Turning Rough Days Into Wins: Adapting Lessons in Nonverbal Autism Homeschool

In our home, we are a few weeks into school for the year, and while we got off to a good start, somewhere along the line we hit a rough patch. Sleep has never been super reliable for my daughter, but we often have a decent time. Recently, for reasons we still haven’t figured out, her sleep schedule took a dive. That made moods and routines for the remainder of the day a mess. But we have to keep learning, right? We needed to change up how we approached learning for a while and that’s what makes Nonverbal Autism Homeschool a great curriculum for us.

As my daughter’s educator, I have printed, laminated, and prepared at least 10 weeks’ worth of material (mostly from the curriculum provided). I also have a slew of other supplemental educational materials and activities that are either prepped or easy to grab when needed.

On the days that were extra tough for my daughter, we did very simple activities when she was willing, as well as diving into her preferred activities because they have a considerable amount of educational value.

One of those activities is writing words at her request. Over the last couple of years, she’s not only become more verbal but can now read so many words I’ve lost count. Because of that, her interest in words has grown. She dictates words to us: sometimes verbally, sometimes by finding the icon on her AAC, and sometimes by typing or trying to spell them on her device. My husband or I write them on our whiteboard (or a piece of paper, whichever she prefers). There’s a lot of repeating; I often redirect it back to her: “Horse? How do I spell horse? Hmmm.” She’ll help spell the word. It might not have formal structure, but it’s a 100% win in my book, especially for a rough day.

On another day, I wanted to do a worksheet from our curriculum that focuses on “What Is a Noun?”—a cut-and-paste sorting activity.

Well, she was not having it. She didn’t want to work with the small cutouts or glue them into the sorting columns. How was I going to accomplish this with her? Then I thought about what Heather and Mr. Sims have said many times before: go about it via errorless learning. Use the “I do, I do, We do, We do, You do” method.

I wrote Person, Place, Thing, and Animal onto yellow Post-It notes and stuck them on our whiteboard. I then wrote all the nouns from the worksheet onto pink Post-It notes. While my daughter sat at the dining table, iPad running her favorite show and tapping the screen. At the whiteboard, I went over what a noun was and then went through each word. Occasionally I asked her, but then I’d answer if I could feel she wasn’t going to say anything. This is literally what teachers and professors do; I just didn’t require an actual answer from my student.

A couple of days later, we returned to the same worksheet. I still had the Post-Its on the whiteboard, so we used those as a reference and were able to sit through the activity. It was a nice reinforcement of the material, and on this day she was in a better mood and happily glued the words into the columns.

Homeschooling a nonspeaking student is never a straight path, but every challenge can become an opportunity for growth. Some days call for flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to shift gears. By leaning on preferred activities and adapting lessons in ways that meet our kids where they are, we not only get through the rough patches—we create meaningful learning moments that last.

Jennifer Bullock, Contributing Author

Homeschooling-experienced mom to a tween, non-speaking daughter, Jennifer is also Marketing Outreach Coordinator for The Autism Oasis. With 20+ years experience in marketing, advertising, and social media communications, you will see her occasionally supporting the blog and social media channels with various content related to Autism Oasis.