I have two kiddos who are Autistic. I've always Homeschooled. My oldest has a milder form, and graduated at the age of 16 and has gone to college online for years. My youngest has a more moderate/ severe form and will be Homeschooled his entire life, to keep from regressing on what he has learned. I have stepped into a classroom with my kiddo when we were invited to participate for some weeks, and it just reaffirmed to us that we were doing the right thing working with Mr. Cutie one-on-one at home. He would have never been truly given the opportunity to learn anything and would not have been kept safe there either.

I am homeschooling my kids, 8 years old on spectrum (non-verbal, communication limited to gestures and pulling-mom-to-what-i-want)..in fact he just started using his whole hand to point to things. And 5 years old neuro-typical. Of course both have their own ways of learning and its awesome because i can tailor my autistic son's curriculum to his needs. Right now, he doesn't need to learn cursive or know how to count to 100. Right now, he needs to work on communicating and learning to stop/look/listen outside (he likes to run off down the street and its the scariest thing ever). I just don't trust (and this is me, my own feelings) another person/school to watch him or to be able to teach him what he needs to know right now. i love that i have the freedom to give him a tailored education. He may learn slowly, but he's learning and that's what matters!

On a whole, I believe they are better off. There were certain gaps, but the positives outweighed the negatives. The first couple years are hard, but then homeschooling is definitely easier than sending them to school. School just becomes a part of daily living, not something you rearrange your schedule to make room for. You learn what's important and what is a waste of time.

When I first started homeschooling my oldest at the beginning of 2nd grade, she finished 2nd grade by the end of October, and 3rd grade by the end of March. So, academically, it was obviously a benefit. She just hid under her desk when she was in school. Now that she is a grown adult, I wish I had worried less about academics and more about life skills. The other drawback, at least when I started homeschooling in the late 90's, was that although there were many homeschool activities for socialization, they often did not work out for M because her behaviors were not well understood or tolerated. There are a lot more options now, for parents of kids on the spectrum. In general, my five kids (4 of whom are grown) are grateful they were homeschooled. They just didn't feel like square pegs being hammered into round holes. I could tailor school to their learning styles and interests.
Has it improved their symptoms? Hard to guess what they would be like if they had gone through 12 years of school. They are still autistic. I think we just circumvented some of the social trauma especially associated with middle school. They also seem to have grown up with a more well rounded education.

@A MyAutismTeam Member sounds like you are doing.a wonderful job ❤️ I went ahead and deregistered my son a few weeks ago! I really hope it is as beneficial to him as it has been for you all. One problem I am having is getting my son motivated to do any learning at all he seems to just want to watch tv all day at the minute and gets very agitated when I hide the remote. Hopefully better days are coming.