An autism spectrum disorder and upbringing, a special combination. What does this require in particular from education if your child has an autism spectrum disorder? A child with an autism spectrum disorder has difficulty processing stimuli and seeing the whole, because he or she experiences all stimuli as separate pieces. What can you do to make the world clearer for your child? Structure, neutralizing stimuli, preparing for stimuli, looking for the message of behavior and acting and responding consistently can play an important role here. Because a child with a form of autism processes each stimulus as a separate detail and has difficulty seeing the whole, the context, the world is often very confusing and difficult to understand. In addition, this makes it very difficult for children with a form of autism to distinguish between main and secondary issues. Can you imagine experiencing everything around you in individual details? It is especially important for these children to help them understand the world and pay attention to what they consciously or unconsciously communicate verbally or through their behavior.
What is the message value of behavior?
First of all, it is important to look for the message value of communication and behavior. Children with an autism spectrum disorder experience difficulties in communication. They cannot always express how they feel and what they think. It is therefore important, especially for children with a form of autism, that the educator looks for the message of his or her behavior or communication. For example, a child with a form of autism may panic, but has difficulty explaining to the other person what has caused this panic. Here lies a task for the educator to find out what caused the child to panic. Creating an SRC scheme can be an aid in this regard. The ‘S’ here stands for stimuli. This is the stimulus or situation that resulted in the child’s behavior. The ‘R’ stands for response, or the child’s behavior or reaction to the described stimulus. The ‘C’ stands for consequence. This is the reaction that the behavior evokes in the child’s environment.
Add structure
By adding structure to daily life, you make life clear and understandable. A fixed daily and/or weekly program is therefore important for children with an autism spectrum disorder. A daily or weekly program can be designed in different ways. It is important that this is tailored to the unique child. For some, it is sufficient to maintain the same rhythm every week and day and communicate this verbally to him or her. For the other person, for example, it must be clarified with a written program, pictos, photos or objects which activities are on the program per day and per week. How specifically the program must be communicated per activity depends on the unique child. For some people it is not necessary to include activities such as hanging up a coat and emptying their bags in the program, but for others it is necessary. In addition to clarifying the sequence of activities, depending on the unique child, it may also be necessary to clarify activity by activity. This can be done, among other things, by communicating to the child who is present at the activity, where the activity takes place and what the activity is or entails. Here too, it is important to connect to the level and the way of communicating best understood by the child, whether this is verbal, with written text, pictos, photos or objects. In addition to providing structure to the week and the days, it can also help to structure the activities themselves. You can think of structuring the eating ritual, sleeping ritual, bath or shower ritual, and so on.
Neutralize stimuli
As mentioned earlier, children with a form of autism experience everything around them as isolated details. Every detail is a separate stimulus for them. You can imagine that these children experience an abundance of stimuli in the world around them. Some stimuli evoke strong reactions in children with an autism spectrum disorder, such as panic. It is important to teach them to deal with different stimuli. However, experience shows that in practice it is not always realistic to learn to deal with all stimuli. Sometimes it takes more effort to teach a child to deal with the obstacle or to ignore the obstacle than to always go ‘around the block’. In addition, it is possible to make spaces low-stimulus. This can, among other things, have a positive effect on the child’s ability to concentrate and the feeling of calm.
prepare for stimuli
Even if you have created structure in your child’s world, for example by means of a daily and/or weekly routine, there will be times when this routine is deviated from. Everyone has to go to the dentist or doctor sometimes, or simply wants to visit or take a trip. Such a change in routine can cause a feeling of insecurity, confusion or even panic in a child with a form of autism. To prevent this, it is important to prepare children with an autism spectrum disorder for this. Depending on the unique child and the form of communication that best suits him or her, you can do this using verbal language, written language and possibly also with visualizations such as pictos or photos. In addition to changes in the daily and weekly routine, it may also happen that the fire alarm is tested or the child hears a barking dog. It is also important to prepare the child for this through a means of communication that he or she understands. For both preparations for incentives, it can help to check whether the child has received and understood the message.
Getting used to stimuli
In different situations it is necessary or preferable to get used to certain stimuli. For example, it happens that children with an autism spectrum disorder do not want to wear new shoes because the last new shoes they wore gave them painful feet with blisters. New shoes can then evoke a strong reaction, sometimes even at the sight of them. Giving an explanation has little effect. Children with an autism spectrum disorder usually do not have sufficient insight to provide this explanation. It is then important to slowly let your child get used to the stimulus. It is important to combine this habituation with positive experiences for the child and to start with short exposures to the stimulus. When I look at the example of the new shoes and a child who really enjoys using the computer and can get involved in it, you could, for example, depending on the level of fear, place the child’s shoes next to your child while using the computer. If this goes well, you could, for example, take on them a few minutes of the total computer time. In this way you continue to build up until your child is eventually used to the stimulus. It is of course important to always adapt to the unique child and the unique situation.
Learn skills
It can be practical for children with a form of autism to learn certain skills, for example social skills. However, there are a few points of interest. First, social situations are generally difficult for people with autism spectrum disorder. In addition to having difficulty seeing the context, they often lack social finesse, which makes it difficult for them to judge when something is appropriate and when it is not. There are no strict rules and guidelines for social situations, so they are very unpredictable. Children also do not always understand the purpose of certain social actions. For example, a child with an autism spectrum disorder may have been taught to introduce himself, but because he does not realize the reason for this, he introduces himself to everyone he meets. A tip often given is to teach children to only introduce themselves when the other person takes the initiative. In addition to difficulties in social situations, children with a form of autism usually have difficulty generalizing what they have learned. This means that he or she learns something in one situation, but does not automatically apply it in another (similar) situation. It may therefore be necessary to learn certain skills several times or over and over again.
Act and respond consistently
When raising children, consistent action and response is recommended. This is particularly important for children with a form of autism. The consistent action and response of the educator contributes to creating clarity in the child’s world and thus to a child’s sense of security. This is especially important for children with an autism spectrum disorder, because they have difficulty seeing the whole in a world of separate stimuli. You can read more about this in the following article: Autism spectrum disorders.
It is important that the educator pays attention to the reaction he gives to the child’s behavior and what kind of reaction this produces in the child. You can also use the aforementioned SRC scheme here. Just as is recommended when raising children without an autism spectrum disorder, you should reward desired behavior in children who do have this disorder. The preference is to give positive attention. However, giving ‘punishment’ does not work for children with autism. They have insufficient insight into the ‘whole’, which means they have insufficient insight into why they are being punished. It is therefore important to look for alternatives to undesirable behavior. Punishment is not only recommended for children with a form of autism. Ignoring behavior also generally has no effect in children with an autism spectrum disorder. They usually don’t understand this. In addition to acting consistently, it is always important to continue to look at the message value of the behavior. After all, problem behavior is often a form of communication.
read more
- Disorders in the autism spectrum