It’s an amazing and precious experience to love your autistic child with all of your heart. Even the most genuine love can’t always assist you in perceiving how being autistic affects your child’s body, senses, or way of interacting with the world if you’re not autistic yourself, signs of autism in newborns.
Please consider the advice below, which I’ve learned about autistic experiences through thirteen years of listening to autistic persons—advice that has helped me make my son’s life a lot easier., For example, improving the quality of life for parents and families. Although they won’t change what’s currently happening in your child’s life, working with professionals, caregivers, and parents can make a huge difference in how effective therapies are received. Some of these issues are well-known among autism communities and circles, while others go unaddressed.
See Also signs of autism in newborns
If you want to do the greatest for your autistic child (or any other autistic person), keep these eleven factors in mind:
1) Processing Time: Every autistic person I know has their own rhythm and speed at which they process information. In my son’s case, this means providing him with a few beats to respond rather than assuming he didn’t comprehend what was said immediately.
When it comes to processing, there are a variety of options. For example, relying on captioning for completely comprehending movies or videos—even if they can hear—or recording and re-listening to lectures are all possible. Ignoring processing requirements may result in underachievement by autistic individuals.
2) Visual and Auditory Processing: People on the spectrum are more sensitive to visual and audio stimuli. This may manifest as “super hearing,” being able to detect—and act upon—parents’ whispers about hidden cookies from several rooms away.
SO verhead lights may flicker distractingly or severely in ways non-autistic individuals don’t perceive from time to time. And, as a result of their inability to screen out overpowering sights or sounds on their own, children who can’t shut out overwhelming sights or noises on their own often do badly in class or other places., Because intense sensory input consumes all of their mental resources, infants with significant hearing loss do not learn, communicate, or pick up social cues and exchanges.
Another way to make a home or classroom more autistic-friendly is to provide noise-canceling headphones, glasses with colored lenses, and non-fluorescent lights.
3) Sensitivity to Barometric Pressure: I don’t need to check the weather on Weather.com or my Dark Sky app to see if it’s going to rain because my son will usually notify me that his head hurts as a result of the barometric pressure change before I notice it. Many of my autistic friends have stated that they are more prone to barometric pressure than their non-autistic counterparts; even a little change in pressure might induce a migraine in certain situations. So, if your kid gets scared when a storm arrives, consider that they may be hurting rather than frightened, and take excellent care of them.
4) Undiagnosed Heartburn (or Other Medical Conditions): Consider that your child has heartburn if he or she has trouble going to bed or keeping asleep, or is experiencing a mood swing in general. Heartburn is excruciating and exacerbated when you lie down; it’s typically easy to cure with over-the-counter medications (after consulting with a doctor, of course).
My six-year-old’s nighttime waking is a result of his heartburn, which I treat with Aloe. This has genuinely improved his capacity to fall asleep and his quality of life—and it’s just one example of how what is considered to be autistic “behavior” might actually be a response to an untreated medical problem.
5) Stimming: Flapping hands, flicking a straw, chewing on a silicone tube, fiddling with hair—these are all examples of the kinds of “stimming” that can help autistic kids entertain themselves, regulate themselves, or cope with being overwhelmed—But, however beneficial and legitimate, stimulation is considered strange or annoying by non-autistic persons. Great effort is sometimes made to prevent or “extinguish” such stims (and not only in autistic children—behavioral suppression is also being utilized to combat ADHD.)
Healthy or self-regulating stimming must be recognized and accepted, and it isn’t the same as repetitive self-injury, distress, or aggressiveness.
6) Echolalia: Repetition, words, or scripts might be typical of persons with Asperger’s. Echolalia is functional communication in the same way as a subset of Generation X-ers finds lines from Caddyshack acceptable responses during casual conversation. Echolalia can also be a type of verbal stimming. It’s soothing and therapeutic to repeat things to oneself or in a call-and-response style with other people. Many parents, teachers, and therapists have tried to stop or redirect autistic echolalia. If this kind of interference occurs, say no. Then do it again!
7) A Serious Need for Chill Time: Autistic people are prone to become overloaded. So, when your youngster comes home from school or has an outing, make certain they have time to relax. Give them space to decompress in whatever manner they indicate it to you.
This is especially important for our community’s children, since autistic youngsters tend to be extremely scheduled, with treatments and other thoroughly socially oriented activities that need more energy than non-autistic kids. Consider this: no kid whose energy reserves are completely depleted will be at his or her best.
8) Face Blindness, or Prosopagnosia:One thing that’s true of many autistic individuals is tunnel vision. Tunneling can create a world of its own, and one with no sight. (In fact, difficulty differentiating between shapes, scents, buildings, and individual cats is a typical autism issue.)
Try to assist them as much as possible: teach them to recognize individuals by characteristics other than their faces, and be aware of situations that may upset them, such on meeting up with friends or new acquaintances, or recognizing teachers or aids. Make sure they have a plan in place for how to approach friends or family. Have the other person always say, “Hey, it’s me, [Name].”
9) Sensitivity to Tone of Voice: Autistic children can be highly sensitive to other people’s feelings, absorbing and even amplifying them on occasion.When communicating with your autistic child, avoid using a negative or critical tone of voice. If your youngster is on the spectrum, you may believe he or she reacts better to a “firm” voice, but an autistic person who vibrates at a high emotional frequency could be agitated and irritated by it. Make every attempt to use a calm, soothing method of communication with your kid.
10) Simplify Their Space: Those who are uncomfortable with visual and audio information, have agnosia, or require processing and calm time may benefit from softly simple and uncluttered rooms in their bedrooms and classrooms.
If your kid has trouble establishing or maintaining such a place on their own because to typical autistic co-occurrence attention, executive functioning, or other reasons, do all you can to assist them manage and maintain these areas as they prefer.
11) Need for Respite: If your child is an emotional sponge, he or she will need time away from the primary emotion emitters in his or her life—his or her family. Make every effort to allow them to relax, but do so as you would want someone else to do for your child—such as providing space, taking quiet car journeys, or allowing them to spend time with a respite care provider or other trusted and appreciated individual who is not you. You’ll both profit.
Each autistic individual is different, therefore the eleven traits described below may not apply to every autistic person. The purpose of this list isn’t to be exhaustive (please include your own thoughts in the comments).
Consider this a checklist, a tiny guide for parents to consider issues and viewpoints they may not be aware of, which could assist them and their children in living the Best Lives Possible.
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