Record: Simmons, C. A., & Campbell, J. M. (2019). Homeschool decision-making and evidence-based practice for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 31, 329-346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-018-9643-8
Summary: Simmons, assistant professor of psychology at Rowan University, and Campbell, who directs the Psy.D program at Western Carolina University, are both experts on Autism Spectrum Disorder. Here they connect that shared interest with the topic of homeschooling. Both scholars were previously associated with the University of Georgia, where Simmons did her graduate study under Campbell’s guidance. This article is an abbreviated version of her 2014 MA Thesis. In 2016 Simmons defended her Ph.D. dissertation, which was also about homeschooling and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
While Simmons’ doctoral dissertation provided statistical analysis of data collected via internet survey of 114 individuals, her MA Thesis, and this article, use a qualitative approach. Simmons recruited homeschooling parents with children with ASD from a state homeschool organization and local groups (presumably from Georgia, but she doesn’t say). She obtained a sample of nine, all mothers, all Caucasian. Each mother was interviewed from 1-3 hours, being asked open-ended questions about her teaching practices. Simmons then compared the pedagogies these mothers employed with evidence-based best practices for children with ASD. Here is what she found:
- Like much other research into homeschooling and children with special needs, Simmons found that parents choosing to homeschool a child with ASD did so largely out of frustration with the special education provisions of their local school district. These were not “first choice” homeschoolers (Jennifer Lois’ term). For five of the nine parents the choice to homeschool emerged gradually; for the other four it was a reaction to what Simmons calls “a particular catalyst event” (p. 334).
- Five distinct sources of the discontent parents (mothers) felt with school emerged over the course of the interviews. As Simmons explains each one she provides compelling quotations from the interviews to illustrate. Mothers expressed frustration with the actual diagnosis, placement, and level of support for their children. Mothers reported negative interactions with education professionals, who were frequently uncooperative and unwilling to provide the services required by law. Mothers expressed frustration at how attending school affected their children’s morale and self-esteem. Mothers worried about their children’s physical safety. Finally, mothers lamented the stress the entire experience placed on themselves. Eventually it was just all too much, so they pulled their children out of school.
- After pulling them out, what did the mothers do? Five of the nine reported being unschoolers. The others utilized a range of services, including online education, formal curriculum, tutors, and specialized schools. In general many of the mothers expressed joy that the stresses of school were behind them, noting that their children were much happier. But at the same time many of the mothers felt like they were not doing a great job at meeting all of their child’s needs. Some mothers also were frustrated at how teaching the child had left them with so little free time.
- In her lit review Simmons had noted that the scholarly consensus for best pedagogical practices for children with ASD was to provide a highly-structured environment of “short instructional intervals,” (p. 331) and plenty of peer interaction. But that is not at all what most of the children in her sample were receiving at home. Many of the mothers were “unschooling,” providing very little formal content or structure at all, and many of the children were not getting a lot of outside social interaction. Thus the instruction these homeschooled children were receiving did not adhere to “evidence-based practices” or “best practice standards,” (p. 342) nor were most of the children receiving the minimum number of hours of educational instruction or range of content required by the State.
After laying out these findings Simmons suggests two implications. First, schools should do a better job with children with ASD and their parents in the early years, fostering a collaborative and constructive rather than an adversarial relationship. Doing this would require more investment in special education, especially in the training and staffing of qualified educational professionals. Second, parents who do decide to homeschool a child with ASD need, and in most cases desire, more support. Simmons notes that most of the mothers in her sample actively sought out professional assistance. More focused training and service provision would help these mothers a lot.
Appraisal: Simmons’ study confirms much of what previous studies have found about the homeschooling motivations of parents with children with special needs. Where it breaks new ground is in its critical take on what these parents are actually doing with their children. Most previous studies (click on the category “special needs” to the right) have not made this move. Most of them are fairly celebratory in tone. Simmons is clearly very sympathetic to the predicament these mothers find themselves in, and her vivid quotations make her article one of the most engaging yet published on the topic of motivation. But, like Jennifer Lois, she finds that mothers like these, who did not necessarily want to be homeschoolers, are often frustrated and lost as to what to do. They are not as networked as many first choice homeschoolers, and the additional burden of teaching a child with Asberger’s or Autism makes the task even harder than it is for other mothers. Simmons is not the first to suggest supplemental assistance for such mothers, but her argument for why it is needed is the most rigorous yet published.
The downside, however, is that neither of Simmons’ excellent proposals is likely to be implemented. Special education services have long been controversial and expensive, going back at least to the passage of PL 94-142 in 1975, which has long been seen as the archetypal example of the U.S. Government’s tendency to impose “unfunded mandates” on State school systems. The kind of special education the parents in this sample want for their children is required by law. But it is so expensive that many school districts simply cannot accommodate the needs. Special educators face tremendous hardships, are underappreciated in their buildings, and quit at high rates due to dissatisfaction on the job. Beefing up special education training sounds like a great idea until you consider how much more that will cost a future teacher and how little that teacher will be compensated. Any kind of training or support a district might provide to homeschooling parents would cost money as well, money most districts will be loath to spend on children who are not even attending school. It would be a wonderful idea to have some sort of full-time professional consultant to help homeschooling mothers with children with special needs navigate the system and implement best practice pedagogy in their homes. But who would pay for that?
Milton Gaither
Messiah College