3 Ways to Support Your Autistic Child

In my nearly 10 years of assessing, diagnosing, and supporting people with Autism, there have been 3 key strategies that almost always work, when it comes to parents making their child’s life easier. In this article, we’ll break down these tried and tested strategies in the hopes that they will help you and your loved ones have a better quality of life.

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Back Words with Visuals

I know all too well how frustrating it can be when your child is just not listening to you. When you feel as though you’ve told them to do something for the millionth time and they still aren’t listening. However, this could be due to several reasons, one being that your child may struggle with processing auditory information. This is where backing up what you’ve said, with some form of visual aid, comes in handy. This is due to this being a different type of information which reinforces what you’re saying to get the desired outcome. For example, if you’ve asked your child to grab their socks, you could back this up with a picture of their sock to support them in processing what you’ve asked them to do.

This seems to be the one strategy that most families find helps the most and reduces the amount of times you are asking your child to do something. There are also many resources that you can buy online such as visual cards for everyday things, so that you’re not scrambling to find a picture of different items.

Routine Routine Routine!

This is going to sound strange but if you’ve said that you are going to do something at a specific time, then make sure that it happens. Often, as parents, we say things like “we’ll go in 5 minutes” and then end up leaving 30 minutes later. To your child, 5 minutes means 5 MINUTES! At 6 minutes you may get a few comments like “you said 5 minutes” or in some cases, a full meltdown. For your Autistic child, the world is already a confusing place but by sticking to a routine, you’re introducing stability and predictability to your child’s life.

Couple this strategy with using visual aids to show your child what is going to happen on that day. I know so many families that use visual timetables in their homes and it has completely changed their lives. I remember supporting one family and after a few weeks, they thought their child wasn’t even looking at the timetable, so they took it down. About an hour later, they found their child actively searching for something, he found the timetable and put it back on the fridge.

Time to Process

This is probably one of the most difficult strategies to implement but will most likely have the best returns. Have you ever had it where you’ve asked your child a question and they haven’t responded or look like they are thinking? The natural response in this situation is to rephrase the question, however this is probably the worst things to do. Imagine you’re on an assembly line and you’re trying to figure out how to put something together. Now imagine that as you’re trying to figure it out, someone gives you more items to figure out and keeps adding to your workload. Eventually, you would either become distressed or completely shut down. This is exactly what happens when you overload your child with different information without giving time to fully process.

Try this, the next time you ask your child something, sit back and wait. See how long it takes for your child to respond to you. You’d be surprised as to how many parents find that their child just needed a few extra seconds, and they were able to respond appropriately. Once you have done this a few times, keep a mental note of how long it takes for your child to process information in different environments. Reason for this is that your child could process information much quicker in a relaxed environment, however might take a little longer in a more stressful environment.

Want to speak with an Autism Specialist? Book your FREE Clinical Appointment here.

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