Welcome To Homeschooling With Special Needs

When I had my first child 12 years ago, I knew I wanted to homeschool her. I began homeschooling when I was 11 years old, and I saw how greatly that change impacted my life for the better, so there was no doubt in my mind that, that is what I wanted to do for my own daughter.

At about 4 years old, I realized that my daughter was on the Autism Spectrum. This fact just solidified my desire to educate her at home, due to the many struggles that exist within the public school system for children with special needs. However, a few years back, I realized that she had even more struggles to overcome. My daughter has learning disabilities.

What Are Learning Disabilities?

Typically, the most common learning disability you hear about is Dyslexia, but there are so many more. The classification of a learning disability is "a problem that affects how a person receives and processes information" (WebMD). So, some of those disabilities can be:

• Dysgraphia
• Dyscalculia
• Dyslexia
• Central Auditory Processing Disorder
• Visual Processing Disorder
• Dyspraxia

I'm sure there are more that I don't know about, but these are the "basics" in my mind. My daughter has 4 of these learning disabilities, and she was diagnosed with the first one at 8 years old. 

How Does Homeschooling Help?

When a child has a learning disability, they absolutely are going to "fall behind". They will struggle way more than others, and it can lead to some serious lack of self-confidence. However, when homeschooling, they have the ability to work on their level. Whatever that level may be. They have the ability to take more breaks, try out different curriculum, and just generally explore what works best for them.

I struggled greatly with trying to figure out how to best teach my kids, because they require a way of learning that I didn't require growing up. But, through so much trial and error, we are finally getting into a groove of things, and it's been amazing.

I genuinely hope that the information you find here can help you successfully homeschool your special needs kids, because education should be teaching them a love of learning, and not just memorizing information.

Welcome to Homeschooling With Special Needs!