Monday, March 25, 2024

How To Calm A Screaming Autistic Child

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Fake It Till You Make It

How To Calm the Tantrums of an Autistic Child

What if you find yourself screaming before you can stop yourself? The minute you notice it, just stop. In mid-sentence. Close your mouth. You’re not embarrassing yourself, you’re demonstrating the kind of self control you want your child to learn.

If you do this every time you find yourself losing it, you’ll begin rewiring your brain. Sooner or later, you’ll be able to stop yourself before you start screaming. You’ll be on your way to becoming a parent who never screams. And your buttons won’t get pushed nearly as often.

Easy? No. This is some of the hardest work there is.

Possible? Absolutely. You can do hard things! Look at everything you’ve done to get to here. Give yourself whatever support you need. Every step in the right direction gets you into a new landscape. In three months, think how much better your home could feel.

I’ll be here cheering you on, every step of the way.

“This website is gold!! Just what I needed. None of the other methods of “disciplining” were working for us. These articles are really helping me understand what my son needs. And the way you give specific actions to take, with suggested words! I often find myself thinking when reading about parenting, “But how exactly do I implement that????” I feel like I’m left hanging. This website does not leave me hanging. Thank you! We all want to be awesome parents we just don’t know how.” – Lisa Ryder

This is consistently the BEST parenting website out there.

Megan Nida

Liz McIntosh

Mila Kim

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Meltdown Warning Signs And Prevention

As careful as you might be with avoiding activities or situations that can lead to meltdowns, it just is not feasible to duck away from meltdowns entirely. You can, however, try to intervene and stop a meltdown in its tracks before it goes full-force by picking up on your childs warning signs.

Common meltdown warning signs in children with autism are:

Meltdowns Compared To Temper Tantrums

Knowing the difference between a typical temper tantrum in a young child and a meltdown in a person with autism helps to further understand what a meltdown is.

Children have temper tantrums with intention and purpose, such as control over people or situations, or as a call for attention. A child having a temper tantrum does have control over themselves, even if the tantrum results in attacking people, loud screaming, or breaking things.

A person having a meltdown typically screams, attacks people, hurts themselves and breaks things, which may look like a temper tantrum, but there is no underlying intention or plan involved.

In an autistic meltdown, the person is not aware of self-control, as they are in the throes of distress, and typically the meltdown situation will have to calm itself down, meaning, it cannot simply be turned off.

People with autism can experience a meltdown whether they are a child, a teen, or an adult.

With positive changes, the frequency of meltdowns can decrease over time.

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Attempts To Escape Or Bolt

Children typically find it entertaining to bolt away from their parents, but in a child with autism, it may be a sign of over-stimulation.

Be prepared to give your child the break that they are expressing or asking for. This may involve you taking them to a quiet place or distracting them with a routine that the child is familiar with, such as visuals or music that they love.

Tag Sound Is Better Than Verbal Good Job

Special Needs Parenting: How to Stay Calm When Your Child ...

TAGteach is a wonderful tool for working with children with autism for many reasons. It is a validated scientific method based on the science of Applied Behavior Analysis. It is effective. For the parents, it is easy and low-cost .

For the child, it has numerous advantages: the tag clearly marks for the child the behavior that will earn reinforcement. The tag tells the child, YES, you did something good. Now you are getting a treat. The tag gets around the problem of using words with a child with autism: many times our kids cant understand words, and even if they understand, they cant comply with the request.

Also, our words and voices carry emotional undertones which can be overwhelming for a child with autism. The tag gets around those problems and allows you to mark and reinforce constructive behaviors at the exact moment the child performs them. Also, words take too long. You can tag and reinforce behaviors faster and more frequently with a tagger than you can with words, so you can build a desired behavior faster and with less effort.

To summarize, the advantages of using a tag sound instead of voice are as follows:

  • It is clear and has only one meaning Yes, that was right!
  • It is consistent makes the exact same sound every time.
  • It can be delivered with a high degree of precision just takes a little practice!
  • It requires no processing by the language-processing part of the brain.
  • It conveys no emotional nuances.
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    Observe And Wait For Quiet Mouth Or Appropriate Vocalization

    The third step: sit back and watch your child. Reinforce Quiet Mouth . Whenever there is a split second of Quiet Mouth, immediately tag and hand over a treat. Every time the childs mouth is Quiet, tag and treat. Soon there will be much more Quiet Mouth behavior.

    When doing this it is important not to react to vocal stims or screaming. Dont look at the child, dont speak to him/her or explain. Stay quiet yourself and immediately tag and treat as soon as there is even a split second of Quiet Mouth.

    Please note, the purpose of this is not to mute the child. The purpose is to teach the skill of being quiet in appropriate settings and to increase the range of sounds or words that the child can say. For this reason, be sure to tag and reinforce any Appropriate Vocalizations/Communication . If he/she says a nice word, makes a comment, or emits any sound that could be the basis of a word, then tag and reinforce that. The ultimate goal is to increase social and communication skills.

    For all of us, there is a time to speak and a time to be still.

    Tink has developed in leaps and bounds because her parents use TAGteach and understand the science of behavior. Tinks parents were told not to expect her to walk or talk and shes starting to do both. to follow Tinks journey with TAGteach.

    Try Distracting Your Child

    This will only work if you spot the tell-tale signs of a meltdown before your child loses complete control. You can distract your child by doing anything which makes your child happy. The aim is to focus on something which is comforting but not over-stimulating. This could include something like making silly faces or singing your childs favorite song.

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    You Cant Always See Autism

    There is still a shocking amount of ignorance among the general population when it comes to the Autism Spectrum. Many people assume that children with autism have certain identifiable facial features or particular habits. But as it has already has been mentioned, every single person with autism is different and mild cases of autism are common. These stereotypes and lack of understanding often make things difficult for parents. Its especially hard in the case of schools, coaches, or other organizations who deny a diagnosis because it is not easily seen.

    How You Can Help When Meltdowns Happen

    Autism Meltdown Intervention: How To Handle Autism Tantrums, To Help And Calm Your Autistic Child

    If your child does have a meltdown in public, the first thing to do is to remind yourself that you dont need to be embarrassed. This is not your fault and its not your childs fault. If other people dont understand, thats their issue. Your responsibility is to your child – not to anyone else. Ignore any disapproving glances you might detect and focus instead on the person who most needs your attention.

    Because every child is different, there isnt a one size fits all approach to handling meltdowns. However there are a few ideas you might like to consider, the first being to find a quiet space where there are less people. This will reduce the stimulation your child is experiencing while giving you some relief from the worries of what others might be thinking – or even how they might accidentally escalate things by trying to help.

    If sensory overload is a trigger, try not to add to this. Obviously shouting is a no-no but other natural responses such as touching or hugging can be just as detrimental. Keeping yourself calm, using the right amount of eye contact for your child and not too many words is the best thing you can do.

    Dont be tempted to use this moment to try out a new coping technique at this point. It will most likely act as further unwanted information and exacerbate the situation. Far better to work on emotional self-regulation when they arent having a meltdown.

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    Avoid Reinforcing Aggressive Behavior

    Once you understand why your child is engaging in aggressive behavior, be careful not to reinforce it. Consider a child who hits you to get candy. If you give your child candy to stop their aggression, you may be reinforcing the behavior and your child may learn that hitting is a successful way to get candy. To ensure youre not reinforcing your childs aggressive behavior, your therapy team will provide support and training on how best to prevent and react to aggressive behavior.

    Why Do Autistic Children Scream

    This is an assumption that all autistic children scream. They dont. Lower functioning children on the spectrum scream because they like the sound of their voices and arent using them to talk. Or they have a health problem that they cant tell a parent or doctor about. Pain will make them scream too, and since their pain thresholds are already low, they scream when they even so much as feel a pin prickle.

    Parents have to recognize what the different screams mean. Just as a scream of terror in a horror movie means one thing and a scream of surprised means something else in another, so the screams of autistic children who do scream have their own meanings. Watching for other non-verbal body cues help parents figure out why their child is screaming.

    A particular form of autism spectrum disorder that only affects girls is called Cri Du Chat, which is French for cry of the cat. Its an extremely rare disorder but has become part of the spectrum because it attacks infant girls at the age of twenty-four months, the same time that autism begins to transform children who have it. Their cries, or screams, sound very much like the piercing cry of a cat being tortured, and will continue it for hours. Its very unnerving to hear and even more unnerving to be around the whole time it continues. Supposedly over time it decreases as the little girl grows and continues to regress in all of her abilities.

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    Tips That Improved My Autistic Child’s Behavior

    This guest post was written by Chrissy Kelly, a mom of two boys with autism. You can read more about her and her family on her blog, “Life With Greyson + Parker,” and also her page.

    Our house has been a revolving door of Behavior Therapists over the past almost four years. Both boys put in about 20 hours a week of intense therapy. I never thought a kidless 20-something year old might be able to teach me something about my own children. The presence of autism in my life has grown my mind a thousand times over. So much of parenting children with autism is counter-intuitive. I say and do things I never thought would work, but they do. Here is a small list of techniques that we use daily that help reduce tantrums, increase understanding, direction following and happiness . There is no one thing that works for all children, and there is no one quick fix, however, many of these techniques will work for many children. Whether or not they have autism.

    How To Calm A Screaming Toddler With Autism

    10 Tips to Calm Down an Autistic Child in Meltdown ...

    Distract, make comfortable, massage, routine, remove triggers. These will help you while while learning how to calm down an autism child.

    • Create a distraction: If it happens you can provide what the child is crying for at the moment, you can divert the kids attention by making funny faces, or funny sounds. This would gladden the child and might stop her from crying, momentarily forgetting why he/she started crying in the first place.
    • Remove whatever might make them uncomfortable: There are some certain triggers that make them uncomfortable, such as noise, light, smell. All these triggers should be observed and duly avoided to protect the baby from crying and having a meltdown.
    • Having a well-structured routine: Its easy to monitor them and notice whatever might be wrong. Most autistic kids enjoy and perform better with routines.
    • Massages: Rubbing the feet, back of the child helps in stopping the cries.

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    Not An Institution Not A Hospital

    Thats why she says all people are on the autism spectrum from manageable micro-sensitivity to extreme sensitivity that can terrify children.

    The difference is them learning or not. The difference is them going to the hospital or not, Paron said.

    She said the exterior of the Fraser clinic is designed not to look menacing.

    A clinic should look like a fun place not an institution, not a hospital.

    Inside, children might be anxious when exposed to splashy patterns on rugs or wallpaper. So the hallways are relatively plain and undecorated.

    The clinic has no flickering fluorescent bulbs to provoke a reaction.

    Just try reading with something strobing at you. You cant do it, Paron said.

    Windows usually are helpful, but not if someone can see something distressing outside, like passing cars.

    Getting Professional Help For School Refusal

    You can get professional help with managing school refusal and sorting out the problems behind it.

    If your child is saying they feel sick, make an appointment with your GP to check it out.

    If there are no physical reasons for your child feeling sick, your GP might refer you to a paediatrician, psychiatrist or psychologist. If your child already sees one or more of these professionals, make an appointment to see them.

    A psychiatrist or psychologist will usually do an assessment to see whether the school refusal is linked to issues like anxiety or depression. Therapies and supports for school refusal will probably work better if your child is also getting help for anxiety or depression.

    If your child is working with a psychiatrist or psychologist, its important that the therapists and school staff communicate with each other. Its a good idea to set up a meeting between them.

    Your child can get Medicare rebates for several sessions with a mental health professional if your child has a mental health treatment plan from their GP. You can also get Medicare rebates for visits to a paediatrician or psychiatrist. If your child has an NDIS plan, you could check whether the cost of psychologist sessions can be covered using your childs NDIS funding.

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    Use Time To Decrease Transitional Tantrums

    Many children have trouble leaving preferred places and activities. This is a BIG one for my 5 year old. There were times I wouldn’t even take him to our neighborhood park because I was so scared of that awful moment when we had to leave. He was unpredictable and erratic. Sometimes he would scream and fall to the ground, or try to run into a busy street to get away from me, or lash out to hit me. It broke my heart and downright scared me. One thing that has been life-changing for us is using Minute Warnings/Timers: Your child may need a 5 minute, 2 minute, or 1 minute warning before there is a change of activity. These warnings help the children prepare for the transition. They will begin to learn that the warning comes and then the change comes. Eventually, the minute warnings become routine, even if the next task is not.

    We set a timer on our iphone. “In five minutes you need to take a bath.” “In two minutes we are leaving the park.”This helps a child feel more in control without controlling us. When the timer goes off you have to carry through every single time. We did this continuously for two weeks before we started to see results. Now it’s been years and it still works. Set your boundaries, stick to them, and follow through.

    How Do I Discipline A Child With Autism

    A calm down plan for autism spectrum children/teens: preventing tantrums and meltdowns

    Self control, patience, assertiveness, positives, no shouting, routine. The following is an explanation answering the question of learning how to calm down an autism child.

    1.Discipline with kids can be complicated, as it is known that kids would always be kids. This simply implies that kids are expected to behave like kids. They can be restless and often dont listen to instructions. This can be more emphasized in autistic children. However, they should not be given a free pass. They should be taught self-control and corrected constructively

    2. Patience and assertiveness: Parents must understand that it might take a while before they understand what make the child tick. However its important to know that they will improve over time if the tips listed here are duly followed.

  • Pay more attention to the positives rather than the negatives: Its advisable to focus more on the strengths of the child and the things he does correctly rather than overemphasizing his weaknesses. Its best to seek the support of a behavior specialist if the child is repeatedly showing bad character.
  • 5. Have a set routine: Having a routine and well-structured day to day plan makes it easy to monitor and identify whatever might be the reason why the child is misbehaving.

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