My son is a high-functioning 5-yr old with ASD, starting Kindergarten this Fall. I downloaded Zoodles.com's application to an old netbook that I no longer use, as well as my old Droid. I can select the content I want him to "focus" on (math, reading, life skills, cognitive development, creative, science, social studies), and can block access to certain characters (SpongeBob) and sites. Once he is in the Zoodles app, he cannot access anything else on the netbook or Droid. I can monitor what he is learning, as well as how much time he is spending in each category (you can also set time limits from the parent controls). The basic version is free, but I paid $29.95 for the year (50% off promotion they are running now) so that I could use the full parental controls. I absolutely LOVE it! Helps his fine motor and hand/eye coordination as well, using the mouse and the arrow keys and space bar for certain games within the application. =)

Signed up for a free trial with Moby Math. Looks like a program. Thanks again!

@A MyAutismTeam Member - Try Moby Math. It is flexible, each lesson gives a small piece of the whole, he can earn "badges" - photos of interesting star formations - as well as see the graph of his progress, work with you to set his own goals, etc., and it is relatively affordable.

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A MyAutis...

My son does best in a distraction free environment where the basic principles are that I join him in what he wants to do and then I build on his motivations and use them to my advantage. My son has an OCD obsession with Christmas trees. Well, he started to use complete sentences because I taught him how to ask to get the Christmas tree out and he was so motivated he started talking. He was motivated for instance to count ornaments on a tree, he started drawing because I spent many hours drawing his favorite thing - a Christmas tree. I'm even teaching reading and other concepts on his level because I wrote a little book for him with the theme of......Christmas trees. He is able to transfer the skills to other things and he is slowing down on the obsession now and open to learning more. Still, he hates workbook time! He does not want to sit still and do workbook style pages. You don't want to force it, but again I use his motivations to my advantage. Say he asks to go out on the trampoline. Great - we can jump for 15 minutes, but first let's do 3 workbook pages for math! At first, he whinned and threw tantrums when I tried this but as I spent more time getting to know his motivations and joining him in what he enjoys to do, the more he learned to be flexible and willing to do some things my way too! It took some time but I can reason with him now. He will come around.

Get excited about his motivations and what he enjoys and then use those things to teach the concepts, even if you use a chalkboard on the fly rather than a textbook or a dry erase board. You also have to have alot of excitement and enthusiasm to add to the process because the more thrilled you are about a subject, the more he's going to enjoy getting that positive reaction!