several months, it was hard to see much, especially in the early years. But looking back from age 13 to those early years, I see tremendous growth. Is he “caught up” to his same-aged peers in everything? No, in most things he’s still “young” and in a few things he’s far from 13. But, having wondered if he would ever read beyond sounding out C-V-C words, I am thrilled to see and hear him reading a simple book about the history of NASCAR or tackling Henry and Ribsy a few pages at a time.

I would be patient, very patient with your son. Give him direction often, praise him often, and slowly you’ll be able to stretch out the self-directed play times. Oh, and did I mention that my sister stopped buying my son Hot Wheels racing sets as gifts because she was so frustrated that he kept taking them apart and just playing with pieces of track in no way related to cars or racing? I have discovered that, over the years, he just liked to have odd pieces of toys he would carry around, and slowly he began to tell me what he had decided they were used for. (Maybe one day, a piece of track was a telephone; another day, it was part of a fence to keep zoo animals inside.) He still drags around “pieces-parts” of toys, but if you ask him, he’ll tell you what their purpose is for this moment.

Oh, and this past Christmas, his dad finally bought him a terrific Hot Wheels set that has six lanes and lets him set up six cars that race downhill and the electronic finish line tells you the winner. He plays with that thing for a good 20 minutes at a time, keeps track of which cars are eliminated, determines a grand prize winner, then folds up the set and stores it away all by himself. Never thought I’d see that! There is hope, and progress is measured in small units over longer time periods with these kids.