Aspergers and Ipod use while doing homework

I don't know about the rest of you, but homework takes an inordinate amount of time in our house. There are days when Will can come home with homework in five different subjects, and he will be working from 4 pm to 11 pm (with breaks for rest and dinner) to complete the homework. It's so annoying! Why should anybody have to do that much homework? And especially Aspie kids! I've talked to a few other parents about this situation, and I've been told that we should get it written into his IEP that homework be limited, but I want to see if this changes before I make this request.

My oldest son used to listen to music constantly when he was doing his homework. We, as parents, thought the music was a distraction, but he always maintained that he did a better job with the music in the background. I did a little bit of research into this (asking people how they did things when on the blog Wrongplanet.net) and it seems that many people do better working with an Ipod on. This may be because an Ipod will help mask the other sounds that are somewhat distracting to Will.

Will initially thought using an Ipod was a bad idea. He was afraid that he would spend too much time singing to the words of each song and not doing his homework. But I tried putting his Ipod on him during his spelling homework, and he really did well! He didn't speed things up incredibly, but he did go a little faster, and he was more consistent -- he didn't get up and down sharpening his pencil or getting drinks. It was quite an unsual experiment!

Someday, when I'm brave enough, I'm going to have him wear his Ipod for math homework (the worst homework for him) and see if it helps.

Kris