HOMESCHOOLING STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: Research Review

Summary: Kathleen B. Cook, Katie E. Bennett, Justin D. Lane, and Theologia K. Mataras were all students in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education at the University of Georgia. In this article they summarize the research related to homeschoolers with special needs, a population that has increasingly recognized the viability of homeschooling in recent years.

The authors begin with a brief look at the history, laws, and regulations of homeschooling and special education in the U.S. They attribute the resurgence of homeschooling in the 1960s to several social and political events such as the passage of desegregation laws, the removal of prayer from schools, and John Holt’s book, How Children Fail. Congress first passed legislation regarding the funding of education for students with disabilities in the 1970s. This legislation is currently known as IDEA or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Because the legislation does not specifically address funding for homeschooling students, the decisions were left to the states, and many states believe that homeschoolers forfeit IDEA rights. In states that do allow IDEA funds for homeschoolers, the funding is not guaranteed, and parents must hand over some control of their children’s education.

Families that homeschool their children because of special needs are different from the general homeschooling population for several reasons:

1. Parents of students with disabilities tend to take a longer time to remove their children from public school.
2. Once removed, homeschoolers with disabilities are more likely to receive part time services from public schools.
3. Only the children with disabilities tend to be homeschooled, while the siblings continue to attend public school.

Nevertheless, families homeschooling children with disabilities come from similar demographics to those of other homeschoolers (primarily white, two parents, stay-at-home mom, etc.). Religious instruction is important to many of the families of the homeschool children with disabilities, but the decision to homeschool is more often tied to a desire to provide better, more individualized instruction for their child. Parents often feel that their child’s special education needs were not being met in public school. Other common reasons for homeschooling a child with a disability include providing an escape from bullying and avoiding the stigma of a labeled disability.

Several studies have shown that a majority of parents are pleased with their child’s progress in homeschool. Especially when the child has special needs, parents often visit educational consultants. They generally also follow a structured daily routine rather than an unschooling philosophy or any kind of loosely structured teaching methods for their children with disabilities.

Despite their overall good experience, some homeschooling parents of children with disabilities described a lack of emotional, social, and moral support. These feelings only increased with the severity of the child’s needs. In addition, socialization is another concern, because while children with disabilities may have trouble socializing and making friends in general, a few qualitative studies have indicated that homeschooled children with disabilities are especially vulnerable to social isolation.

Next the authors touch on the relationship between homeschoolers and the public school. Both sides often feel that the other is incapable of providing quality instruction for the child. They cite the Des Moines Public Schools Home Instruction Program, a cooperative home-school partnership, as a viable solution to support homeschooling children with disabilities.

Their discussion on the current state of homeschooling research parallels that of Kunzman & Gaither (2013) which they describe briefly. There have only been 2 quasi-experimental studies to date that investigate the effectiveness of homeschooling children with disabilities. The first, Duvall et al. (1997), determined that homeschool students with learning disabilities were on task and engaged in work activities approximately 2.5 times more than their counterparts in a general education classroom. In 2004, Duvall et al. repeated their study with students with ADHD. They found that homeschool students with ADHD were academically engaged at higher rates than their counterparts, and their reading and math gains were greater or equal to their public school peers.

In conclusion, Cook et al. call for more experimental research, particularly on homeschoolers with specific disabilities. While children with disabilities show signs of success in the personalized homeschool environment, parents may be unprepared to teach them. Therefore, it is necessary form positive connections between the home and school so that children can receive individualized instruction that still benefits from the special education services of public schools.

Appraisal: Cook et al. provide an excellent research review of homeschooled children with special needs. By weaving together the few studies focused on this population like Hurlbutt (2011) and Parsons and Lewis (2010), the authors are able to present one of the most convincing summaries of the special needs homeschooler to date. While not included in their review because of the publication date, McDonald and Lopes’ (2014) study of homeschooled children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Australia describes many similar findings to those of the present article. However, as Cook et al. mention, there is a dire need for more research because special education is extremely broad. It is hard to compare parents’ success homeschooling children with mild disabilities with those that have severe ones. Studies on specific disabilities would lead to a more nuanced understanding of the generalizations that Cook et al. were able to determine from the research available to them.

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