Comparing Differences Between Verbal and HFA Sons

My two sons are on opposite ends of the autism spectrum with totally different personalities. They both are in Middle School. One is homeschooled with the other in special education. One is verbal and one is not.

My son Matthew is 12, in special ed with an aide. He is nonverbal, not toilet trained, drinks only rice milk and has a limited diet. He is on an anti psychotic called Geodon. He gives good eye contact, screams and yells a lot and bangs the walls constantly. His finger prints and marks are evidenced on the white walls. He is a sensory seeker, loves to play with strings, belts and ribbons. You can hear him a block away.

My son Nicholas is almost 14, homeschooled, obsessed with the cat and perseverates on animals. He is high functioning with some social deficits and going through the puberty stage with his voice cracking and catching up to me in height.

These are the obvious differences, but in the home there are some that might surprise the average person. The computer is in the kitchen giving me an open walkway to the living room to see where Matt is, plus the bedroom is off to the right before the table here so he goes in and out there.

He follows me around the kitchen - I cannot sneak anything out of the refrigerator without him noticing and looking in my direction. He is fascinated with the whip cream can that I use to spray into my mouth at times. No one else in the house uses the whip cream but me for my hot cocoa or ice cream. I have to open my mouth so he can see what is happening. The same is true when I remove my dentures to clean them and he all of a sudden is at my shoulder trying to get a glimpse of my mouth.

He helps out quite often in the kitchen. He will stock the rice drink containers in the cabinet, pull apart the string cheese and place on shelf, he will get out the butter and salt when requested and can distinguish between maple and chocolate syrup. He will put away the egg carton and when done eating his fast food fries will shake out the paper bag into the garbage before disposing of bag in the paper bag for recycling can outside.

If he uses the last paper towel he will toss the cardboard roll into paper bag and retrieve another roll from under the sink. If he cannot open it he will hand it to me. Nicholas will toss out the empty roll but not attempt to get a new one out for the next person. Nick will not tear the string cheese apart but lay it on the shelf. Nick still gets confused between two paper bags in house in opposite spots. One is for the recycle bin and the other is to take to get money for recycling since we pay a fee at the store for these.

Matthew gets five cases per month of Huggies Goodnites. They are delivered and left in the living room and we bring them into the kitchen. Matthew will carry a box and drop it on the floor or on island table and try to open it. He will hand me each diaper bag to place in a top cabinet where I stand on foot ladder. He helps in tearing down boxes.

Sometimes during the day while I am cooking I will forget it is Nick and ask for things and he is not receptive, plus usually either doing school work or playing with the cat.

Matthew knows where everything is in the house. Each morning I ask for a washcloth to wipe his face and hands before we leave to go wait for bus. He will put videos and books back where they originated. He is all about order and very organized. He drops the jacket down as he enters the house, goes in bedroom and removes his shoes and puts back in spot, grabs out his homework and gets a crayon to scribble on homework page before handing back to me to place in backpack.

I need to teach him to remove his socks the correct way and not inside out. His aide is working on teaching him how to zip his jacket and we discussed tying shoes this morning.

These are just somethings that make them unique in their own way.

PE Activities for Homeschoolers

My 13 year old son who is high functioning on the autism spectrum is in seventh grade. We are utilizing California Virtual Academy, known as CAVA and utilizes K12 curriculum. This is our second year with CAVA. Prior to this Nicholas was in Elementary School in general education with just RSP consult with teacher.

We are doing CAVA for the Middle School years since it is our hope that he will get accepted into The Los Angeles Zoo High School Magnet, although it is College Prep. He wants to work at the Zoo and looking forward to reaching the age you are allowed to volunteer.

This year we will be visiting the Zoo on a monthly basis. I hope to get him a nice camera to take photos like animal photographers do out in the wild. He also likes to visit animal sanctuary websites and Humane society sites. His two main interests are Dinosuars and Cats - big and little cats. He did a report last year on Jaguars that he is very proud of.

The focus of this post is on PE Activities. CAVA has a form parents need to fill out and turn in each quarter, know as the Physical Education Activity Log. Students are required to complete an average of twenty (20) minutes each day. The teaching adult is responsible for completing and submitting the log.

These are activities that are structured, organized and supervised, like participating in an athletic class, dance class or sports team. Activities like bicycling, hiking, jogging or calisthenics are listed as examples.

We have an Exercise Bike from Sears that Nicholas started using last year, but with the September heat here in Los Angeles that is not comfortable. There is also yard work that is done once a week using the Craftsman Reel Mower. I cannot get him motivated to go down to the lake for a few laps, which is what we did last year on the way back from dropping Matthew off at school.

This year the bus picks up Matthew so we can go before 7:30 AM, but many bring their dogs and he is afraid of many of them. There is also a stench down there from the trash and the birds, etc. I had to put my membership with 24 Hour Fitness on hold due to the cost not within my budget at this time.

He is not interested in sports at all. I thought maybe some sort of DVD showing kids exercising might be good to alternate between the bike, outside and walking. I am looking for feedback from other homeschooling families on how they incorporate PE into their daily routine. Also ideas from other autism families on what types of exercise their young teenagers participate in, sports and extra curricular activities.

I would like to do an article on my autism site on the topic of PE and sports. It is a topic I have little experience with my boys and would like links to reviews on DVDs for all age groups and posts from blogs on this topic to include for resources within the article.

At summer camp this year Matthew's class went to the high school and ran around the track. The teacher mentioned to me how fast he was and wanted to know if I was looking into Special Olympics. Than the other day at school Matthew's assistant took pictures of him on the track and said he was really good and mentioned Special Olympics.

Nicholas has a friend from summer camp who swims and is in Special Olympics. Anyone who has a kid in the Special Olympics and has written about the experience is welcome to send me or post the link so I can add that to my article. I was already looking into the Parks and Recreation Services here in Los Angeles. Matthew already has a long day with bus time, so I need to see about weekend offerings in the area. We would probably need someone to assist and that would be through the Regional Center, but with California in a Budget Crisis and funding non existent that is highly unlikely.

Reminder - if you have any input to add about PE activities for homeschoolers or specifically for a kid (tween, teenager) on the autism spectrum, please leave a comment with details, link to post, blog, etc. I am working on an article and will include your link and also feedback for Special Olympics would be helpful as well.