As a parent, you may wonder exactly what to do now that you have finally gotten your child’s autism diagnosis. Though it may seem daunting, we are here to help! This article will explore the many facets of caring for your child while keeping their best interests at heart. Make sure to check out our other articles if you would like to learn more.
Your First Steps After Your Child’s Autism Diagnosis.
ASD Diagnosis-Knowing precisely where to start can be challenging, and feeling overwhelmed is okay. To help you, we’ve set out a few steps to help you get going:
- Learn More About Autism. There is a lot of information out there, but we suggest you start by learning more about the specific terms, labels, and types of therapies/interventions.
- Prepare For Early Intervention. Once you have received an ASD diagnosis, you must begin intervention and therapy as soon as possible.
- Listen To Your Child. Try to understand where your child is coming from and how you can help them with their specific issues. Since many individuals with autism may experience developmental delays, you must also pay close attention to non-verbal cues. Giving your child a way to express themselves and be understood can be especially helpful as you prepare them for speech therapy.
- Create A Structured Environment. An established routine can help autistic children by giving them structure while avoiding the encouragement of obsessions and rituals. This doesn’t, however, mean that you shouldn’t leave room for minor changes to encourage growth.
- Ask The Professionals. When in doubt, reach out to professionals for support and expertise. You may, for instance, consult with your GP or your child’s therapist if you have specific concerns about autism treatment.
ASD Diagnosis-What Are The Best Exercises For Autistic Children?
Autistic children may have greater gross and fine motor skills difficulties than their peers. They may also find it difficult to exercise in public places, which is why an at-home routine for an autistic child exercise is a good option. Check out our list of autism exercises for children here:
- Bear Crawls to help improve your child’s sense of body awareness, coordination, and strength.
- Medicine Ball Slams for increased core strength and balance. This exercise can also stimulate parts of the brain responsible for short-term memory.
- Star Jumps are full-body exercises that increase bodily awareness and cardiovascular endurance. They may also help increase core and leg strength.
- Arm Circles. This will help your child develop upper body strength and aid your child in reducing repetitive behaviours.
- Mirror Exercises. This exercise encourages autistic children to mirror the actions of another person, thereby increasing their awareness of others, their own body, coordination, and social skills.
Before you start any exercise program at home, make sure to consult your doctor. Keep hydrated and have some fun!
ASD Diagnosis-10 Examples of Autism-Friendly Sensory Activities.
There may also be some great benefits if you partake in sensory play with your autistic child. These activities work by stimulating the five senses, which may help children with ASD prone to be more sensitive to certain sounds, bright lights, etc.
Some benefits of sensory play include:
- It can be calming and impact the child’s development.
- It stimulates the brain.
- It helps boost creativity and imagination.
- It improves problem and conflict-solving skills.
- It helps them develop language skills.
- It increases their social skills.
- It aids in developing coordination and fine/gross motor skills.
- It helps them self-regulate.
- It helps them have fun.
Here are some examples of sensory play activities for autistic children that you could try at home:
- Finger painting/foot painting.
- Putting toys in jelly.
- Making your own slime.
- Playing with scented playdough.
- Creating a sensory ocean.
- etc.
ASD DiagnosisThe Benefits Of Pets For Kids With Autism.
After your child has received their diagnosis, you might want to consider the benefits they may experience from having a pet. Since children with ASD might have difficulty creating relationships with peers, pets may help them to:
- Experience unconditional love, empathy, and acceptance.
- Focus on more than just their own thoug-hts.
- Have emotional support to help with anxieties and meltdowns.
- Build confidence and learn appropriate play.
- Increase vocal skills and practice speaking.
Some examples of great pets for children with autism include:
- Dogs.
- Cats.
- Guinea Pigs.
- Rats.
Use Visual Supports To Aid Your Autistic Kid’s Learning.
ASD Diagnosis-Autism children may have different needs than their peers. Specialized tools, such as visual aids can help them communicate and understand the world around them. Here are our top picks for creating your own visual support for autism that can be used at school or home during learning:
- Take or print images of familiar scenes or objects.
- Print out free visual pictures for autism found online.
- Cut out pictures from books or magazines.
- Design visuals, emojis, and visual schedules and print them out.
- Create virtual aids with the help of your child. Ask them to draw or create something that depicts their moods, such as sadness, anger, happiness, etc.
- Use stickers on posters or magnets on magnetic boards to portray different emotions or visual response examples.
Some other examples of visual aids include:
- 5-point scale to indicate levels of anxiety over certain events, such as tests.
- Picture symbols to ask for different things, such as asking someone to play or to use the bathroom.
- Posters with rules, steps, and behaviours that are expected.
- Emergency visuals to prepare children for emergencies or changes in schedule/routines.
- Helpful hints help children should they forget certain things and need a reminder.
- Prompts to help children understand what you want them to do, such as an ear symbol indicating to a child that you would like them to listen and pay attention.
- Picture cards for autistic students to help them in the classroom.
ASD Diagnosis–Mealtime Tips For Children With Autism.
Children will often be fussy, but Autism Spectrum Disorders can make children pickier eaters than their peers. ASD can cause severe food aversion, and autistic children may have meltdowns and display severe pain.
This can cause many health problems, including poor growth rates, nutrition deficiencies, and weight loss. These are the top tips for parents to help them navigate mealtime with autistic children:
- Relax Before Mealtime. Since mealtime can be stressful for individuals with ASD, ensure you help your child reduce stress before each mealtime. This might encourage them to participate in mealtimes.
- Create A Mealtime Routine. This will help your child know what to expect from mealtime. Designate specific areas for mealtimes and stick to a schedule so your child will know exactly what to expect and how to act.
- Build Acceptance For New Food Over Time. Slowly introduce new foods to your child. Add new ingredients to regularly eaten foods to build familiarity and make sure they are okay with new textures and shapes by gradually introducing them.
- Accommodate For Physical Issues. Other medical conditions, like cavities, acid reflux, and chewing difficulties, can sometimes make eating difficult. These medical conditions must be identified by parents and addressed to make mealtime easier.
- Encourage Food Play. Playing during mealtime can encourage your child to try new foods. Ask your child to identify the colours of these fruits and compare them with other items of the same colour, for example. You can also ask your child to help you prepare the meal or to identify the textures and smells.
- Manage Your Expectations. Tantrums can be an autistic child’s way of trying to communicate their emotions. Take the time to meet your child right where they are. Give them positive feedback about their progress, and be patient.
- Consult With Your Doctor. Your doctor will be able to help you create a diet plan tailored to your child’s specific needs. They will also help you to create strategies to help your child eats comfortably while receiving the proper nutrition.
5 Calming Strategies For Kids On The Autism Spectrum.
It is always a good idea to have strategies to help your child calm down during temper tantrums and meltdowns. These meltdowns and tantrums often occur when your child is having a hard time expressing their emotions or when they are feeling emotionally drained. Here are some of our recommended strategies for helping children with autism calm down when expressing themselves in this way:
- Self Soothing Tools. It can be any object, weighted blanket, song, book, or sensory toy.
- Preferred Sensory Activities. These can include sensory bins, jars, kinetic sand, and water play.
- Designated Calm Down Corners. If your child calms down more when on their own, it’s best to give them space. If not, join them in their calm down corner and help them calm down.
- Calming Breathing Exercises. If your child is feeling overwhelmed, it may help to sit with them and take deep breaths together. To help them ground them, you can make light physical contact, such as touching their hands.
- Quiet Music/ Calming Videos. Most likely, your child has a favourite song or video. These can be very helpful when dealing with emotional overload.
- Calm down Games. Positive emotions are one of the best ways you can combat negative emotions. Although you should not ignore the reason for your child’s meltdowns, games can help to calm down the situation once the trigger is removed.
Remember to communicate with your child about the calm-down methods that they might prefer. Be sure to encourage them to participate in self-soothing techniques over time to help them establish a greater sense of independence as they develop.
What Does Progress Look Like For Autistic Kids?
Many milestones are reached in a child’s life. However, children living with autism might reach them at a slower pace than their peers. Autistic children might also experience milestones that are unique due to social impairments. Here are some autistic milestones you can celebrate with your child:
- Improved Social Skills. This includes the skills that help your child know how to act in different situations, make friends, learn from others and interact in groups, such as play skills, conversation skills, emotional skills and problem-solving.
- Self-Soothing Abilities. There are many ways you can help soothe your child or how they can soothe their own mind. ASD children achieve a great milestone by learning self-soothing skills.
- Increased Change Acceptance. Children should learn to accept change early in life. This will allow them to deal with small changes in routines and other issues they encounter in real life as adults.
- Improved Empathy and Understanding. It has been widely believed that children with autism lack empathy, but they may have difficulty expressing it. They can learn to express empathy in several ways, reducing their stress and making social interactions more enjoyable.
Celebrate your child’s achievements, no matter how small or big. Everyone wants to be praised and recognized for their accomplishments. Your child can reach many milestones with your positive support and will enjoy a better quality of life.
Remember that there are many resources available to help. For more information on child autism and what not to do with an autistic child, contact Autism Centre for Kids today.
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