Avoid Repeating Or Rephrasing Your Words
People with autism will probably understand what is said. Avoid unnecessary repetition or rephrasing your previous comments unless they ask for it. Autistic people are often good at picking up details such as peopleâs names, but they must make an effort to do so. They can have difficulty discerning and picking up the correct information.
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Best Communication Practices For Interacting With Autistic People
Everyone has different strengths, interests, needs and challenges. Just like with any other friend, colleague or acquaintance, learning these are the first step to positive relationships and communication.
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Autistic people bring new perspectives and ideas, enriching our communities and workplaces with their gifts inspired from seeing the world in different ways. We offer information about Autism Spectrum Disorder here. With 1 in 59 American children now diagnosed with some form of autism, if you think you dont know anyone with autism you might be wrong. Being part of the wider community and developing relationships benefits everyone.
We offer these tips and insights to achieve positive relationships and community, understanding more about what being on the autism spectrum means. Depending on the age and ability of the individual you may adapt different communication strategies and accommodations. These techniques are good to use with anyone, regardless of whether they are neurotypical or have ASD. Be respectful, ask what the person prefers, likes and needs.
Strategy #: Using Communication Boards
Some children with ASD, such as children with nonverbal autism, may have difficulty speaking. Communication boards enable nonverbal children to express themselves by pointing or gesturing at images, which might be photographs, illustrations, or symbols. Communication boards can be highly sophisticated pieces of technology or devices as simple as bulletin boards.
- Pros Communication boards are simple to make and use.
- Cons Electronic communication boards can potentially be expensive and inaccessible.
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Uses Of Visual Supports
Visual supports can be used in a range of ways, for example:
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as a single message, eg the person takes a yellow card from their pocket when they need to go to the toilet, or a puts purple card on the board when theyre feeling stressed
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in combination to create a daily timetable, schedule, sequence or reward chart
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to make a choice, eg the person can put the trampolining symbol in the afternoon area of the board
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to illustrate asocial story or comic strip conversation.
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How To Interact With An Individual With Autism In 7 Effective Ways
Autism is a disorder of the human brain and psychology when individuals suffer from difficulties interacting and communicating with others. People with autism traits need to be treated well. You may not recognize the person in front of you as having autism, but somehow, his/her behavior will make you think once again.
In most cases, people feel irritated dealing with an individual with autism. But the person requires extra care and support in every aspect to cope with others in society. Its our responsibility to interact with an individual with autism in the best way possible. It helps to grow their mental development even if they suffer from the disorder.
This article will give you the most practical ways to deal with individuals with autism traits.
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Health Care For Adults With Autism
First Look: Data on Adults on the Autism SpectrumGet a preview of the initial data provided by adults, or their legal representatives, who responded to the IAN Adult with ASD Questionnaire. These data are preliminary, gathered from a small sample of respondents thus far, but perhaps you have some ideas on how to reach more of these adults, who can provide valuable information to advocates, policymakers, and researchers.
The âCâ Word: Common Cause in Spite of Conflicting PerspectivesConnie Anderson, PhD, explores cure as hope, as answer, and as healingâ¦and cure as hurtful condemnation of a different way of being and thinking. However, what may be most useful is not to let the c-word get in the way of what everyone wants: a greatly improved situation for individuals with ASD.
Autism Behavior And Communication Strategies
Autism spectrum disorder , a developmental disorder which affects an estimated 1 in 54 U.S. children, causes a wide array of symptoms that vary in severity. Many of these symptoms impact behavior and communication, such as social withdrawal, repetition of words , and difficulty interpreting body language or nonverbal cues.
These types of symptoms can make it difficult for children who have ASD to express themselves, converse with others, or maintain relationships. However, by leveraging a combination of techniques, therapists such as applied behavior analysts can help children with ASD improve their communication skills. Well examine four of those techniques in this article, along with three autism behavioral strategies for therapists and counselors.
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If Someone Is Nonverbal
- Ask the individual or their caregiver how they prefer to communicate.
- Learn what assistive devices or techniques they may use. For example, visual schedule, iPad apps, text-to-speech or other voice assistant apps in which a person touches something on their device to speak for them.
- Always look at the individual who you are trying to communicate with, not their caregiver. If you were using a translator for a person speaking a different language you would look at the person you want to communicate with, not the translator.
- Pair your verbal communication with gestures .
- If using an assistive device, give them enough time to type in their responses.
- Dont talk about them in front of them like they arent there.
- Always face them when talking to them even if they dont appear to be paying attention.
- Always communicate what you are doing even if you dont think they understand.
Three Strategies To Strengthen Communication For Adults With Autism And Learning Differences
Communication is an essential skill that contributes to success with relationships. Individuals with ASD particularly focus on growth in their communicative skills for a majority of their lives. With young adulthood comes the combination of self-identity development and the presentation of more abstract social situations. A common challenge many young adults with ASD experience involves handling these complicated social conflicts that call for higher level processing needs. As a result, advocacy and communication become difficult as interpersonal goals and awareness of social constructs become convoluted. This challenge is well depicted in the following case:
Jolene Liang, Social Skills Coordinator
A student, Tom, brought up a peer conflict he was having with one of his friends. Tom is a 24-year-old college student studying film and has a successful peer group he socializes with regularly. Tom mentioned his challenges with a peer who was making negative comments towards his career pursuits during their social outings. Tom expressed his care for his friend, however he also identified his uncertainty in continuing his friendship due to his peers repeated statements, despite Toms independent efforts of advocacy. Im not really sure what I want to say, he commented.
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How To Improve Communication Skills In Autism:
Like anyone trying to pick up a new language, the key is that practice makes perfect so, exposing an autistic person to conversation can make a great difference to our overall social ability. This doesnt mean constantly speaking to an autistic untill our social traits excel though as, before attempting any kind of speech therapy, there are few things to consider first:
1. Communicate whilst learning to communicate
It sounds confusing but, before you even start trying to improve an autistic persons communication, make sure that you understand them and they understand you. It can be extremely stressful when someone is trying to teach you something that just wont sink it and, if you dont have a way to signal for a timeout, this stress can turn into frustration.
As such, make sure an autistic person has a way to express themsleves when things are going well and when we have enough. This can be done by looking out for signs of strain like, finger tapping, or by implementing a red card/green card system.
2. Real-life examples
Autistic minds love to make patterns, this is something youll want to keep in mind when planning a social teaching schedule as, if you encourage an autistic person to be social at the same moment of the same day, we will form an idea that this is how it will always be.
3. Vary your teaching style
Instead, opt to try a variety of styles to see which works best and consider switching to promote learning in a different region of the brain. For example:
Autism And Understanding The Emotions Of Other People
An autistic person may find it hard to understand the emotions of other people. Emotions are interpreted by subtle messages sent by facial expression, eye contact and body language. These are often missed or misinterpreted by an autistic person. Because of this, autistic people might be mistakenly perceived as being rude or unfeeling. Autistic people may find it difficult to understand how others perceive their behaviour.
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How Do People With Autism Communicate
As mentioned, there is no one size fits all people with autism are not a homogeneous group. That being said, many individuals might use some of the following communication techniques.
- Non-verbal communication pointing, gesturing, physically moving someone to the thing they need, writing words.
- Sounds and crying due to not understanding, feeling frustrated or being unable to use the right words.
- Echolalia the term given to repeating phrases and words they have heard in the past, hoping these phrases fit the current situation.
- Picking out keywords or phrases then focusing on the literal meanings and responding accordingly to those words only.
For a person with autism, focusing on the literal meaning of specific words creates a reply that makes sense to them, but it may seem out of place in the conversation to a neurotypical person.
Analysing words and not tones is why a person with autism might have trouble understanding sarcasm, metaphors, and humorous language.
Autistic Communication Is Not Deficientjust Different
As autism specialists, we think its unfair to blame the autistic-neurotypical communication gap on autistic people. Research shows that autistic people are just as expressive as neurotypical people and can understand each other perfectly well., Autistic people are not deficient in communication skills. They simply communicate differently than neurotypical people do.
When autistic and neurotypical people interact, they often have trouble understanding, empathizing with, and being understood by each other. Neurodiversity-affirmative psychotherapists call this the double empathy problem. According to the double empathy framework, the autistic-neurotypical communication gap is a mutual problem which both groups share responsibility for solving.
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Strategy #: Using Speech Generating Devices
Like its name suggests, a speech generating device is a piece of equipment that produces speech for the user, either through alphabet keys or visual symbols. Various studies have shown that SGDs can be effective, particularly for children and young adults aged 3 to 20 years old.
- Pros SGDs are generally convenient and easy to use. Additionally, by enabling users to create speech , SGDs can help to facilitate interactions with others.
- Cons Speech generating devices can be costly, which might limit accessibility.
Ways To Build Relationships And Rapport
- Be patient while having a conversation, giving the person time to answer.
- Always strive to be encouraging and compassionate.
- Learn about their favorite interests, games or hobbies and try to find common ones.
- Be aware of the tendency by autistic people to speak at length about their favorite topics which may require some gentle prompting or redirection.
- Sustaining conversation can also be challenging. You can support them by offering choices, suggesting topics or bridging the conversation to a topic you know they can discuss.
- Offer concise directions or clear choices. For example, Would you like to take a walk or ride our bikes?
- Provide specific praise such as I liked the way you waited for me before leaving the room instead of a vague good job so they understand what behavior you are seeking from them.
- To make your own communication clearer, share with the individual what you want them to do rather than what you don’t want them to do
- Dont be offended by lack of eye contact, motor tics or a lack of understanding personal boundaries. These are common challenges for an autistic person.
- Understand that autistic people like routines and schedules.
- Autistic people tend to think literally, so it is best to avoid idioms and slang.
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Strategy #: Sensory Integration Therapy
While ABA therapy focuses on reinforcing desired behaviors, and RDI focuses on building social skills, sensory integration therapy approaches behavior from a different angle, specifically targeting issues caused by hypersensitivity a common symptom among children with ASD, who may be highly sensitive to light, textures, sounds, or other sources of sensory stimulation. In this type of therapy, the therapist slowly introduces the child to increasingly intense stimuli, being careful never to exert force or push too far beyond the childs limits.
Tips For Communicating With A Autistic Individual
Tip 1: Reduce Unnecessary Sensory Input
The first thing which is often very helpful is take the ASD patient and their parents/support person to a very quiet, private room where its dimly lit with minimal medical equipment in the room. There shouldnt be other patients or staff in the room. You want to create a relaxed, peaceful environment. That in itself will usually calm the individual down. This will help to decrease the amount of sensory overload that is affecting the patient.
Tip 2: Figure out how that Individual Communicates Best
The next thing you need to do is ask the parent how the child/adult typically communicates. They can provide a baseline expectation of how the individual will react to you. Observe the way they communicate with their parent or whoever they are with. You will be able to observe if they use words or any type of gestures. Ask them for suggestions on how you should approach the individual.
Remember, that parent is with that child 24/7 and knows their every move. They are your best resource for your client.
Tip 3: Written Communication
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The Importance Of Visual Aids For Autism
Visual aids expand a child with autisms ability to interact with his/her surroundings. They can give children a sense of autonomy and allow them to make choices and express needs. Visual aids also help children comprehend daily rhythms and have input in their activities. Perhaps most importantly, visual aids can open lines of communication between children with ASD and their caretakers.
Families who previously struggled to understand their childs needs, endured meltdowns, and tried to reassure anxious children, can find some respite in opening lines of communication. Most importantly, children can learn how to express their desires, ideas, personalities, and wishes in a way they could not before.
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Eye Contact And Communication For People With Autism
Avoiding eye contact may help someone with autism talk clearly as it takes away all the stimuli that come with looking into someones eyes, which can often cause an overload of information. Some people may prefer to speak with their eyes shut, to focus purely on the words of the conversation.
You should never force people with autism to make eye contact with you during a conversation as, for many individuals, this might cause undue stress and discomfort.
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Tips To Communicate Better With Autistic Adults
Some of the most common difficulties experienced by service users with autism are in communication and social interaction. This can become even more of an issue in adulthood, where there is more of an expectation that they will have learnt accepted social norms. If you want to provide the most effective support to autistic adults through care work in Basingstoke, you have to be able to communicate with them regardless of these difficulties.
Support for autistic adults can take a range of forms, but it is impossible to tailor that support to an individuals specific needs if you do not fully understand the challenges they face. This means you need to be able to communicate with the service user, allowing them to express their needs and you to respond appropriately.
Social Deficits In People With Autism
People with autism spectrum disorder have deficits in social interaction skills and relating to others such as:
- Lack filters when talking to people and may come across as rude or inappropriate, even though they are trying to say the right thing
- A lack of awareness of the presence of other people
- Not making or maintaining eye contact
- Difficulty starting and sustaining conversations
- A tendency to repeat phrases over and over
- Problems in reading body language correctly and picking up communication cues
- Overly focused on specific areas that interest them
- A lack of motivation to relate to peers or to become involved in social activities
- Difficulty in understanding other people’s viewpoints
- Do not like to be touched
- Are distracted or may experience sensory overload in environments with background noise, strong smells, flashing lights or multicolors and patterns
When people with autism were growing up, these issues probably interfered with their abilities to interact and relate to others. They may experience these issues:
- Ridicule, bullying, and rejection by their peers
- A bad reputation as strange or shy
- A lack of social engagement with others and few friendships
- A lack of close, quality relationships
- Conflict with their peers
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