Children who are diagnosed as having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are challenged with everyday living skills to varying degrees. Some require assistance with everyday chores like brushing their teeth or getting dressed, whereas others can manage the majority of their daily activities with only minimal help. It is important to know what the child’s needs are and then make arrangements to meet their needs.
To provide the best assistance for your kid, here are a few things you could do:
Find out More about ASD. The more you are aware of ASD and how it affects children, the better you can provide aid towards your child. The information you have gained will provide you with precise instructions as well as action steps. It also will give you the confidence to tackle anything that may arise. This confidence can be a calmer force during difficult situations. The reading of this article is a small step in the right direction.
Learn about your child’s unique characteristics. While general knowledge may help but your child is special and unique. The information you read about ASD is applicable for your kid. Make use of your understanding of your child’s needs to create the ideal environments and systems that your child will need to flourish. Being in close contact with and watching your child’s behavior will provide parents and caregivers necessary information to challenge the rules as required so that your child will get the help they need.
Give your child a secure, structured place for your child in which to be able to freely express themselves. Routine is among the ways that children who suffer from ASD deal with social interaction and emotional demands. Making sure you establish daily routines that let your child be themselves can be a huge help in enabling them to lead an easier life. Some examples of the daily routines that you can follow include:
Maintain consistency in your interactions with them.
Aid them in maintaining a plan. Limit deviations from the schedule to an absolute minimal.
Encourage positive behavior that you want to see repeated by giving positive reinforcements.
Create a safe physical space for them to play in at home. It’s a safe private place where they can relax and play without interruption and clearly marked limits (for them and for other children living in the home) and only allowed to enter by their consent. If your child is prone to self-injury or self-harm, make sure that the area is secured.
Be a trusted supporter even during the most difficult moments. If your child is having temper tantrums, meltdowns, a period of confusion or stims, you might be tempted to throw your towel in the air. Don’t! They are dependent on you, particularly in these challenging times. Sometimes, you may need help to deal with the physical and emotional stress of taking care of your child. Take the time to seek help, but don’t lose faith in your child. Your commitment to them can make the world for them.
The remainder of the article will give you tips for helping your child in various areas of their lives. The first is communication.
How can you aid your child to communicate
Autistic children may struggle to express themselves through words. This can lead to a lot of emotions that are strong, such as anger as well as frustration and anger. Irony, sarcasm, the tone of voice, and body language don’t communicate to them and cause a lot of anger.
Utilize your knowledge about your child’s talents as well as weaknesses to design support systems that will ensure they are able to communicate their thoughts and needs more effectively.
DO:
Make use of social stories
Make sure you speak in concise, simple sentences.
Learn to help them convey their wishes in a few sentences
Learn to teach them how to write.
Learn to let them be polite in expressing their anger.
Make sure you take the time to listen to them.
Encourage social interaction and play
Use assistive devices
DON’Ts:
Make them shout or shout them down.
The process of dealing with anxiety
Everyone is anxious, but especially in situations that are unfamiliar. It is the same for children who suffer from ASD. Because they are unable to express their feelings, they may experience anxiety and other emotions in a deep way. This feeling could be so strong that they feel a high level of anxiety and stress. The first step in helping children suffering from ASD is to recognize the root causes of anxiety. (These causes are referred to as triggers.)
Common anxiety triggers are:
Changes in their surroundings, e.g. the shift in their room, home furniture, toys or home
Changes in routine, e.g., not returning home from school on time, due to a caregiver being absent or late
Unusual settings, e.g., birthday events or amusement parks
Specific fears, e.g., fear of being alone at night, staying in darkness, phobias of specific items or appliances in the home and so on.
Transition periods
Your child’s particular anxiety triggers may not be listed in the list below. Spend time figuring out and write down the triggers that your child experiences for anxiety. After you’ve identified the triggers that could affect your child, you can look for methods to help them deal with these scenarios.
In order to help them deal with these stressful situations, you have to teach them how anxiety feels like inside their body. It varies in children to kids and also from moment to moment. It could be accompanied by sweaty palms, higher heartbeats knots in stomach, and inexplicably physical movements. It is possible to assist your child to recognize these symptoms within their body.
Once you’ve identified the indicators practice dealing with the signs in a safe area. Learn to help them handle the symptoms they encounter. Let them practice handling the signs regularly until you feel they are prepared to deal with all your anxiety triggers. Continue to practice these skills regularly until you’re sure there’s no need for them.
A few ways to deal with anxiety are discussed below. Select and select what works for you. These comprise:
The count up to 50
Inhaling a few deep breaths
Finding a safe and secure place to retreat
The act of reading or flipping through one of your favorite (picture) books.
Eyes closed for a moment
Step-by-step images of unfamiliar or different surroundings (e.g. an entirely new school)
Gradually ease them into the new routine.
Being a witness to someone’s experience that causes them stress
Presenting them with videos of individuals and activities or even places to help them become more comfortable with those individuals who could have caused anxiety in them before.
Make use of an instrument for sensory use.
Let them transform the stressful incident into a narrative
Have them play with the fidget toy.
If necessary you need help, consult with a psychologist to develop strategies for managing anxiety.
If the methods mentioned above are not working in the long run, and there are often anxiety-related issues which interfere with your child’s daily life. In this situation you might be prescribed medication to ease anxiety symptoms.
Assisting your child in managing their behavior
An autistic child often exhibit their emotions in a variety of ways, which include:
Stimulating
Meltdowns
Tantrum
Stimming refers specifically to actions that individuals do to themselves to deal with anxiety. This includes cutting nails as well as rocking back and forward and curling your hair around your fingers, pounding your hands on the desk, repeating phrases with flapping hands and shifting toys around all day. These behaviors can be self-injurious or violent, e.g. head hitting and swallowing objects that are sharp.
Everyone is a stimming person. But, those who are autistic may not comprehend social signals that are supposed to inform the person that their stimming can affect others in their vicinity. Stimming can be an everyday habit that lasts for hours every day.
Autistic people often display their emotions or desires through violent outbursts. Meltdowns are the term used to describe these outbursts. They can be a reaction to intensely resonant or touching circumstances. They are characterised by a sudden loss of control and can lead to spontaneous physical and verbal demonstrations.
Meltdowns are the autistic person’s method of venting their frustration and expression of their feelings about the subject. They result from intense emotion.
Handling Stimming
Stimulating is a method of coping that may occur due to many reasons. It can be used to gain attention, adjust to an unfamiliar setting or to cope with stress, relax or express anger. It is also crucial to examine how prior stimming episodes resolved. This will help you figure out the reason behind the stimming, such as if the stimming behavior is to draw attention or to show frustration over not communicating effectively with another person.
Be aware that any stimming behavior like head banging, may be a sign of an illness such as seizures. If you suspect that there’s a medical reason for your stimming, please consult your physician.
If the stimming habit has become a problem for your child, or other family members at home, in school or in the play area, you might have to tackle managing the behavior. Some of the problems that could be caused by stimming are the tendency to isolate, destructive tendencies, academic problems, etc.
If stimming leads to self-harm or destructive behavior, seek out a medical professional to find ways to manage the behavior. In other cases, focus on reducing the behavior of your child.
To control the behavior It is essential to identify the triggers. What was the trigger before the behavior started? If there were several episodes, what’s similar to them? What are the differences between each other?
If you suspect that something like loud noise can trigger the stimming pattern, attempt to reduce or eliminate the noise and observe how it can affect the particular stimming pattern. This can help to narrow down the list of triggers that could be involved.
Beware of changes to routines for everyday tasks, so that you are able to identify the triggers that cause stimming. Don’t try to penalize for the behavior. It could cause them to become unhappy. Instead, you should address the underlying problem and gradually ease them off the behavior. Keep up with routines and other activities to reduce anxiety.
If you are still unable to identify the reason behind a behavior you’re experiencing, talk to an autism specialist to help you identify the cause.
If you have identified the trigger, try to eliminate or reduce the trigger. Ask your child if the efforts are successful so that you know that you should keep seeking until you have found the solution that works to your kid.
If you continue to shiver, attempt to control the behavior with the help of these tips.
Try to soothe the child
If the conduct is risky You must take action immediately.
Utilize the information you have learned regarding the trigger in order to assist your child heal
Set up a secure environment in which the child can be encouraged to stop shivering
Encourage the child to do substitute activities that target the trigger of stimming.
Inform yourself about your experiences with triggers with parents and family members.
Be clear about how caregivers and family members can help
If none of these work or aren’t working as well as you’d like, consult your physician.
Follow the guidelines of health professionals regarding stimming behavior.
Meltdowns
In the event that your child experiencing an outburst,
Take them to a safe area as soon as is possible in the event that the meltdown is taking place in public. Keep them away from the crowd to ensure they don’t stare at them, make comments, or make them more uncomfortable.
Ask them to calm down and whether they’re okay. Take your time to listen to their response; it could take some time.
Remove and isolate any immediate triggers, such as bright lights, loud noises or strong smells
In the beginning Your child is likely to exhibit symptoms of anxiety, stress or even unease. When you observe these signs, you should try to redirect their attention away away from the source of stress to other areas like their the pursuit of their own interests, playing with fiddle toys and listening to music through headphones that block noise, etc.
Look for triggers to meltdowns by following the procedure outlined below for identifying the triggers for stimming above. After you’ve found the signal attempt to reduce the impact or eliminate it as you can.
Eating difficulties
Children with ASD may be afflicted with different problems or food preference. For instance, they could be picky eaters or prefer to stay clear of a whole range of food items. It could be due to sensorimotor hyper- or hyposensitivity. peculiar eating patterns that are observed by children with ASD may include:
Avoiding all categories of food, e.g., veggies
Beware of certain food items because of the texture or temperature of food
Develop rituals and procedures prior to eating
Eating non-edible substances like sand
As high as 70 percent of children diagnosed with autism were discovered to have abnormal eating habits. It is this high the likelihood of your child exhibit an unusual eating pattern when they are diagnosed with ASD before. Certain of these bizarre eating patterns can be explained in light of the impacts of ASD – ineffective interactions with others, the demand for consistency and routine and the need for easy communication and language, weak sensorimotor control and digestive disorders. The foods that have been found to consume less of include vegetables, greens and carbonated beverages. To help them overcome problems with eating, it’s advised to consult an experienced dietitian nutritionist who can make a custom-designed food program to suit your kid. It will consider the child’s preferences, habits in eating, their nutritional needs, as well as health information. Other options to consider include:
Light exercise prior to eating
Make a visual menu strategy to motivate them to take in more
Maintain a positive and happy attitude towards food
Offer your children the same foods as the rest of the family.
Don’t let them be hungry.
Sleeping issues
People suffering from ASD are more likely to experience insomnia. They may have difficulty sleeping and being asleep. These issues can come in a variety of varieties, including:
Unconformities in sleeping and waking patterns
Being awake for longer than an hour in the night
Unsingle play at night for long hours
The causes of this issue are mostly classified as the nighttime or daytime routines. Other causes are anxieties, bedwetting, illnesses sleepless nights, and problems with social communication.
The most important habit of the day that leads to poor sleep is the lack of physical exercise. It is possible to fix this by encouraging your child to take part in more activities during the day such as running and jumping. The other important habit involves the food they eat. It is suggested to eat meals not too in the morning and not too late to ensure they can sleep without feeling overly full or hungry.
Sleeping habits that will ensure your child is getting enough sleeping patterns include:
Be sure that your child isn’t occupied with too much noise or play prior to bedtime.
Establish a consistent bedtime routine
Don’t allow your child to sleep outside of their bed. This will train their brain to associate bed with sleeping.
Check that your bedroom isn’t changed without their consent.
Make sure the temperature is just perfect for them. It may be necessary to play for a while to find the ideal temperatures for the child you are raising.
If you are experiencing persistent issues with nighttime nightmares, bedwetting, and illnesses, you should visit your GP.
In case of anxiety or social problems, your work on managing anxiety will be useful.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle
Fitness, sleep and nutrition can have a significant impact in the overall quality your life and your child could be living in the next couple of years and possibly years.
Make sure your child eats a balanced diet and is well rested, gets enough sleep, does regular exercises regularly, and is checked with his doctor – Opticians, dentists, GPs and other experts.
Good sleep and healthy eating were covered in earlier sections.
Make sure your child is strong and healthy by exercising regularly. Be sure that your workouts aren’t lengthy, but rather quick and sweet, and end with a smile.
Socialising and friendships
One of the most distinctive characteristics that autism sufferers have is their inability to be emotionally or socially to other people. But, this doesn’t mean that children with autism cannot be friends. Parents just need to be aware of it.
DO’s
Ask for the help of as many parents as you possibly can.
Look online for local support groups for people with autism.
Get advice from your doctor on aiding your child to communicate and communicate.
DON’TS
Be careful not to encourage your child to be too young too fast.
Allow your child to pick their own circle or none at all.
How can autism affect the family members and you
ASD can impose a significant abrupt, constant burden on a family. The impact can be profound emotionally, physically, marital as well as financially any other manner. Everybody is affected. Everything is affected.
DO’s:
Talk about ways to integrate the child who is on the spectrum in family life.
Create and plan time with your partner to chat and recharge. Date nights should be planned not random.
Discuss with other children in your family on autism, and how they might be of assistance.
Create stronger bridges of friendship between siblings
Offer a supportive structure for siblings of the family.
DON’T:
You can play your blame-game. This is an opportunity for everyone to play their own part to see it that the child suffering from autism is taken into care
Do not live your life because you have a child who is autistic.
Tips for school
Selecting a preschool for your child
There are many aspects to take into consideration when deciding on a schools for children with autism. The quality of the instruction and the amount of students, the size of classes, the style and layout of the institution, transportation and so on. The selection of the kind of school to choose
There are two types of schools that your child can attend:
Mainstream school is the general school, that may have an educational specialist
Special school is a school that is devoted to children who have special academic needs
Mainstream school
A traditional school is not specially designed for children who have autism. It is a school that caters to all types of children. Autism-related children would require additional support beyond the classroom to be able to be able to keep pace with their peers. Additionally, the place could be expensive because there would be no reimbursements to help with the cost of education. But, it does provide the child with an environment in which to develop with other children.
Special school
A school for children with special needs is committed to teaching children with special needs in their education. The child who is autistic will receive individualized, expert care in this school. This will lead to faster understanding and learning. This is important because the money can be used to teach children.
The school you choose will be determined by the needs of the child, the school’s size, the type of local schools and financial strength.
Conclusion
Children with autism can live full lives when they are looked after, with procedures and structures, as well as the support required to function as any other person.
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