As a veteran homeschool mom of a son with Aspergers, I highly recommend that you order the Abeka Book phonics curriculum and charts to help your son at home even if he goes to school. This is an incredible program! It breaks it all down into pieces parts with tangible rules. I have used it even with an adult friend and it works! People on the spectrum like rules. Because of this, it helped us enormously.

I don't have an answer for you, my son gets good grades but had behavior problems. The school isn't giving me what I think he needs and we just hired an advocate. The ad irate we found charges by the month and not by the hour. This is great because they are an email away every day.

I guess ill have to get him started on that. Ill see if i can talk to the school fpr speech therapy but they told me they dont know if he needs it until he talks more in school.

If he isn't getting speech therapy, have them start. If he is, make sure what they are focusing on in therapy. You can also get speech therapy outside of the school, and the insurance should at least help cover it. Depending on where you live, there are other groups that can help.

The biggest issue with autism is that they are all so different. Unlike many problems we suffer as a human race, they cannot be lumped tightly together with a thousand other people suffering the same condition. You will find that some children on the spectrum struggle to do anything academically while some excel at everything and others are good at this and terrible at that. Even with the small population of savantism in the autistic community you will see vast differences. Some are musical geniuses, or can memorize any number they hear or see, or can understand math on a level a "normal" person couldn't never begin to fathom, or are amazing artists.

But like any child, yes there is a very real possibility your son is having trouble reading. It could even be paired with other factors such as dyslexia. OR, it could just be him being stubborn. It's hard to really pin-point it without a lot of work at times.

I am not sure you will be able to obtain a tutor through your son's IEP for 100% sure. But, perhaps he can get individual help during the school day with one of the counselors he sees. What about a paraprofessional? Does he have one? I would find out, if not, if the school feels he is eligible for one. My son is required to have one because he wanders and needs constant redirection among other things. And Paraprofessionals are AMAZING!!! They don't get as much attention as they should. Not that I want it announced to the world that my son has a paraprofessional, but my child's is referred to as a "teachers aid" in the classroom to other parents. I am betting this is for privacy reasons... But my goodness, I don't think most parents realize that this man goes above and beyond the call of a teacher's aid!

The problem with IEPs is they are funded differently from school-to-school and state-to-state. The schools with better funding and support tend to have much better IEP programs and many schools across the states fall short because they just cannot garnish the support for better funding for their special needs students. But the first and BEST step to take is to bring this up during an IEP meeting, you can request a meeting at ANY time during the school year, they have to comply. They would certainly know what is available and if they are doing what they are meant to do... if they don't know, they will find out. However, there are programs available to students with IEP's over the summer. It's called an ESY Services (Extended School Year Services). And all districts are required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to have and provide them. Perhaps through this you can utilize some type of tutoring program for your son.

My son's current school is fantastic and has access to many services. But my high school was terrible. I attended the majority of my IEP meetings in school and they were not NEARLY as wonderful and helpful as what is offered to my son.