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Today my son was dg with HFA with Aspergers tendencies . I've always suspected that so it wasn't a surprise.
We are using LHFHG with him ( almost 7yo) and his sis ( 5yo). It seems to be working for him. He enjoys memorizing verses but the storytime books are way over his head as well as the history book .He does listen patiently but when it's time for questions he is totally clueless ... He has auditory processing and does very well when he reads by himself vs when I read to him .He is an excellent reader (I'd rather say decoder) as he can read anything but his comprehension is at K level. He is also VERY visual and learns better from picture books which we are using a lot .

I am planning the curriculum for next years. I would like to know how does HOD work with a child in the spectrum, particularly Aspergers , as they are very visual and concrete and don't understand stories but prefer non-fiction material. Well at least mine does I would like to hear from anyone who has a child in ASD and using HOD from Bigger & up and how did it work for them .

Also, I am very interested if DITHOR would work for him since I am planning to buy it to use with my typical language lover 8yo and it would simplify my life so much if I could use it for both

I don't know but I'd like to hear more about your son. I wonder about my daughter at times and her pediatrician told me the concerns I mentioned were flags but she was too young (will soon be 4) to do more than wait and see.

You just described My DD1. Except her therapist won't put labels on her so we have "Spectrum Issues" instead of Aspurgers.

Narration is very difficult. A few things we do to help her cope in her black and white world.
I draw a stick figure picture (On a white board, a page, a napkin anything) as I'm reading the storybook out loud. She is allowed to look at it for visual clues to help her narrate.
I always cover This is the beginning. This part is the middle. This is the end.
Also I model... model.... model... what narration should sound like. Do not let them get away with Memorizing sentences from the story and presenting them as their narration. My DD does this trick some time it works some times it is just Funny!! ha ha ha as they are sentences picked at random... lol

I used to get so freaked out is she retaining??? did she listen??? and didn't want to Model the narration prior to hers so I could be sure she is comprehending and listening not just parroting back what I said. But I have figured out with everything going on She may need to hear it, see it 500 times before it clicks. So the more I show her the more of that I fill in.. for the one day it clicks.

For stuff she is to do her self Now that she is 12, she can write a key word per paragraph or draw a picture at the end of each page to help her remember.
I have 2 videos on the HOD fan group on Face book http://www.facebook.com/groups/FansofHoD/ down on August 16th. You can see how literal she is (She describes the ocean as "The salty water"). One is CM narration (sort of), and the other is conversation style.

Our Therapist has us using a different reading program. That is much smaller bites of reading, and we do conversation style narrations. The ND sees narrations of stories as away to develop the life skill of conversation that can be difficult for aspies. So its ok to prompt them and lead them a bit as one would do when seeking information they have to share.
I have to say If you use DITHOR in conjunction with other children and he gets to go last, it might be ok as he can see what his answer is supposed to look like. It could work and you can tweak it to fit him.

Another thing she has us do is visualization... you ask the child to close their eyes and you read the book having them imagine themselves in the scenery. This works great with the small square science books. I have much better success with her remembering stuff this way.

And I have found books on tape 20-40 min a day did more to increase her comprehension than anything else we've done. And its so painless too! Some times I would record her story time segment on a tape player and have her listen to it again and again.

I like the picture of my child's brain my therapist gave us. Picture a filing cabinet full of information all neat and organized.. That is your brain.
Now picture a child's treasure box full of "stuff" now mix in messily a set of flash cards, and grammar rules, ripped out pages from a book all jumbled in with the treasures. that is how his brain is right now... He heard the story but his ability to access it is sporadic unless its a "treasure" like star wars (for my dd1) , or as you said Non fiction books. The information is in there it just needs help to get out. You would be amazed how many times my child has during dinner randomly blurted out stuff she learned 2-3 years ago that I though had gone right over her head. It's in there!!!

I know I would have more "success" grade wise if I switched to a text book format. that would please her black and white, right and wrong, world she lives in... But the Charlotte Mason approach is growing her and stretching her and I believe it is the best way, to help her be the best she can be. It is preparing her to function in the world.

Hope that helped.

THANK you Tansi. Your post is very helpful and encouraging .

I expect narration will be difficult . Right now he just remembers bits and pieces from Reddy Fox , I think he memorizes sentences as you said , but he doesn't get the whole idea of the story.
Since he is already reading great, I am using Pathway Readers instead of a phonics program . He has to read a short chapter , then I ask him to narrate.He is able to do it most of the time . I try to implement things I've learned from Visualizing&Verbalizing and it seems it has helped him a little bit with narration.

I have some concerns looking at the future guides . That's why I wanted to hear from other people with similar dc. Right now all I can think is that there is no way he will be able to do that ! I know I should trust the Lord who lead me to this curriculum .

I tried to look at your videos and I found your posts on FB , however , there is no link for the videos. Would you please post them or PM ? Thank you.

grrr I wonder if my privacy settings controlled by my hubby are to blame. I'll pm you

My 12 yo ds has Asperger's and nonverbal learning disorder (another challenge on the spectrum.) He also has cerebral palsy, but the Asperger's/NVLD is by far the greater disability.

We are new to HOD this year. His siblings are doing Revival to Revolution, Preparing, and Beyond. I was going to put him into Preparing with his brother, but after it arrived I knew that there was NO way that it would work for him. Then I considered putting him in Beyond with his 6 yo sister....but even that was not a great fit. He has a really high IQ and a huge knowledge base so in some ways Beyond was way too easy....but in other ways it was way over his head (the more abstract/prolem solving/ thinking skills.)

So after a lot of thought, I am not using HOD with him. He is doing Abeka for science, health, and history. Not my style, but he LOVES it because it is structured and predictable and pretty concrete. Answering the questions in the text is wonderful practice for him as his reading comprehension is not great at all, and putting a sentence down on paper is tough for him too. He is doing Pathway readers and workbooks (again, the stories and questions are very concrete.) He listens to Storytime with his 6 yo sister and loves the HOD books but doesn't really "get" them I also have him reading a mix of the books from Beyond and Bigger just for extra reading. But I don't require him to process them at all.

So...that's what's working for us right now. I love HOD so far and so do my kids. I'd love to use it with everyone but it just is not a fit for ds right now. Maybe if we had started from a young age it would be different....

Jen

Exodus4 - spiderman''s mum has a ds who has Aspergers, and I think any of her posts are wonderful to read! She has been using HOD for many years. Here are a few I found, but if you search under her name, you'll find many wise words of advice and encouragement...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7499&p=54741
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7499&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6990&p=50874
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6908
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6751&p=49237
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4498&p=33054

HTH!
In Christ,
Julie

Ive PM you Exodus4. I got a bit carried away and I had so much I wanted to chat with you about-I couldnt fit it all into one PM
Just wanted to say a few things online here too
Narration
1] Children with ASD -can not grasp Theory of Mind.TOM is understanding another persons thoughts .They assume you know what they know.Nathan will evry often tell people a story about Hannah without telling them who Hannah is,or explaining its his sister.He assumes they know what he knows-so asking for a narration can be tricky because Nathan would assumes I know information.
2]Nathan is deeply logical.His reasononing would be Why answer?
I used Lego stuffed toys and finger puppets for Thornton Burgess.Initially he would act out the story as I read it-we gradually moved on to him 're- telling after I finished a paragraph-then onto a chapter.Now I use themed colouring books-Dover ones are great.He colours while I read.
Blu tac,-thinking putty ,exersize balls ...can all help him to listen-strange as it may seem.

3] Nathan can not filter out background noise.If I need him to listen -it has to be quiet.Its 1000 times easier now Stanley is not a toddler.

As with most things with Nathan Im going for Progress.If I can get him two steps along the way-even if thats 2 behind everyone else.Im doing great.

Tansy, you are a wealth of information. Thank you for sharing! I feel I can relate with some of the struggles that you moms face who have a special needs asperger's child. I have a ds who isn't officially diagnosed with aspergers, but a Christian Counselor had us take a basic test regarding him, and the test shows he definitely has asperger's tendencies. He will be 9 years old next week. He is a very concrete, literal thinker and has a hard time with using his imagination. He has typical meltdowns when he can't complete the task "perfectly" or in a "timely fashion". Yet he has a brilliant mind that thinks outside of the box and can figure out math problems in his head faster than I can. Often in math, he doesn't put down his work, he just writes the answer...and it's the correct one. Ask him how he came up with the answer, and he may take you on a long explanation that is not at all how what is typically taught, yet it's correct.

Part of me is tempted to go the "black and white" road with him and get him the typical textbooks/workbooks/fill in the blanks since he seems to do better with that, and yet in spite of our struggles so far with HOD, (we started with Preparing, but after a month, we switched to Bigger) I believe it will better equip him for what he will face later on life. I am VERY interested in what anyone has to say here. The only time I really got him to narrate in a correct way was on a DITHOR book. But his brother started, and all of a sudden this ds jumped in there and was all excited about it. (I know you're not supposed to let others interrupt, but it was such a breakthrough at the time) His brother is only 15 months younger than him and also doing Bigger at the same time. But younger ds is extremely social and creative. I can't help but think that the closeness of our two boys is exactly what God intended. My younger son is helping my older face social and new situations that otherwise he might never be pushed into. My younger ds creatively draws for his Science and History notebooking pages - and my AS child visually sees the concept from his brother's page, and then is able to do it. (Not as neat as younger ds, but still he attempts it) Every day proves to be an adventure...with it's ups and downs. I only pray that we can learn more and more of his thought processes, so as we can better help him to become the man God wants him to be.

An added note... we have a four year old daughter with sensory issues, and she also definitely has some learning challenges. One day at a time here..... Our Lord's grace is sufficient.