Teaching chess to special ed kids

Have you considered looking up the recent progress in the field of ABA (Applied behavior Analysis) training ? Training by rote seems to be their primary methodology and it has worked wonders for children at different points within the Autism spectrum.

I would think that some of their methods fits rather nicely with rule-bounded game like chess.

i don't have any advice, but my hat is off to you!  three cheers for making a difference in those wonderful kids' lives.  i hope they learn and enjoy the game as the rest of us have, and that everything goes well. 

a few more people like you in the world just might make it a better place to be :).

Such a noble endeavor...just, you know, try to realize that its tough at that age.  My own five year old boy, a very typical boy, no developmental lag, but clearly behind where his sister was at that age, was just barely ready to start learning right before he turned 5.  Even then, he has very quickly hit his capability limits, and the gap between him and his 8 year old sister who started at the same time but 3 years older (i.e. as turning 8) is growing ever bigger.  He totally gets how the pieces move (after some patient teaching and practice), but learning basic checkmates is currently beyond his ability, or at least beyond my patience to teach him given his attention span and desire to play rather then learn.  

Probably the most you can hope for at their current ages (assuming some developmental lag, which your post suggests) is to teach the moves and play try eat the enemy king chess -- i.e. no checkmate rule.  However, even there, you may run into difficulty teaching how the knight moves.  Thats the real sticking point for kids.  With any kid, you need a strategy to teach how the knight moves, and with a 5 year old with some developmental lag, its likely at or near the limits of his capability.  You might want to leave the knight aside for a bit.  

I applaud the effort...just be mindful, and I'm sure you am, that you might need to table it for a year or two, depending on the size of the developmental lag.  Its sort of a hard thing to realize for a chess dad...I tried starting to teach at age 3, and my kids just werent at all ready.  

Once the basic moves are mastered, chesstempo.com is a good way to practice them, as it gives chess problems at the level of the solver and can bet set up so that your kids get almost all problems where the last piece moved can be eaten for free.  My 5 year old LOVED it...until his rating advanced to the point where he started getting harder problems that challenge his modest attention span.  

Good luck!

Remember, contrary to what 'they' said 50-70 years ago IQ does increase.

Please be relevant, helpful & nice!

I taught special ed for 10 years, high school level. 

Chess was great for developing concentration in kids who otherwise couldn't sit still long enough to put their name on a piece of paper, it trained them to focus and had a calming effect on them when they were at the board. Even some of the lower functioning kids who weren't quite smart enough to grasp the game benefited by just trying to play and being talked through the way the pieces move. It also improved their self-esteem once they were able to get through a  game, even if they needed reminders of how the pieces moved. 

I think your kids are probably a bit  young to start on chess but it wouldn't hurt to try I guess.