Homeschool For Autistic Children

Adaptive Homeschool Programs For Language and Reading

An autism homeschool curriculum should be structured predictably with flexible, self-paced learning. Gemm Learning provides Fast ForWord, a reading and learning program series that addresses the reading and language processing delays of autistic children.

Consider our homeschool language and reading curriculum if your child has difficulty in those areas, most likely due to language processing delays that affect many autistic kids

Gemm Learning provides Fast ForWord at home with remote monitoring and coaching. It’s an affordable homeschool program for autistic children that builds cognitive and reading skills through self-paced exercises, so you can manage it at home without formal training.

Fast ForWord relies on brain plasticity, the brain’s ability to change if exercised appropriately. Fast ForWord strengthens the processing weaknesses associated with autism.

How Our Service Works

Most autism programs – like Fast ForWord  – are available in clinicians’ offices. In the last few years, however, Gemm Learning has been offering its “virtual learning center” approach.

Note: This is not an academic homeschool curriculum that covers content; it’s a language and reading intervention to help autistic children and struggling learners build core learning and reading competencies.

No Parent Training Required

Our supplemental autism homeschooling program is online. As a parent, your role is to be a cheerleader — create a schedule for your child and encourage participation. Gemm Learning does everything else.

Students Work At Their Own Pace

Fast ForWord is a wonderful homeschool program for autistic children because the software is adaptive. It responds to every click — correct answers will lead to slightly faster or more complex tasks, while three consecutive wrong answers will slow the program down. This means you need not worry about your child becoming frustrated by material that is too difficult.

Our homeschool program is a favorite part of many autistic kids’ day. They love the predictable structure, the animated rewards and sounds, and the adaptivity that helps them feel like they are always making progress.

Comprehensive Support

Our comprehensive service includes weekly progress reports, an online parents’ resource called My Gemm (at www.mygemm.com), and the constant support of a dedicated Gemm professional. A virtual center in your home.
Our service and support

Fast ForWord for Autism Helps Language and Reading

We have had good success supporting homeschooling for autistic kids using the Fast ForWord program series.

• It aims to be an intervention, unlike most traditional homeschooling programs for autism, which work on symptoms, not underlying delays
• It is effective because it targets auditory processing delays, a pervasive source of difficulties for autistic children
• It is adaptive, meaning students work at their own pace and so are encouraged to stay engaged and will not run into material that is beyond them

Homeschool families with autistic children come to Gemm Learning for two main reasons: speech and language development and reading intervention.

Speech and Language

The first part of our multi-program curriculum is focused on language processing and related cognitive skills – working memory, attention, and sequencing.

The language exercises target speech sound discrimination, sound sequencing, and rapid-changing syllables (blends like /br/)to help autistic children with speech delays begin processing the sounds of language. The exercises start slowly and simply, at levels that most autistic kids can access. And then it adds speed and complexity in tiny increments.

These improvements in language processing help children process more language in conversations, enabling them to build their vocabulary and language understanding – syntax and nuance.

Reading intervention 

The second part of our autism homeschooling programs focuses on reading – teaching phonics and decoding, spelling, and reading with comprehension, in that order.

Improvements in language processing in the first part of our curriculum make the reading exercises much more doable and not as frustrating for autistic kids who are struggling readers. Autistic children are on the same continuum in terms of the errors they make as neurotypical struggling readers; the autistic kids just make more errors.

So the reading programs we provide for dyslexia and struggling readers are helpful to autistic children who are struggling with reading.

Virtual Center Service Approach

Fast ForWord’s ability to exercise at the margin of cognitive function is creating powerful new potential for the autism population. And now Gemm Learning is bringing this powerful program into your home with its “whole family” service approach.

Some children are able to get through our programs in 6-8 months; we have a number of homeschooling families with autistic children that stay with us for much longer.  “Gemm Learning” is one of the things their autistic child feels successful doing, so it’s a welcome confidence boost every day and part of the family routine.