Often children who are in alternative school settings, including home-schooled who have special needs, at least in the US, are still recieving therapies and services from the local school district and/or other governmentally funded services. The only children I have seen mentioned who are not doing so are those whose disabilities require compensation only in learning environment, such as children with ADHD, LD, and some forms of mental retardation. Since generally he only accomodation these children need is additional, one-on-one or small group instruction, and since homeschooling provides this innately, naturally these children can be well served in the homeschooling setting PROVIDED:
The parent has the patience needed to provide a child with the special needs education. Not all parents have this. My parents raised two children with special needs-I have cerebral palsy, and my brother is ADHD. My mother, who is a homeschooling advocate, has made the comment repeatedly that while she probably could have homeschooled me, she probably would have ended up abusing my brother if she hadn’t had that break-she needed all the patience she had just for the afternoon and evening hours.
For children with other disabilities, the difference in progress which can be made with appropriate therapies can’t be overstated. It is much more efficient for a speech therapist to see children at school, where many brief sessions can be done, throughout the week (which is often what is needed) then for the therapist to go to the children or for the children to come to the therapist, necessitating transportation. It’s simply not a cost-effective solution for parents to drive a child to therapy for, say 15 minute sessions daily, and it’s not as good in many forms of therapy for the child to have only one longer session a week. While parents can do a great deal of teaching themselves, and often have to learn a great deal with a special needs child, they cannot and should not try to be the speech therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist etc.
Basically there are few controls. We had some training which was designed for these homes (I work in a Res. Special needs education School) and it was horrible, how to get out of being strangled, hair pulls, thrown to the ground, kicked, thumped, jumped on, full restraints… you name it. I’ve only been kicked where I work and that was playing football – and an accident (you can tell). This is in fourteen years.
In general, the following information is usually included in the adoption home study: Personal and family background, Family configuration and childhood experiences of each adoptive parent, feelings about their parents and childhood, significant experiences for each adoptive parent; sibling and family relationships, past and present, Marriage and family relationships, handle stress; significant experiences within the marriage; history of prior marriage(s) and reason(s) for divorce.
The Special Needs Education Network is a service provided under the auspices of the SchoolNet project, a cooperative initiative of Canada’s provincial, territorial, and federal governments, in consultation with educators, universities, colleges and industry.
A majority of students are either physically or verbally abused by their parents. This is a common practice in their culture. The school has tried to hold education classes for the parents but can not force the parents (the ones that are in need of this service) to come and learn positive ways of dealing with their children. The parents are not in turn following any of the agreed upon IEP plans or behavioral contracts. It is a nightmare. The special needs education field is so new to these people.
Twenty-six Grade 6 students in the Late French Immersion program at Fairview Elementary School in Maple Ridge, B.C. are participating in a special initiative to encourage Canadian kids to “Follow your Dreams: Stay in School”. The students began the project by researching various careers that matched their interests and abilities. They decided that their career dreams could only come true if they stayed in school.