Life at home with a kid with autism is seldom easy. Changes in technique, unexpected visitors, difficulties with food, toileting & dressing can be disruptive to the whole relatives. Visits to the doctor or the dentist are brilliantly challenging. Parents often forego visiting friends & relatives because the stress of breaking the technique of a kid with autism & bringing that kid in to unfamiliar territory is much to bear. Parents cringe at the thought of public meltdowns and/or self injurious behavior in a place where people are speedy to judge. No, staying home is often less hard.
But, staying home is not always the best for parent or the kid. Parents need to have the freedom to get an errand done or to visit a friend without being overwhelmed. Our kids also need to be given the opportunities to experience new sights & sounds & to build self confidence from “tackling the world.” Every single time that a kid steps out of their door (with or without autism) they have an opportunity to learn & to grow. Research has proven that neurons in the brain get “excited” by new experiences & from this they “grow” our brain by building new pathways. Individuals with autism need experiences in the world outside of their home in order to build neural pathways, practice living in a social environment & learn to regulate their own behavior. Kids can’t practice social skills while sitting in front of a Disney movie. They can’t learn how to manage our senses or our fears if they are safely kept away from things that may bother or scare us. But they also can’t “throw” the kid in to the midst of social situations & hope they can cope. They need to give them the tools that they need to be successful. What are these tools?
1. Use a visual schedule regularly. Paradoxically, teaching individuals with autism to use a schedule gives them the ability to be more independent. Schedules enable persons with autism to understand their world, organize their thinking, & sequence their lives. By illustrating a modify on the schedule visually, they are helping the individual to technique the modify & cope more effectively.
2. Show & discuss a “game plan” before going leaving home. Using the schedule, portray what will be happening, identify how it might feel & how you will help. Some people use Carol Gray’s Social Stories™ but a simple script can be as useful. Keep in mind that pictures and/or written words are far more effective than talking. The auditory processing channel is not as efficient as the visual channel in many people with autism. The kid needs to feel some sense of control over what is happening. These kids often feel an acute anxiety over what is or what could happen to them.
4. Pack the “tools of the trade”. There's some items that I seldom leave home without: a visual clock, sand timer, coloring books/ tiny quiet toys, white board & marker or paper to write messages to your kid (talk less, show what you mean with pictures/words). Sensory toys (squishy balls, vibrating pens, fabric or sandpaper that the kid enjoys touching) are also important tools because they can help the kid to self regulate. They all have items that they feel more comfortable having with us; a coffee, a favorite pen, pictures of our relatives, or a “lucky charm” are some objects that bring a quantity of us a sort of comfort & inner stability. Persons with autism may have the need to over different objects for similar purposes.
3. Illustrate clear expectations for your kid. Warning a kid that you expect them to be nice won’t do the job. What does being “good” look like? & sound like? A checklist of these behaviors, a social script, or a set of visual pictures may be the tools that make the dissimilarity in the success of the outing. Parents may even find it useful to role play restaurant, church, dentist, or doctor before the kid encounters the real thing. The point is that, individuals with autism don’t instinctively know what is expected of them in given situations. Parents & caregivers can bridge this understanding by identifying the expectations in a constructive & non threatening manner.
5. Provide information about your kid that others will need in order to serve your kid. I personally believe that explaining a quantity of your child’s basic needs to a dentist, doctor, store clerk, waitress or any person that may misunderstand your kid is far more fair to everyone involved. Sharing doesn’t mean gaining sympathy or telling a life story. It could be as simple as, “Please give my kid more time to respond.” When our son began being invited to birthday parties, they contacted the host parents & let them know a quantity of the basic information that they would need to know in order to make the birthday run smoothly. This info may be that the kid doesn’t like the birthday song, or clapping sounds & he will therefore “be in the washroom” while this is happening. Five parent even identified a “quiet spot” that our son could retreat to if he was feeling overwhelmed. Information is power.
6. Give yourself lots of time. A rushed errand will often be disastrous because, as many parents know, the more hurried they are, the slower our kids move! Our kids with autism are busy dealing with their own stress; they can’t possibly cope with ours as well!
Every ounce of energy & thought that they put in to planning for out of home experiences for individuals with autism will multiply in to benefits for everyone. As a teacher of students with severely debilitating autism & a mother of a son with autism I am much aware that the task of breaking in to the quick paced world with a person with autism is not an easy five. I know first hand that it can be downright terrifying to bring six students with autism to a zoo, a church, a restaurant or a supermarket but the learning that happens for the students, the staff & for the community is well worth the effort. They enrich each other’s lives when they move beyond the comfort zone of our own homes & schools.
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