How To Use An Autism Meltdown Kit
A meltdown kit or a calm down kit is a customized set of objects that help prevent or de-escalate a childs meltdown.
To create your own meltdown kit, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
What kind of toys/activities does my child like to do?Can this item help stop or lessen a meltdown?Does this item have the texture/shape/color my child likes?
Based on the answers to your questions, here are some items that can be included in your childs kit:
- Fidget toys
- Puzzles
- Musical instrument
Note that giving this kit to your child is ideal for preventing a meltdown. It might not work if the child is already in the middle of a meltdown.
Lawful Basis For Processing Your Data
Autism And Aggression: Intervention Strategies
Aggression in children with autism can take many forms, such as hitting, kicking, scratching, biting or destroying property. A childs aggression can be directed at self or others, and can be scary for everyone involved. Not every child with autism displays aggression. But for parents and teachers that do have to deal with their childs outbursts of rage, feelings of frustration, exhaustion, and embarrassment often ensue.
Aggression is most likely a side effect of communication and/or coping issues. So when a child with autism becomes aggressive, there is a reason. For instance, many children with autism have a hard time with change, so changes to their routine can cause them to get upset. Its up to us to figure out why they are being aggressive and to teach them that 1) aggression will no longer be reinforced and 2) other things they can do instead of being aggressive.
Here are some strategies to use to get your child out of the cycle of aggression:
Teach Alternative Behaviors. Once you know the reason why your child becomes aggressive, the child should be taught how to get what he wants without hitting. For example, say your student throws items whenever he is asked to do independent seat work. You might try teaching him to say, I need help or Break, please. You may also need to figure out how to make certain tasks easier for the child. As time goes on, you can teach him to work independently for longer and longer periods of time.
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Why Do Asd Children Hit
For autistic children, aggressive behavior is a physical way of communicating when they cannot express their feelings in words. If they feel frustrated, upset, hungry or tired, their emotional state has a direct impact on their conduct.
This is why children react aggressively towards their parents or even siblings.
Aggressive behaviors are common and normal during early infancy, especially if your child has communicational challenges. The best way for you, as a parent, to deal with these situations is to understand what your child is going through and offer the support they need to express their emotions properly.
Why Children With Autism Deserve Rules And Discipline
Angela Underwood’s extensive local, state, and federal healthcare and environmental news coverage includes 911 first-responder compensation policy to the Ciba-Geigy water contamination case in Toms River, NJ. Her additional health-related coverage includes death and dying, skin care, and autism spectrum disorder.
Most children, at some point in their lives, misbehave. They may hit another child, grab a toy not meant for them, or demand when they should ask nicely. Most parents and teachers respond to such behavior with consequences, such as “time outs” or loss of TV privileges. From these consequences, children learn that their behaviors are unacceptable they also learn that controlling their impulses can have positive outcomes.
All to often, however, when a child with autism does something for which any other child would receive a timeout, instead of a consequence, the child with autism gets a “pass,” along with a comment such as “that’s OK, I understand,” or “Well, they did their best.”
When this happens to a child who has the capacity to understand the rules of behavior and control her impulses, they learns that the rules don’t apply to them. Next time, they will repeat the behavior expecting the same outcome.
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What Is An Autism Meltdown
A meltdown is defined as an intense reaction to sensory overwhelm. When a child with autism is overwhelmed, he/she knows no other way to express it other than with a meltdown. This might involve emotional verbal outbursts such as screaming and crying or physical reactions like kicking, biting or hitting.
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Why Children With Autism Bite Themselves
If youre struggling with your child with Autism biting themselves, it may be due to something called stimming. Stimming is a term that refers to self-stimulatory behaviors. You may notice your own stimming behaviors when you think about how you tap your fingers on your desk at work when youre thinking, or how you hum when you walk down a long hall by yourself. You do these things almost unconsciously as a result of how youre feeling. In a way, they may improve emotions you dislike, they may help you focus, or they may help you tune out of an uncomfortable situation.
When a child bites themselves as a stim, they are reacting to something they are feeling or experiencing. They may be overwhelmed, overstimulated, tired, uncomfortable, etc. It may also be an unwanted response to boredom.
The CDC reports that almost one third of children with Autism exhibit behaviors that lead to self-harm. If your child seems to have a stim that causes them to bite themselves, try to find comfort in knowing that its a common behavior. We will discuss strategies that can help your child move on toward safer, healthier stims later on in this post as well.
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Autism Head Banging And Other Self Harming Behavior
May 16, 2021
In a recent study it was found that as many as 30% of children on the autism spectrum engage in self-injurious behaviour like head banging or skin picking. This an alarming issue for families with children on the autism spectrum.
In this guide we discuss the causes and strategies to help your child reduce self-injurious behavior.
Autism And Hitting Conclusion
- Autism is not an *excuse* for hitting other people. But it is a contributing factor. Its one of the primary reasons. And, as I mentioned in the original post, another reason for this incident was that I wasnt watching him closely enough. The dad was rightfully upset.
- Weve been trying hard to stop the hitting behavior. Its a focus at home and in ABA therapy.
- Just because it worked to tell your particular child, no, that hurts keep your hands to yourself, it doesnt mean it will work with all autistic children. And in Charlies case, suggesting something like this, while understanding the severe language delays he lives with, shows little more than the ignorance from which this type of suggestion comes.
- Unfortunately, Charlie often doesnt understand the consequence of his actions, including comprehending a phrase like hitting hurts.
- Considering the relative severity of the single incident were talking about here, Charlie still deserves the opportunity to go out, to play on the playground, and to do it in the presence of other kids. Remember, if you know one autistic person, you know one autistic person.
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How To Handle An Aggressive Autistic Child
This article was written by Luna Rose. Luna Rose is an autistic community member who specializes in writing and autism. She holds a degree in Informatics and has spoken at college events to improve understanding about disabilities. Luna Rose leads wikiHow’s Autism Project.There are 33 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 41,985 times.
Autistic children tend to be non-aggressive by nature, but sometimes a child turns aggressive when under extreme stress. It’s natural to feel a mix of emotions about this, from worry to guilt to fear. This wikiHow will guide you in handling a difficult situation and helping a suffering child.
This article focuses on children who lash out at others. If the child is only hurting themselves, check out How to Redirect an Autistic Child’s Harmful Stims.
What Triggers Headbanging
Minshawi also makes the distinction that self-injurious behaviors, such as headbanging in those with autism, is usually classified as a highly repetitive behavior .
She also notes that headbanging can be episodic and triggered by the same stimuli or appear to start of nowhere. Monitoring your child and taking note of what happened right before headbanging can help identify triggers.
When a child diagnosed with autism headbangs past the age of two and a half or three, there is likely one of four things happening:
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Autism Masking In Women
When you are an autistic woman, you can struggle to have professionals, and others take you seriously.
Society expects all women to be nice and well behaved. Assertiveness is seen as a masculine behavior, and something women should not display.
Autistic men can say exactly whats on their mind, live their lives with logic instead of emotion, and its seen as a positive trait. However, when autistic women do the same thing, society shames us for being ourselves.
Show Your Support Literally
We know that being the parent of an autistic child isnt always easy. At the end of the day though, all that matters is the unconditional love that you have for them. For even when theyre facing some rough patches or having more sensory troubles than usual, they shouldn’t ever have to apologize for just being themselves.
Autism isnt something to be cured, its just that some people are wired differently from the get go. If you agree with us and want to show your child and their friends how important it is to create autism acceptance, why not buy one of our t-shirts? We designed them ourselves to spread kindness and understanding.
If t-shirts arent really your thing, we have some comfy hoodies too perfect for the winter season!
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Will You Be Treating Your Child Like A Dog If You Use Tagteach
Many commenters on this post have suggested that its not appropriate to use TAGteach since you will be treating your child like a dog. TAGteach is based on the same science as the popular and effective clicker training method used with dogs and many other species. Because its based on sound science that has been perfected through testing with animals , TAGteach works with everyone. Maybe youd prefer to teach your child like an elite athlete or an orthopedic surgeon? TAGteach is used successfully with both these groups and with many more. TAGteach began outside the work of autism, with sports, and has spread to many disciplines. So, no, you will not be treating your child like a dog, you will be treating your child with respect, kindness and a with a view to building skills that will help them to self-calm and develop functional skills skills that will make life better for everyone in the family. to read a more detailed explanation of why you will not be treating your child like a dog.
Make An Autism And Hitting Plan
After fully assessing the hitting, make a plan around how to prevent hitting. Once hitting starts, it can become dangerous for the child and for others. Making a plan is really going to be helpful if, while you were assessing, you checked when the behavior happened, as well as when the behavior never happened. Most people are way too reactive to problem behaviors and we need to turn that around and look for ways to prevent problem behaviors. You might want to increase the activities for your child or client that dont cause a hitting reaction.
Now, if they like swimming in the pool, you wouldnt be able to use that plan all year long. The child or client also might not hit when using an iPad, and you certainly dont want to let a child play with screens all day long. As you increase some of the preferred activities, also increase reinforcement for not hitting during those times. Make a plan to increase demands and slowly fade out some of those reinforcing activities. That way, when it is winter and you cant go to the pool, you can still work with the child on not hitting.
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Reducing Aggressive Behavior In Children With Asd
First and foremost, if you understand the causes of your child with ASDs self-injurious and aggressive behavior, this can help your child learn to manage the behavior.
How can you look at what is triggering the behavior and what your child is getting out of?Well, when accepting that aggressive behavior is sending a message, it is up to the parents to determine what that message is and provide the child with a more appropriate tool to deliver it.One strategy that can be beneficial to the parents is called the ABCs of behavior. The A is the antecedent , the B is the behavior itself, and the C is the consequence .
First, parents need to define the antecedent and look where the behavior occurred, who did it happen with, when did it occur, etc., being specific. For example, James hits his brother at night during the bedtime routine. The parents should closely examine what is happening immediately before the hitting. Is the child watching a favorite TV show he does not want to leave? Is the child scared of the dark? Is there a reason he does not want to go to bed? Then the parents should begin to adjust the antecedent. Such as, add the use of a timer before transitioning. Eliminate the option of watching TV before bedtime routine. Add a night light in the childs room. Provide a highly preferred item to transition with during the bedtime routine. The highly preferred item can be a favorite toy, book, blanket, etc.
What To Do When Your Child Hits You
Stay Calm: Although it might sound pretty obvious, the first step is staying calm. When you stay calm it shows your child that you are in control. Which, can represent huge support for him/her during a frustrating moment.
Never Punish/Yell/Spank: Keep in mind that your childs behavior is not personal. It is not that he/she means to hurt you. If you react with similar behaviors, you will only reinforce the conduct in your child, and somehow he/she will learn that it is okay to express his/her feelings in that way.
Stop The Behavior: Stopping the behavior is the first step to properly managing anger episodes.
Gently grab your childs arms to stop him from hitting you, and then calmly but firmly mention to him/her I see that you are angry but I wont let you hit me. A simple statement like this will show your child that you care and validate his/her feelings, but you are setting healthy limits.
Validate his/Her Feelings: Validating your childs feelings is crucial for his/her connection with you. This way you are letting your child know that even though you dont approve of his/her conduct, you understand the feeling behind it.
The following phrases will help you validate your childs emotions while setting boundaries:
- I know that you were very angry and this is why you hit me. Im here if you want to talk about it.
- I see how upset you are. Lets talk about this!
- Lets take a moment to calm down and see how you feel.
Remember, you are not alone!
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When A Particular Person Is Targeted
If a particular family member or support worker seems to be the target for challenging behaviour, think about what might be triggering it. It might be that a perfume scent is overwhelming, or that the other person is associated with a distressing activity.
Maybe the person is upset when the support worker or family member spends time with other people. If so, you could try scheduling some time specifically for them to spend together and showing this on a visual timetable. Very strict boundaries need to be kept as to when this will happen and for how long. It may be useful to have a sand timer so that the person knows that the time is up when the sand runs out.
There may simply a personality clash between the person and a staff member. If this may be the case, consider whether this staff member could work with other people instead?