Teaching Spanish to My Daughter Who Has Autism

I decided that I want to have my 3 homeschooling children begin studying Spanish this fall when we start schooling again.  I looked into several Spanish programs and compared the programs, the cost, etc.  I also talked to other homeschoolers who have studied Spanish and asked them about their curriculums and how they liked them.  I even borrowed a couple of different programs to use for a short time.  After all of this research, I decided to go with Rosetta Stone.  (This is NOT, by the way, a review for Rosetta Stone.  I'm just posting this on my own about my family's "mission" to begin learning Spanish this school year.) 

I wasn't sure if I should have all 3 kids begin Spanish this year or just the older two. My older two are 15 and 13.  My youngest is 7.   My in-laws have hosted foreign exchange students in the past, and they, for the most part, begin seriously studying English in about 3rd grade.  I figure if they can begin in 3rd grade and become pretty fluent in English by the time they are in high school, that I'd like to try it even with my 7-year-old who will be in 3rd grade this fall.  In fact, I've decided I'm going to "take" the class myself right along with the kids!  There is a pretty large population of Spanish-speaking folks around here, and I would love for us to be able to communicate with them.  It would also be wonderful for the whole family to be able to go on mission trips together and actually be able to speak to the people we are there to witness to without having to always use an interpreter. 

I'm not too worried about how my 13-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter will handle the Spanish class, but I am a little concerned about the best way to handle it with my 15-year-old daughter who has autism.  I chose the homeschool version of the program so that the kids can do most (if not all) of their work pretty independently on the computer but I can check their progress and "oversee" their work.  With my older daughter, Hannah, though, I will pretty much have to do the program one-on-one with her. 

Hannah is totally non-verbal, so I won't be able to do the part of the program in which the student is given the chance to speak the Spanish word into the microphone and be "checked" for correct pronunciation by the computer.  I will be able to set the preferences so that that's not a problem.  My main concern, though, is that Hannah (like many autistic people) enjoys clicking on the incorrect answers just to hear the funny sound that it makes for incorrect answers!!  It makes a low beeping kind of sound for incorrect answers, and a higher chime sort of sound for correct answers.  She seems to prefer the "incorrect" sound to the "correct" one! 

I've only done a couple of sessions with her so far just to get an idea of how she will handle it before we actually begin "class" in a few weeks.  I suppose for now I'll just keep doing a session now and then and try to figure out what to do about this problem before we "really" begin class.  One thing I've tried that sounds really simple but does seem to help a good bit is simply putting my hand over hers (with her hand on the mouse) and having her wait a second or two before she clicks on her answer choice.  This gives her a little more time to process the answer in her mind before submitting it.  Then I remind her to "Choose the right answer," before I let go of her hand and allow her to click it. 

Another thing I've discovered that I'll have to watch for as I do the program with Hannah is that, if she really has no idea what the answer is, she will click on the answer choices in a certain order each time on every question.  That's not necessarily a bad strategy except that, once she's done it a time for two for an answer she really doesn't know, then she wants to continue clicking choices in that same pattern even when she does know the answer.  That makes it really hard to know which ones she actually doesn't know and when she's just clicking in that pattern "for fun." 

Oh, well!  Life is never boring for any homeschooling parent (or even non-homeschooling parents, I'm sure)!   I will try to post again in the next few weeks and let you know how our Spanish program is going with all 3 of my students.  We plan to start schooling again around the second week of August, so I'm sure I'll have more to tell you about when that time arrives. 

Until then I'll try to think of some more ways of dealing with this problem as well as continue enjoying what's left of our summer break from daily school work.   I hope you are enjoying your summer as well and hopefully taking a little time off!