Autism and Flexischooling

A Shared Classroom and Homeschooling Approach

Clare Lawrence

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781849052795
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857005823
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Index: Psychology

A growing number of parents are considering part time or 'flexischooling' as an option that might benefit their child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but face concerns such as: Is it possible? Has anyone tried it? How can it be set up? Above all, does it work? This book answers all these questions, and many more.

Covering both the home and school angle, it explores ways to evaluate whether the option is right for your child, organising the arrangement effectively with the school and ensuring that curriculum and examination goals are met, and also includes case examples of successful part time schooling at both primary and secondary level.

This is the first resource of its kind to bring together all of the information needed for both parents and schools to consider the merits and disadvantages of this approach, and to evaluate it as an option for individual children.

Part 1

A Consideration of Flexischooling

Chapter 1

Why Does Flexischooling Work so Well for the Pupil with an ASD?

Before we look at this question, let’s see why school itself is such a challenge for the pupil with an ASD.

For a start, it may be important to say that I am not ‘anti school’. I am, in fact, a teacher and I understand schools and appreciate how hard the professionals involved in them work. I believe that most teachers do a wonderful job and that there have been terrific strides made over the last ten years or so to better understand and meet the needs of children with an ASD. Supported by dedicated and increasingly experienced Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs), teaching aides and learning-support assistants, teachers are doing a great deal to make school a more welcoming environment for children with an ASD. I have written a number of books suggesting ways that schools can be helped to ‘make sense’ for the pupil with an ASD, and I firmly believe that this can and should be done.

On the other hand, it is always going to be something of an uphill struggle. So much of what school actually is makes it a very challenging place for the child with an ASD. Schools are noisy, busy places. Children are taught in groups, and thinking in schools tends to be around groups, not around the individual. This is understandable: the system allows for only one or possibly two adults in a classroom of perhaps 30 or more children. The 30 need to be dealt with together if the system is going to work. There is little leeway for the one child who does not join the group, who needs to go off by himself, wants to read when the others are singing, or needs to repeat out loud when the others are working quietly. A great deal of work on including the child with an ASD into the school is on finding ways of getting him to join the group. Will he come and sit at circle time if he has his own mat to sit on? Can he join the line if he is allowed to stand at the back? Will he be able to manage singing practice if he can wear headphones? Can he cope with lunch break if he brings an item connected with his special interest with him to distract him from all those people milling around?

These are all good strategies and many will work, but the question must remain to be asked: is all this work on persuading a child to join the group really going to make much difference when, by diagnosis, he is not a group player? All of these strategies are designed to desensitise to stress, or to find ways to make the confusing more comprehensible, and there is a place for this in the education of a child with an ASD. The ‘real world’ does involve many of these situations…but never again to quite the same degree. How many adults sit cross-legged in a massed group singing, unless they choose to do so?

On the other hand, school does give an opportunity for the person with an ASD to try out these situations with some support to hand. One of the disadvantages of full-time homeschooling for the child with an ASD is that group situations such as these can be totally avoided, and so the opportunity for developing strategies to cope with them may be missed. Many adults with an ASD have their options in life severely restricted because they feel they cannot manage crowds or noise or being trapped in a group situation. What school can do – at its best – is to provide these opportunities but with a ‘safety net’, so that individuals can develop strategies that work for them and so have access to a full range of activities and situations into the future.

It is also undoubtedly true that the decision to take your child completely out of school and home educate him full time is not one to be taken lightly. It involves a massive commitment of time and energy, and you will be working largely on your own. True, there is a growing number of home education groups but since the reasons to home educate are as many and as varied as the people themselves, it may be that support around your child and your issues may be hard to find. As far as ‘mainstream’ support goes, by choosing to home educate you may be largely cutting yourself off. This can be a lonely experience and such a step may be more than many parents are prepared to take.

Perhaps one of the hidden advantages of flexischooling over full-time homeschooling is that the child with an ASD, who then becomes an adult with an ASD, will still accumulate some of the shared experiences that are the currency of growing up. ‘Where did you go to school?’, ‘Didn’t you just hate geography?’, ‘Who was your favourite teacher?’; so many of us assume the common childhood experience of going to school. Without this experience, the person with an ASD, who may feel distanced from society and from other individuals already because of his condition, may find himself even further adrift. If you don’t go to school, you miss that shared experience. If you do go to school, whether that is all the time or just for three mornings a week, you retain your understanding of what so many other people are going on about!

So why else is flexischooling an option so worth considering for the pupil with an ASD? Is it simply that it still is school, but not for so long? Is it because it has the advantages of a home education, but again without the full-time intensity? It combines the advantages of a shorter time at school (but still some time) with a longer time at home (but not all), and may just result in something that truly is the best of all worlds.

A shorter time in school

At its most fundamental, this is the great strength of flexischooling. School becomes a less intense issue simply because there is ‘less of it’. The total immersion nature of the usual school experience is lessened, and the whole experience becomes less all-consuming. Many issues that would usually cause flare-ups and distress can be managed, because much of the intensity has been taken out of the situation.

The child is less exhausted socially

Your child is likely to find the challenge of decoding social expectations, constantly interacting socially and generally ‘fitting in’ with the rest of his peers exhausting. What comes pretty naturally to the neurotypical (or non-autistic) child is a tremendous challenge to the child with an ASD. In order to manage socially he is going to have to use a great deal of conscious effort, and will not be able to rely on subconscious instinct in the same way another child might do. Working out what others mean, what he is expected to do and say, what is implied and what he should infer – all these take enormous effort. Social success depends on getting these things right. The child who is in school part time has a greater chance of being able to focus – hard – on these things for the shorter time, and, by getting them right, of achieving a higher level of social acceptance.

He can concentrate on subjects enjoyed and be a success

Perhaps your child is good at, and interested in, science. Perhaps he is a natural musician or a talented artist. Perhaps he enjoys solving mathematical puzzles. All of us tend to enjoy what we are good at, and flexischooling allows the pupil to pick and choose subjects he is better at, or with which he is more comfortable. Even if he does not show a particular flair for a subject, there will be some things that suit him better than others. As a general rule (although by no means always), children with an ASD struggle with sports options, especially those involving team games. Many children with an ASD are physically uncoordinated and this, together with difficulty ‘reading’ the social cues of a team game, can make sports very difficult. Others may dread drama, with its element of ‘let’s pretend’ and unreality or find a foreign language difficult when they already struggle to find the right words even in their own tongue.

Flexischooling allows a tailoring of the at-school curriculum to better suit your child. This does not mean that he should never try the subjects or areas he finds difficult, but, it does mean that there can be some sensitivity around exposing him to too much challenge, too much of the time. More challenging subjects can be introduced gently, during his 1:1 home time. Meanwhile, by allowing him to concentrate his efforts at school around where he is most likely to succeed, it is possible to ‘weigh the dice’ a little in his favour and help him on the road to success.

Potential problems are averted and flare-ups avoided

This ‘weighing the dice’ means that the child with an ASD need not be exposed to experiences that he simply cannot handle. Sometimes these will be individual experiences (attending crowded assemblies, for instance, or joining in with whole-group singing or music-making) and sometimes they will be cumulative. A pupil might enjoy the first part of the day, and manage to ‘hold it together’ during morning break, but by midday might simply be overwhelmed and exhausted. This is the point at which he may snap and put himself into a situation which is simply unacceptable. The child who resorts to hitting or spitting, lashing out or running away may quite simply have run out of other options to express his distress. Incidents like this have a long-lasting negative effect – on the teachers who are on the receiving end, the pupils who are involved, other staff and parents and most of all the pupil himself. It is far better to find a way to give him an ‘out’ before it gets this bad. If he knows that he will be out of school in just an hour’s time he may well be able to ‘hold it together’ for that time until he is able to self-repair at home.

Misunderstandings can be unpicked and repaired

Sometimes, problems will still occur. If everything that is said and done needs to be consciously scrutinised and interpreted it is not surprising if sometimes the pupil will make mistakes. These may be relatively simple (mistaking a room or a teacher, for example) or more complex (such as misunderstanding a series of instructions so that his behaviour is inappropriate or he appears defiant). Very often a pupil with an ASD may appear unwilling to comply simply because of misinterpretation. If, for example, he has been asked to go to Mr Black’s room and is found in Miss White’s room, the natural response may be to give a penal mark or whatever sanction the school uses. However, what is needed is the time to dig down to find out why he is in the wrong room. Does he know where Mr Black’s room is? Do both parties mean the same thing by ‘Mr Black’s room’? (Is he, in fact, looking for the room where he last saw Mr Black when the teacher meant the room where Mr Black is now?) Has another member of staff given him conflicting instructions since, perhaps found him in the corridor and told him to get to his English lesson without waiting to find out where he is heading in the first place?

Sorting out even simple problems like these takes time, and time can be a scarce commodity in the busy life of the school day. The neurotypical, non-autistic child will usually be vociferous in pointing out unfairness, but the child with an ASD may lack the communication skills to make his case clearly or calmly, and the ‘unfairness’ of what is happening may well overwhelm him. With flexischooling comes time to sort out problems, as they occur. If your child is only in school for the morning session it is possible to find out if any incidents have occurred during that time and try to get to the bottom of misunderstandings straight away. If he is in school all day the incidents of the morning are likely to have been submerged by the incidents of lunchtime and the afternoon and before anyone knows it the child is mired in confusion and resentment.

Behaviour can be more ‘normal’ leading to greater social acceptance

If your child has to cope with the challenges of the whole day by himself he will have to self-repair in any way he can. Unfortunately, the way that a person with an ASD looks after himself can be exactly the reason that he gets into difficulties. Perhaps he hand-flaps or sucks on his sleeve; perhaps he monologues about his special interest; perhaps he seeks solitude to go into his inner world but by doing so leaves himself open to being targeted by those Professor Tony Attwood (2007, Chapter 4) calls ‘the predators’. The very things that the person with an ASD does to relieve the pressure of coping in the socially demanding world of school are the things that lay him open to social ridicule, rejection and danger.

The person with an ASD should never have to pretend to be ‘normal’: there is nothing to be ashamed about in having an ASD! His ways of coping and managing his condition, if they work for him, are valid and to be respected. He should be allowed to do as he wants, to pursue his own interests and pleasures, as long as they do not infringe anyone else’s rights. However, in society in general, and in the society of school in particular, to do something different from the norm is to be ‘odd’. Social acceptance relies on fitting in and being seen to be the same as everyone else.

The ideal is that he manages to behave in a ‘socially acceptable’ (i.e. neurotypical) way for the time he is in school because he knows he will have access to his ASD behaviour, if he wishes, when he comes out. As soon as he is back at home he may go off into his inner world, may drive you insane by talking on and on about spaceship sightings or perform all manner of complex body movements or rituals. All are fine – they are his way of coping. They will be serving a purpose, for him, and as such should not be stopped. It is just safer and more acceptable if he can learn the trick of not doing these things at school.

Bullying can be addressed and avoided

Bullying is a serious issue for the child with an ASD. Most schools will tell you that they have a policy to deal with it – that they have it under control – yet so many adults with an ASD report terrible misery during their school years because of the words and actions of their peers. Pupils with an ASD, particularly those at mainstream school, are at increased risk of being bullied (Little in Attwood, 2008). Fifty-nine per cent of parents of children with ‘high functioning’ autism or Asperger syndrome in a National Autistic Society (NAS) survey said that their child had been bullied (Batten et al., 2006). As well as name-calling, ostracising and excluding, physica...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• A Note on Terminology
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1 A Consideration of Flexischooling
• Part 2 Flexischooling in Action