Friday Show and Tell ~ Homeschooling the FASD Child

This week I was able to see a really great documentary on FASD. Since our adopted dd was recently diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, we have been trying to catch up and learn how to help her. This documentary really was informative for us. If you know any woman of childbearing age who drinks any amount of alcohol, please go see this movie. When you consider that 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and 50% of women in childbearing age drink, this is a serious issue. I would not wish this on any family or child, and it is so preventable. My dd struggles every day with the basics -- all because her birth mother drank while she was pregnant. It is a very sad tragedy.

I was thinking about this and how I homeschool my little girl. We try hard to keep things fun and new to help her constantly wandering attention stay with us. However, she cannot learn a thing if there is a shred of chaos going on. Just having three other kids at the same table can be way too much for her most of the time. Everything must be repeated literally hundreds of times, and then she may remember it 60% of the time. She gives up easily, forgets over and over again, and if pushed too far will melt down. So how does one teach this child? I am still trying to figure this out. However, this is some of what I know.




She learns best with lots of games, especially if they let her move around. She loves reading lessons to consist of reading games and index cards of spelling words all over the room that she can crawl along while sounding out the words.


Art is very important to Goldilocks, the messier, the better! She loves to receive sensory input this way.




Life skills are just as important as reading lessons. She really enjoys cleaning, and it gives her self-confidence to do a job well done every day. 


Table time (especially group time) must be done in short time periods to maximize on her ability to focus on me and what I'm talking about. Here they are reviewing really cool safety cards that show a picture of something dangerous (example ~ a kid chasing a ball into the street), and they have to tell you what is wrong and what they should do instead.

Of course, it is so important to focus on relationships all the time. This is a huge challenge for Goldilocks. Interacting peacefully with her siblings takes a tremendous amount of work. She very much looks forward to alone time (one hour every day in her room), when she does not need to interact with anyone. 

Every FASD child is different, but this is what I have figured out so far.

Blessings, Dawn