Building self Building self knowledge in the child Building self Building self knowledge in the child knowledge in the child knowledge in the child

Both SS and CY are clear, in different ways, on how the additional home-

education time allows for development of strategies to manage their own autism by the

child. In SS's case, these strategies are supported by adult intervention, but are

concerned with maintaining a social 'foothold' for her son. '[Home learning might

involve] having a picture of a Minion … [so Edward] will know what a Minion is.' EE

adds that additional home-education time is an opportunity to 'work on functional

skills.' CY describes how during home-education time '[Coby] sees the kind of

mechanics of life, of what's needed to live in a house and in a family.' He also learns

how to manage his own needs, either through movement ('There's a certain amount of

movement that Coby needs to do just to concentrate') or to avoid overload ('He just

sometimes needs to have five minutes and that five minutes can be make or break for

Coby'). DN reports that Ben is able to follow his own interests and strengths during

additional at-home-education time. 'Our son loves computers and maths and spends a

lot of his time just doing these two subjects.'

TE explains how the additional time at home has made Elliot 'increasingly able

to self-regulate, knowing when ... he is getting frustrated or when the noise is too much.'

She repeats, in response to the questionnaire statement 'Time shared between home and

school allows for the development of self-knowledge in the child' how she feels it has

allowed for 'increased self-awareness and self-regulation and coping with emotions.'

Of note is that, although CY does mention following Coby's interests ('Coby

we'd be on the internet looking at all about hammerhead sharks'), none of the

participants express that the additional home-education time is spent following their

children's autistic 'Special Interests' in any major way. Rather, the emphasis seems to

be on self-awareness, self-knowledge and social awareness. DN describes the

importance of using that time for Ben to self-discover, 'How do I work? What does

work for me? How does it work for me?' and CY articulates, 'I do think this is

important for all children, to kind of know their place within the family.' DN describes

how Ben is able to get some autism knowledge from the unit at school, but that 'most of

that [autism knowledge] is from me.' She also says that during home-education time

Ben 'learns how to keep himself safe in a situation.'

TE emphasises that Elliot's increased happiness is one of the main achievements

of shared education, describing him as 'happier, less anxious, less stressed, more able to

cope.' CY also asserts that what is achieved by additional home time (and diminished

school time) is that Coby is happier: 'It helps him feel happier in life, so therefore, that's

going to rub off.' She emphases how important Coby's happiness is to the family

dynamic. 'He's a lot happier, and if he's happier it just ricochets through the whole

family.'

This wider family implication is echoed by SS, especially in her description of

how additional at home time has influenced the relationship between her two autistic

children. She describes how their at-home time was designed to correspond, so that

'they could do their experiences, they could learn things together' and 'gave us a sort of

opportunity in a scaffolded way for them to build a relationship.'

SS believes that the wider family, too, has been affected. '[The children's

dad will go and feed the birds with Eloise. Eloise can now name most of the birds in

the garden, which is joyful – just a joy.'

DN describes how her son's autism was preventing communication, and how the

exhaustion brought on by full-time school exacerbates this: '[When Ben was in full-

time school] I had no contact. None.'

In the one instance in the studies where support moves across the environments

of home and school in a managed way, it is clear that additional out of school time can

be used to develop ways to manage autism by the parents. EE, Edward and Eloise's

key-worker who supports them both at home and at school, explains that at-home-

education can be a 'time for parents to receive training/support/input from 1:1 tutors.'

SS reinforces this, explaining that EE would be 'helping me to manage the behavioural

issues ... if Edward wouldn't hold my hand, or if he would hit me or so on and so forth.'

She explains the way the formal support from EE feeds into Edward's at home time:

[EE is] not there at the end of the day when I'm undressing him, getting him ready for bed, bathing and all of that stuff, and as we were saying its everything, 24/7 education for an autistic child isn't it? But for that structured time in the afternoon I very much treated it as a capsule ... He wasn't at school but we were following a programme.

She adds that, without the structured input she 'wouldn't have felt confident in

dealing with Edward's response.' In this case, shared education between home and

school allows the school to support the parent to meet the needs of the child.