home schooling, occupational therapy and how to combine the two

Hello. Today is my first post on the blog - so a brief introduction and my plans for this site are probably in order. I am a first and foremost a Christian mom that home schools her only child, who has mild sensory integration issues! I am second, a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, who has a vast array of experience working in public school settings, private schools, and with children who are home schooled.

I have been pouring over websites and home school magazines to get a feel for the "Special Needs Home school Community". There is a ton of information that seems to have suddenly appeared on the home school scene. I am thrilled to see all the amazing stories of parents who have made the commitment to home school these AWESOME and Unique gifts from God.

I remember looking into this subject about 5 years ago, and found very little in regard to homeschooling special needs children. When I first attempted to venture into the "home school arena" with Occupational Therapy, I must admit that was met with a great deal of resistance. At the time, my daughter was only one years old and I was not a "home schooler". Now that I am a home schooler, I understand the resistance to my involvement a little bit better. Almost all of the families that I have met in this venture have left the public school world behind and saw me as part of that world. The benefits that are available by consulting with an OT were clouded by the belief that one would be tied to the school system in some shape or form. So my initial purpose of this blog is to try to dismantle that belief. However after spending several days scouring through articles and websites, I realized that for the most part the belief has already been dismantled. YIPPEE....

There are so many HUGE benefits that an occupational therapist can offer to a homeschooling family. It may be for the family that has a child with Special Needs, ADHD, or Sensory Integration Dysfunction. It may be for the family that has a child that is having significant difficulty learning to read or learning to write. Many readers may be familiar with the program called "Handwriting Without Tears", which was created by an Occupational Therapist. So in this blog spot, I hope to discuss concepts for the homeschooler that may have been resisted in the past. My topics will at a minimum cover: Sensory Integration techniques, Handwriting concepts, Visual Perception Issues, Reading issues, environmental adaptations to the home school classroom, the child with ADHD, the child within the Autism Spectrum and more. I will also be including a variety of books and products for your review and consideration in your own home school classroom. I will also be included some of the great resources I have recently found on the web. I look forward to exploring this further and pray that my blog will be of some benefit to a family trying to decide if homeschooling their UNIQUE child is for them.

Stay tuned for more! I have just gotten started! Please let me know what you might be interested in seeing here!

Shelley

Until I have an opportunity to add specific products on this blog, please feel free to visit my site and click on the store!