How To Live With An Autistic Child
Having a child with a disability comes with a mixture of reactions which includes confusion, hopelessness and as a parent, you might end up blaming yourself for the disability. But as time goes by, these feelings changes to joy and strength to the parents.
Loving your child with a disability with all your heart is a wonderful and precious experience especially if you don’t have a disability, my focus goes to Autistic kids, as a parent love alone is not enough for your autistic child but understanding their body, senses and how they get along with the rest of the world will help you raise the child comfortably.
Your child's life is not supposed to be harder than it has to be, so please consider the advice below which was given by Shannon Des Roches Rosa on the ‘Autism news and resources' website. Shannon gained autistic experiences during thirteen years of listening to autistic people, professionals, and parents.
1) Processing Time: Here he explains that almost every autistic person has their own rhythm and speed at which they process information.
Processing scenarios include relying on captioning for fully comprehending videos or movies even for those who can hear or need to record and re-listen to lectures. Disregarding processing needs can lead to autistic people having their abilities or comprehension grossly underestimated.
2) Visual and Auditory Processing: Shannon say, Autistic people often process visual and audio input faster, or with greater intensity. Sometimes this means "super hearing,"
Sometimes this means overhead lights flicker distractingly or painfully in ways non-autistic people don't notice. And sometimes, kids who can't screen out overwhelming sights or sounds on their own end up doing poorly or even melting down in classroom or other settings, because they're using all their energy to cope with torrential sensory input instead of learning, or being able to communicate, or picking up on social cues and exchanges.
Providing noise-canceling headphones, using glasses with colored lenses, and using non-fluorescent lights are just a few options to make home and classroom environments more autistic-friendly.
3) Sensitivity to Barometric Pressure: Many of Shannon’s friends said, they don’t need to consult Weather.com or my Dark Sky app to know if rain is approaching, because their Autistic kids will usually have already let them know because they will complain of the head hurting due to the barometric pressure change, the pressure change can even trigger migraines. So if your child gets distressed any time a storm comes in, consider that they may be in pain rather than scared, and take good care of them accordingly.
4) Undiagnosed Heartburn (or Other Medical Conditions): If your child has a hard time going to or staying asleep, or is going through an agitated patch in general, consider that they may have heartburn. Heartburn hurts like hell, gets worse upon lying down—and is usually easy to treat with over-the-counter meds (after a consultation with a doctor, of course).
7) A Serious Need for Chill Time: Autistic people get overwhelmed by the world. So when your kid comes home from school, an outing, or even after spending time with you, be sure to give them all the downtime they need. Give them space to process, reintegrate themselves, stim, and watch favorite videos.
8) Face Blindness or Prosopagnosia: Face blindness is a real thing for many autistic people, though its degree can vary. (Agnosia in general is an autistic thing, actually, difficulty differentiating between shapes, smells, buildings, individual cats.)
Try to help your child compensate: Teach them to recognize people by traits besides faces, and be aware of situations that may stress them out, like meeting up with friends or acquaintances, or recognizing teachers or aides. Help them come up with a strategy that works best for friends or family to approach them, like having the other person always say, “Hey, it’s me, [Name].”
9) Sensitivity to Tone of Voice: Autistic kids can be incredibly sensitive to other people's emotions, sometimes absorbing and even magnifying them. This means that keeping your tone of voice neutral or positive when speaking to your autistic child is a worthwhile effort. What you many consider a "firm" kind voice may be perceived as hurtful and angry by an autistic person who vibrates at a high emotional frequency, so do your best to practice a calm, comforting communication style with your child.
10) Simplify Their Space: People who get easily overwhelmed by the visual and audio input, experience agnosia, and need processing and chill time often appreciate bedroom and classroom environments that are soothingly spare and uncluttered.
If your child has a difficult time creating or tending such a space on their own due to common autistic co-occurring attention, executive functioning, or other factors, then do your best to help them organize and maintain these spaces as they prefer.
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