De- schooling Autism
“If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”
by Richard Solomon MD, FAAP
September 2020
Everywhere you look in the news now, there’s an article about the return to classes in the fall and the chaos that COVID 19 is causing school systems, parents, children, and teachers. In my developmental and behavioral pediatric practice, the chief complaint from my patient’s parents who have a school age child (beginning at age 3) with a developmental disability, is: “My child is NOT able to learn online!” And it’s true; children with developmental disabilities, especially those with autism, do not learn well by sitting in front of a computer (unless it’s playing their favorite video game!). Learning exclusively online is hard for so many children but it is especially hard for children with special learning needs.
So, if you are a family where the parents must work outside the home; or are one of those parents whose schools offer full time, face to face schooling; or if you have children who learn well enough online, then this blog may not be of interest to you. But if you are a parent who can work from home or have a stay-at-home parent available, whose child had a terrible time learning when COVID shut down normal schooling in March, and your child is facing online classes again as a primary form of learning, you may find this blog helpful. I have included a link to educational TV, a link to school advocacy for your child, an example of a de-schooling ‘routine for learning’ from one of my families, and some great social stories from the Autism Society of America related to the pandemic.
If your child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way he or she learns. I will call this alternative way of learning ‘De-schooling Autism’. My focus in this blog will be on pre-school and early elementary school students with autism but this idea of ‘de-schooling’ has important implications for all students, even those without special learning needs.
Back in the 70’s (I’m showing my age!) there was a book that influenced me deeply, by Ivan Illich called De-Schooling Society. His basic ideas were: A. That education should be self-directed rather than compulsory, B. That human growth and curiosity cannot be quantified by tests and grades, and C. That children learn best in natural environments and mixed aged groups. The de-schooling movement he created resulted in developments that include the community bulletin board where learners connect with music teachers, art classes, classes on cooking and farming, etc. Now we have TED talks and Masterclasses. Illich’s belief in community, non-compulsory, family and child centered learning has been informing my recent advice to families who are consistently telling me that, for their child with autism, online learning ‘has been a disaster’.
Before I advise parents to give their child educational m&m’s (meaning and motivation), let me talk about the emotional distress I’m hearing about from my parents. I’m referring to anxiety and guilt. Nearly all my patient’s parents are anxious about meeting the educational demands that the schools are making on them and they are worried sick with anticipatory guilt, that their child will ‘fall behind’ if they don’t do what the schools expect. To reduce this anxiety and guilt, I have been encouraging families, a la Ivan Illich, to be a little ‘rebellious’, and feel free to NOT follow all the rules of the schools. I tell them that there is a lot they can do to educate their child in a way that makes sense. I wave my hand and hereby absolve all parents of guilt! I believe firmly that we can successfully educate our children at home by teaching the way children learn!
This comes as a big relief to a lot of my parents who, like most parents, are rule followers. I remind them that learning is supposed to be fun and that they can take advantage of their child’s natural curiosity and inherent drive to learn, based on their child’s functional developmental level—at home. I want to make it clear here that I am not denigrating schools or traditional education at all. I am suggesting ways to help children with autism learn under these difficult and unprecedented pandemic circumstances. Here’s my 3-pronged approach to setting up your home based ‘de-schooled’ learning plan:
First, and most importantly, focus learning on what your child loves—teach the way they learn. I call this the ‘stone in the pond’ approach to learning. The stone is what your child loves. (There is only one exception to this rule: limit non-educational screen time. Though your child may love videos, YouTube, TV, movies, etc. this will not be a source of learning and must be limited to 1-2 hours per day.) When you throw the stone in the pond the waves ripple all the way to the edges. These waves are expanding what your child loves into broader and wider ‘waves’ of learning.
For instance, if your child loves trains (the stone), support them in learning more about trains (the wave in the pond) by going on a trip to watch real trains and take pictures or videos of them as they come down the track; or go online to see the different kinds of trains (educational screen time is okay!). They could draw a train and learn about shapes that make up a train. They could learn, if your child is higher functioning, about how trains work or how the first trains delivered goods across the country which would lead to an understanding of geography. These waves in the pond can expand to include all of knowledge because all knowledge is connected. By using the ‘stone in the pond’ approach, you will also be discovering what your child is able to learn. One of the biggest mistakes in the education of our children is demanding that they learn what they are not capable of learning. I divide this process of learning into three categories: easy, kind of hard, and too hard. When schoolwork is too hard, children won’t find learning fun; we bang their little heads against ‘the IEP wall’ which only gives your child an educational headache. Most learning activities should fun and ‘easy’ or, at worst, ‘kind of hard’.
Second, cherry pick the educational goals (also known as the IEP—Individualized Educational Plan) you want your child to work on. Connect your de-schooled home learning to regular school by deciding which of your child’s IEP goals is ‘easy’ or ‘kind of hard’. Eliminate the ones that seem ‘too hard’. As a general rule, the main IEP/educational goals for early school age children can be achieved in a couple of hours a day (not 2 straight hours but 2 hours total) of focused learning, so your child won’t ‘fall behind’. Your child’s IEP goals should be appropriate for your child’s functional developmental level—lower, middle, or higher functioning. Often, they include the meat and potatoes of education namely, the traditional academic basics of pre-school readiness (numbers, colors, shapes, matching, etc.) or the 3 R’s (reading, (w)riting, and ‘(a)rithmatic) for the elementary school age child. WARNING: Many children with autism are not ready for any academic work as it is ‘too hard’. So, the focus for these children should be on pre-school educational goals like interaction, imagination, and play to promote their developmental and social progress (see ‘Educational Activities’ below).
So, pick and choose which IEP goals you want to work on. Parents ask me “I can do that? The school will let me pick and choose which IEP goals to work on?” I tell parents that they have a lot of power by law when it comes to their child’s IEP. I encourage parents to think of school as a restaurant, with the curriculum as a menu, and choose the educational food their child likes and needs to be strong and healthy educationally. The one big legality is truancy but if parents communicate with the school about their well-developed educational plans to ‘teach the way their child learns’ during this pandemic, parents will have little to worry about legally. Be a little rebellious; think ‘de-schooling autism’! (For a quick article on advocating for your child in the school system see: https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/working-with-childs-teacher/parent-advocacy-steps)
Third, after you have discovered what your child likes to learn and picked the educational goals to focus on, then create a routine of learning (see example below). Here is where parental workload, the COVID 19 pandemic, and the educational demands of your child intersect. Make fun a priority and keep it simple so as not to create a lot of stress by being too ambitious.
Note: Before parents establish a routine of learning, they must be in the home with their child. This is not possible for parents who must work outside the home and barely workable for many two working parents who can work from home and must balance work and education.
So, an idea that is circulating on social media is the notion of ‘educational pods’ where families get together and share the responsibility of teaching children. Ivan Illich would be smiling because ‘creating community’ was central to his notion of de-schooling. Creating learning communities with relatives (especially grandparents), friends, neighbors, and other parents who have a child with autism or special learning needs takes effort, planning, scheduling, coordination and, most importantly, matching the children in the right way. But it can be done. For children with autism, this is especially important.
The schools do it all the time. They have what are called ‘self-contained classrooms’ where 5-6 students are taught with one teacher and a helper. If you cannot get your schools to do this during the pandemic (and parents are getting this to happen through self-advocacy!), then you can design your own ‘self-contained classrooms’ within your community. It is not easy, but it may be a better option than placing your child in daycare where there may be little engagement or education; or keeping your child at home in front of video games or other screens all day.
Okay, so you have A.) Focused on what your child loves, B.) Picked IEP educational goals that make sense, and C.) Planned a routine of learning either at home or, through community collaboration, with other families in the same situation. Now it’s time for m&m’s—meaning and motivation! So, let’s finish this blog with what that routine of learning might look like with a schedule of educational activities that pre-school and kindergarten age children with autism will find meaningful and motivating. You must organize your learning around the child’s functional developmental level—lower, medium, and higher functioning. Set up your de-schooled home curriculum so it is ‘developmentally appropriate (easy/kind of hard)’, ‘fun’, ‘meaningful’ and ‘motivating’ Let’s throw that stone into the learning pond.
Here is a simple schedule of two of patients of mine—Abby and Amelia, twin girls with mild autism spectrum disorders and medium functioning ability—whose amazing mom gave me permission to share her approach. As you will see she did a lot of initial planning. Dad worked virtually at home and was not able to be involved with the girls throughout the day though he did have lunch with them. Mom was not working outside the home.
Developmentally, though they were 4 ½ years old, the girls were still at an early pre-school level. They understood the simple wh-type questions like ‘what, where, and who’; they spoke in 2-3 word sentences; they loved to collect and hold little Disney characters, especially Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder, and they enjoyed playing simple pretend. They also enjoyed drawing with magic markers. Their sense of time was poor as they could not recall what they did yesterday or predict what was going to happen later today. Education had to be focused on an immediate appeal. The main rule was that ‘School comes first, no screens!’ They were close enough in development to teach them together. Their public special education pre-school offered online teaching, but mom let the school know in writing that she was going to ‘pick and choose’ what they participated in from school. I’ll give part of the schedule and then make comments on what makes the schedule meaningful and motivating.
Schedule (with pictures):
7 a.m. Wake up and play (Picture shows a girl getting out of bed with the sun shining in the window—these images are easy to find online.)
8 a.m. Get dressed for ‘school’
8: 15-9 a.m. Cook and eat breakfast, clean up, and brush your teeth
9-10 a.m. Pick a fun activity from the ‘Learning Box’.
Each item on the schedule had a picture that showed what was next. The schedule itself was educational and gave order and predictability for the girls. Getting dressed was important as it gave the message that home was like going to school. Even breakfast became educational! Cooking meant finding the box of cereal and the carton of milk and bringing the bowls to the table and ‘being momma’s little helper’. This mom pretended that the bowls were happy to have cereal in them which the girls found funny.
The girls were excited to pick from the ‘Learning Box’ each day which was basically the same 5 learning activities, with pictures, that mom knew would be fun. In short, she gave the girls learning m&m’s, cheerleading them on when they focused, problem solved, and finished activities. Interaction and fun were high values. Compliance is always a challenge for children with autism who ‘just want to do their own thing’. Mom gave a clear message by her attitude that once an activity was chosen, it should be completed.
Here are some Learning Box educational activities for Abby and Amelia:
- Music: Listen to nursery rhymes that required imitation (e.g. head shoulders knees and toes)
- Crafts: Cutting and pasting to make pictures for daddy
- Read a book
- Coloring shapes
- ‘Mystery Activity!’ where the girls could choose what they wanted to learn
Once an activity was picked, that would be the focus until it was done (This was a ‘singing’ rule. Mom would sing to London Bridges: ‘Let’s get it done and let’s have fun, get it done, let’s have fun, let’s get it done and let’s have fun, My Fair Lady!’). But flexibility was important. Mom said she would change activities if there was a consensus but not easily. Interestingly, she used the twins’ resistance to an activity as an opportunity for interaction and discussion and recognizing feelings as they worked out disagreements. Children with autism need to engage in interaction as an educational/IEP goal. Brilliant mom!
10:00 to 10:30. Short break for a snack of fruit and free play where mom allowed the girls to ‘do their own thing’ but joined them when it seemed the right thing to do.
10:30 to noon it was time for an ‘Outing’.
- Nature trip: Collect leaves and flowers and bugs and learn the names.
Regardless of your child’s functional developmental level, he or she is going to love getting out of the darn house and move their body outside in nature whether this is in the yard, the park, or the woods. Even getting in the car and going for an outing is better than being stuck inside. Just make sure it’s educational. So, Abby, Amelia, and mom would go into the nearby woods and collect leaves and flowers and bugs in a box and then bring them home.
12-1. They had another (short) cooking lesson and lunch with daddy acting like the customer and mommy and the girls like the servers. They would set up their dolls and ask them what they would like to eat and do ‘Pretend Restaurant’. The girls came to love this routine and learned a lot about food preparation with lots of engagement, interaction, and imagination.
1-2: They got out their collected items from the woods and learned the names of trees, flowers, and bugs. Then they let the bugs go outside. Mom would show them a Bug’s Life on the internet which they found meaningful and motivating. The waves were rippling out.
There are wonderful learning shows on television for most school aged children that are very entertaining like Sesame Street, Octonauts, Wildcrats, or Daniel Tiger. Here’s a link to educational shows on TV: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/educational-tv-shows-for-kids
Last but not least, there were books. The girls loved books because their mom had always been a big believer in literacy from the time they were born. She didn’t read the books in the beginning. In fact, Amelia in particular only wanted to flip the pages and visually stim on how the pages looked as they flipped by. But eventually the girls began to enjoy labeling the pictures (as the pages flipped by!) and mom learned to not ‘read’ the books because, developmentally, the girls were not developmentally ready for ‘reading the story in the book’. So, mom focused on the ‘story on the page’. Now, the girls actually like the story in the book but reading the book word by word caused them to lose interest, so mom makes it flow and makes it fun, meaningful, and motivating—book m&m’s.
I hope you found this blog on de-schooling autism meaningful and motivating. Abby and Amelia’s mom admitted to me that it was exhausting at first (the first year of teaching is the hardest) but soon she developed ‘a rhythm’ and found a number of resources online for crafts, games, musical activities, etc. She said she just reminded herself that as long as she followed the principles of de-schooling: making learning playful and fun, developmentally appropriate, not too hard, meaningful and motivating, and expanding on what the girls loved (stone in the pond), she was confident that she would address the girls’ learning needs by teaching them the way they learned best. Here are some wonderful social stories from the Autism Society of America to help you and your child during these difficult times: https://www.asgno.org/covid-19-social-stories-by-the-autism-society-of-america/