Tag: autism

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Sensory strategies for personal care

Our lives are full of sensory experiences. We take in information about the world around us through our senses – we touch, move, see, hear, taste and smell.

Many people with autism have difficulties interpreting this sensory information. Sensory sensitivity can significantly impact an individual’s behaviour and ability to develop independence in life skills.

Here are a few of the personal care strategies that have helped me to better manage my son’s sensory-driven behaviours.

DRESSING

  • Use comfortable clothes – consider particularly the type of fabric and length of sleeve
  • Cut off care labels from inside clothes
  • If seams cannot be tolerated try wearing undergarments (eg leggings under trousers) to reduce friction
  • Wash and dry clothes in unscented products
  • Dressing in front of a mirror can help provide visual cues to improve sequencing and body awareness

PERSONAL HYGIENE

  • Use non-perfumed soap
  • Apply firm pressure when shampooing or drying with a towel
  • Be aware of bathroom lighting levels and reduce any loud noises e.g. run the bath before the young person goes into the bathroom
  • Provide deep touch using a towel to head, hands and feet

HAIR CARE

  • Use a firm stroke or pressure as you comb or wash their hair
  • Count or have the young person count as you comb, wash or cut their hair
  • Give a definite time limit to the task e.g. brush or cut until you or they count to 10

 

TOILETING

  • Use moist toilet roll if the young person is sensitive to toilet tissue
  • If feet don’t reach the ground when sitting, using a stepping stool to rest feet on will help the child feel safer
  • Try a padded seat insert if the young person doesn’t like how the toilet seat feels

It’s important to talk to the young person to try and understand their individual issues and to explain each step of what you are doing to help them.

Visual aids can also be used to help the young person understand the activity and remember the order or sequence of actions. Our TomTag self care pack is designed to help guide self care tasks such as dressing, washing, toileting etc.

We also recommend Little Grippers socks which use “stay on technology” to help them to stick rather than grip the skin so they don’t fall down or move around. 

For more tips, this friendshipcircle blog has some really useful information.

Please feel free to share and let us know which strategies have worked well for you.

  • Back-to-School Toolkit

  • I Can Do It Brush My Teeth Mini Kit

  • I Can Do It Learn At Home Kit

  • I Can Do It Self Care Skills Kit

  • I Can Do It Toilet Routine Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect – Morning and Evening Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect At Home Kit

  • Self Care Sticker Pack

  • Toilet Training Record Sheet

  • Toilet Training Toolkit in collaboration with Clear Steps Consultancy
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Autism – understanding and managing anxiety

We all experience stress during our daily lives but for many autistic people the experience of stress can feel very intense and cause severe difficulties.

stress

Like many young people with autism, my son has been experiencing anxiety related to an overly-literal understanding of what it means to follow school rules and when he is faced with an unplanned change both inside and outside the school setting. He has a very narrow view of what it means to be in the correct uniform or be on time for lessons or appointments. When he is feeling stressed he will rock on his feet, pace the floor and ask repetitive questions. In these situations, he finds it difficult to respond to any reassurance.

Together with his Speech and Language therapist  (‘SLT’) and Occupational therapist  (‘OT’) we have been using some strategies to help him. We have taught him that the concept of feeling overwhelmed means either too many feelings all at once or a very strong reaction to a situation. He can now use this word to express how he is feeling. He has been taught a format for identifying the worry and setting out actions to help resolve it. The actions relate to what he can think, say or do to make things better. We’ve taught him the phrase self talk and he is beginning to understand what a trusted adult would do or say to him  in that situation to help and to use this as self talk. We are sharing this work with his teachers and support staff to ensure a consistent approach to talking about worries and solutions.

On the suggestion of my son’s OT we are trialling a tactical breathing programme developed for the military and emergency services to use in times of extreme stress. We wanted to have activities that were discreet and applicable to the classroom environment. Tactical breathing is a great strategy as no one needs to know that he’s doing it and he can use it to prepare for stressful situations as well as once he is feeling stressed.  We’ve incorporated tactical breathing into an anxiety busting resource for him called the 3 O’s- Overwhelmed, OT, OK.

One of the resources we’re using is a simple free app called ’Tactical Breather’ which I’ve downloaded onto his phone so it’s readily to hand for stressful situations. I’m also encouraging him to use his phone to record worries and solutions so that these can be kept and built up to form a ‘library’ of helpful strategies for managing situations.

It is hoped that over time and with continued support in this area he will become more able to self soothe and manage his anxiety. Incidentally, studies have shown that stress levels of mothers of kids with autism are similar to that of combat soldiers. Perhaps I should download that app for myself too!

Recommended products:

  • Back-to-School Self-Talk Prompt Sheet

  • Back-to-School Toolkit

  • Feelings & Emotions Sticker Pack

  • Feelings Tag-O-Meter

  • I Can Do It Learn At Home Kit

  • I Can Do It Manage My Feelings Kit

  • I Can Do It Share How I Feel Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect – Halloween and Bonfire Night Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect – My Vaccination Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect At Christmas & Birthdays Kit

  • I Know What To Expect At Home Kit

  • I Know What To Expect-My Christmas Day Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect-My COVID Test Mini Kit

  • cover image product feelings notebook

    My TomTag Feelings Notebook

  • STICKER SHEET SHOWING 20 WIDGIT SYMBOLS

    Non School Day Routines Sticker Sheet

  • Phoebe’s Green Christmas Kit in collaboration with Embracing Arts & Christmas For Kids

  • Phoebe’s Green Christmas Sticker Pack in collaboration with Embracing Arts & Christmas For Kids

  • Primary Years Classroom Bundle

  • School Morning Routines
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ORganised KIDs – top tips for back to school

New uniform to buy, school shoes to get fitted, pencilcases galore in every shop – it’s that time of year again when our thoughts must inevitably turn to planning for the new school year.

Last summer our own back to school preparations took on a whole new dimension. My autistic son Tomas faced the daunting transition from his much-loved mainstream primary school to our local secondary. Clearly there would be many challenges to face and one big worry was how Tomas would manage the extra organisational demands of dealing with lots of different subjects.

Organised paperwork

folders for organising school papeworkTomas was going to need a system to help him keep his paperwork organised and in one place if he was to stand any chance of keeping on top of things. We started with eight A4 ring-binders in different colours and labelled each one with a subject. We labelled the pockets of a plastic concertina file with the same subjects and labelled one extra section ‘letters’ to be used for permission slips, newsletters, etc.

I explained to Tomas that he must take the concertina file to school each day and bring it home again every night. Any notes, homework or handouts he was given had to be filed in it immediately after each lesson to prevent them from getting lost in his school bag or left at school! I then showed him how to empty the file each night. We talked through how we made the judgement about what should happen to each piece of paper. It if was needed for lessons the next day it could remain in the file, any homework sheets should be completed and returned to the file and some papers would need filing in the ring-binders for later reference and revision purposes.

Independence

The aim eventually was to have Tomas apply the strategy independently. Direct explicit instructions and plenty of practice are often all that is required to help children learn basic oTomas filing paperwork in a concertina filerganisational or other skills. This approach can be particularly beneficial for a child with organisational difficulties although it is appropriate and useful for most children.

One year on and I am delighted to report that the system seems to be working!  With lots of practice and the support of his teachers, Tomas can now collect, sort and file all his own paperwork from school. Now I just need to apply the same rigour to my own filing system!

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Organisational skills for children with SEN

The phrase ‘special needs’ is a very generic term. Children with special needs are not only different from their so called ‘normal’ peers but they are also different from one another. Each child with special needs presents with a unique profile of strengths and weaknesses.

Organisational skills

A lack of organisational skills is the one challenge that the majority of children with special needs face. Coats go missing. Books and lunch boxes are forgotten. Hours are spent each month searching through the lost property box at school looking for gloves, scarves, gym kit and jumpers.

Organisational skills are a challenge for most SEN children because they have limited and inefficient internal structure. They are generally unable to organise their belongings, prioritize their actions or utilize their time efficiently to meet deadlines.  They also struggle with temporal (time related) concepts so they have difficulty assessing, for example, how much time it takes to get ready for school or finish homework.

Daily struggles

These organisational difficulties can put incredible strain on a family. As a parent of an autistic boy I know how frustrating it is when your child has organisational difficulties. I’m also aware how upsetting it is for Tomas to be constantly scolded and reprimanded for behaviours that are mainly out of his control. Tomas does not forget things because he is lazy or unmotivated. He has a neurological condition that means he struggles on a daily basis to make sense of the world we live in.

School morning organisation

Getting ready for school in a morning is a real test of organisational skills for any child. For a SEN child like Tomas the morning routine can be a source of extreme anxiety. There’s so much to remember – homework, lunch boxes, gym kit. Parents are also under pressure to leave on time and ensure that everyone has the right equipment for the day ahead.

Like many SEN children, Tomas is extraordinarily visual. He needs to see things in order to remember and organise them. If things are out of sight they are out of mind. Tomas’s visual strength was one of the sources of inspiration for TomTag (that’s why it’s named after him!). As TomTag clips easily to any school bag it is always to hand and the problem of misplacing the list is avoided.

Confidence and independence

Learning to pack a bag for school sounds simple but it requires skills and self confidence. Using TomTag as a prompt, Tomas has been able to learn over the last few years how to pack his school bag for himself. The fact that he is now able to pack independently for high school is a real testament to the success of TomTag. By giving him a consistent external tool to use he has learnt to overcome his minimal internal structure.

Teachers and parents benefit from children learning to pack a school bag independently. Fewer items are left in the infamous lost property box, morning routines are less stressful and for children like Tomas they are not only ready for school but have acquired important organisational skills which will pay dividends later in life.

Recommended products:

  • Back-to-School Toolkit

  • I Can Do It Brush My Teeth Mini Kit

  • I Can Do It Learn At Home Kit

  • I Can Do It Pack My Bag For School Kit

  • I Can Do It Self Care Skills Kit

  • I Know What To Expect – Morning and Evening Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect – Non-School Day Routines Mini Kit

  • I Know What To Expect At Home Kit

  • Learn At Home Sticker Pack

  • Morning and Evening Routines Sticker Sheet

  • My School Kit Sticker Pack

  • Organising My School Bag

  • School Bag Packing Checklist

  • School Morning Routines