Do you have a teenager on the autism spectrum? Is he or she really having difficulty coping with life? Are you worried about how he or she is going to handle adulthood? For teenagers with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism, change is especially hard. They have grappled with the perplexing and disturbing nature of a highly unpredictable world most of their lives.
For those parents of teens on the spectrum, we have compiled our top 15 picks for self-help books to assist your “special needs” teen in multiple areas of life:
The purpose of a sensory room is to waken your child's senses. Items in the room can include lights, sensory soft play objects, colors, sounds, and aromas - all within a safe environment that allows him or her to explore and interact without risk.
The room also helps the child to calm down when needed - and can help those who have learning difficulties or sensory impairments learn to interact with the world around them, but in a safe environment. The child gets an unrestrained space where he can explore at his own leisure.
It's most effective to create a schedule of when your child will be provided free time in this room. It's probably NOT best to give her free access to it. It's best to use the room at transition times to provide a smooth transition, or as a reward for meeting the expectations of parents and teachers.
When creating your child's sensory room, be as creative as you can. There are many things you can purchase, but you can also make many things yourself. What you use should in part be determined by what your child enjoys or is seeking.
Some ideas are:
A mini trampoline can provide physical exercise and sensory input.
Create a touch board, and attach a variety of materials from sand paper to carpet.
Fill a tub with sand, navy beans, or other similar item that they can play in.
There are many benefits of a sensory room, for example:
Enhanced Learning through Play: Sensory stimulation can engage different areas of the brain, helping your child to absorb and retain more information through the five senses.
Improve Balance, Movement and Spatial Orientation: A sensory room can help develop your child's visual processing abilities and his or her fine and gross motor skills.
Sensory Stimulation: Encouraging your child to engage and explore the environment will have positive effects on her ability to react and interact with the larger world around her.
Tackle Problems With Behavior: Sensory rooms can be highly absorbing, providing a moment of comfort and calm for the "distressed" youngster, and helping the "inactive" child to feel better engaged. This improves focus and prevents him from getting the urge to ‘act out’ his frustrations or anxiety.
Most kids with Asperger’s and High-Functioning Autism have a history of delayed acquisition of motor skills (e.g., hand writing, pedaling a bike, tying shoe laces, catching a ball, opening jars, climbing monkey-bars, etc.), which is called “motor clumsiness.” These young people are often visibly awkward, exhibiting rigid gait patterns, odd posture, poor manipulative skills, and significant deficits in visual-motor coordination.
For those parents of kids that have trouble with fine motor skills (e.g., handwriting) as well as gross motor skills (e.g., balancing), here are our top 10 picks for items that will assist in this matter:
Ring Toss Game - Kids Quoit Games - Improve Eye-Hand Coordination and Fine Motor Skills
Hundreds of Developmentally Age-Appropriate Activities Designed to Improve Fine Motor Skills
Helps children learn penmanship and bolsters creativity: trace practically anything!
30 Pegs for Learning Colors, Sorting Counting - 30pg Occupational Therapy Fine Motor Skills Activity
Stepping Stones 6-Pack – Balance and Eye Coordination - Training Tool & Physical Therapy
Active Monkey Balance Board
Stepping Buckets 6-Pack – Balance and Eye Coordination - Training Tool & Physical Therapy
More resources for parents of children and teens with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's:
"I desperately need ideas on how to deal with an autistic child (high functioning) who is often agitated and angered. We rarely know what will trigger him, as it seems to vary widely from situation to situation - and from day to day."
All children experience anger. But, young people with Asperger’s (AS) and High-Functioning Autism (HFA), in particular, have difficulty channeling their strong emotions into acceptable outlets.
Anger is a response to a real or perceived loss or stress. It results when an individual’s body, property, self-esteem, or values are threatened. Anger is often a reaction to feeling frustrated, hurt, misunderstood, or rejected. If your youngster does not learn how to release his or her anger appropriately, it can fester and explode in inappropriate ways, or be internalized and damage his or her sense of self-worth.
As a mother or father, dealing with an angry youngster is inevitable. Many of us have heard our own pre-parenting voice whisper to us, saying something like, “That will never be my child acting-out like that” (famous last words). Anger is learned, but so is composure!
As parents, we hope our kids learn to:
communicate angry feelings in a positive way
express anger nonviolently
learn how to avoid being a victim of someone else's angry actions
learn how to control angry impulses
learn how to problem solve
learn how to remove themselves from a violent or angry situation
learn self-calming techniques
recognize angry feelings in themselves and others
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Below are several crucial techniques to help teach your AS or HFA youngster calmer, more constructive ways to express anger:
1. Acknowledge strong emotions, helping your youngster control herself and save face (e.g., say, "It must be hard to get a low score after you tried so hard").
2. Be sure to VALUE what your youngster is experiencing. For example, if he is hurt and crying, never say, "Stop crying." Instead, validate your youngster's experience by saying something like, "I’m sure that hurts. That would make me cry too." This makes an ally out of you, rather than a target for free-floating anger. As an ally, your youngster learns to trust you, realizing you are there for him no matter what. If your youngster can trust you, he can learn to trust himself and the outer world.
3. Create a “ways to relax” poster. There are dozens of ways to help AS and HFA kids calm down when they first start to get bent out of shape. Unfortunately, most of these young people have never been given the opportunity to think of those other possibilities. Thus, they keep getting into trouble because the only behavior they know is inappropriate ways to express their frustration. So, talk with your youngster about more acceptable "replacement behaviors.” Make a big poster listing them (e.g., draw pictures, hit a pillow, listen to music, run a lap, shoot baskets, sing a song, talk to someone, think of a peaceful place, walk away, etc.). Once your youngster chooses her replacement behavior, encourage her to use the same strategy each time she starts to get upset.
4. Encourage your youngster to accept responsibility for his anger and to gain control by asking himself the following questions: Did I do or say anything to create the problem? If so, how can I make things better? How can I keep this issue from happening again?
5. Facilitate communication and problem solving with your AS or HFA youngster by asking questions (e.g., How can I help you? What can you do to help yourself? What do you need? Is your behavior helping you solve your problem?).
6. Help your youngster to understand her own emotions by putting her feelings into words (e.g., say, "It looks like it made you angry when they called you names").
7. Help your youngster to understand that anger is a natural emotion that everyone has. Say something like, "It's normal to feel angry. Everyone feels angry from time to time, but it is not O.K. to hurt others."
8. Involve your youngster in making a small list of “house rules” (e.g., we work out differences peacefully, we use self-control, we listen to others, we are kind to each other, etc.). Write them down and post them on the refrigerator. Make the rules clear, and follow through with meaningful consequences that are appropriate for the age of your youngster when the rules are ignored.
9. Listen, reflect and validate (without judgment) the feelings your youngster expresses. After listening, help him identify the true feeling underlying the anger (e.g., hurt, frustration, sadness, disappointment, fear, etc.). Say something like, "That hurt when your friend was mean to you," or “It was scary to have those boys bully you.”
10. Many children on the autism spectrum act-out because they simply don’t know how to express their anger any other way. Kicking, screaming, swearing, hitting or throwing things may be the only way they know how to express their emotions. To help your youngster express her frustrations appropriately, create an “emotion words” poster together (e.g., "Let’s think of all the words we could use that tell others we’re really frustrated"). Then list her ideas (e.g., angry, mad, annoyed, furious, irritated, etc.). Write them on a chart, hang it up, and practice using them often. When your youngster is upset, use the words so she can apply them to real life (e.g., "Looks like you’re really frustrated. Want to talk about it?" …or "You seem really annoyed. Do you need to walk it off?"). Then keep adding new feeling words to the list whenever new ones come up in those "teachable moments" throughout the day.
How can children with High-Functioning Autism cope with anger and depression?
11. Resist taking your youngster’s angry outbursts personally. Always deal with him in a calm, objective way.
12. Sometimes a child’s anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in his life. Not all anger is misplaced. Occasionally it's a healthy, natural response to the difficulties that the AS or HFA child faces. There is a common belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to parents’ frustration to find out that this isn't always the case with their “special needs” child. The best attitude to bring to such a circumstance, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle the problem as painlessly as possible.
13. Stop any aggressive behaviors. Say something like, "I can't let you hurt each other," or "I can't let you hurt me." Then remove your youngster as gently as possible.
14. Teach your AS or HFA youngster to take a time-out from the difficult situation and have some “alone-time” for a few minutes. During the time-out, your youngster can rethink the situation, calm down, and determine what to do next. The length of the time-out is determined by the intensity of the emotion. A youngster who is simply frustrated may just need to take a deep breath. The youngster who is infuriated probably needs to leave the room and settle down. After your youngster has calmed down, it’s time to decide on a more appropriate response to the situation. There are at least 3 positive choices: talk about it, get help, or slow down. Simplifying the choices makes the decision process easier. Even AS and HFA kids can learn to respond constructively to frustration when they know there are just a few choices. These choices are skills to be learned. Take time to teach your youngster these skills, and practice them as responses to mad feelings.
15. Try a "time-in" rather than a "time-out." As the mother or father, you are your youngster's main guide in life. She relies on you to be there with her through her difficult emotional experiences, whatever that may be. Thus, no time-out and no isolation may be the best option on occasion. Instead, try a "time-in." Sit with your youngster and incorporate other methods mentioned in this article (e.g., work on breathing with her, ask her questions about her feelings, etc.). The important thing is to be fully present with your child to help her through her emotions. Remember, you are teaching her social skills to be in relationships with others, rather than acting out alone. When some boys and girls are isolated, they often ruminate and feel guilty for their behavior. This only serves to create low self-esteem, which often cycles back to creating behavioral problems.
16. Use feeling words to help your AS or HFA youngster understand the emotions of others (e.g., Robbie is sitting alone and looks very sad; he may be lonely," or "When Michael tripped, he looked embarrassed").
17. Use role-playing, puppets, or videos to teach social skills (e.g., how to treat each other, how to work out disagreements, etc.).
18. When your child becomes frustrated, use those incidents as "on-the-spot lessons" to help him learn to calm himself down (rather than always relying on you to calm him down). Let me rephrase this (because this is an important technique): Every time your child acts-out due to low-frustration tolerance, ALWAYS use that moment as a teaching moment. For example, explain to your youngster that we all have little signs that warn us when we’re getting frustrated. We should listen to these signs, because they can help us stay out of trouble. Next, help your youngster recognize what specific warning signs he may have that tells him he is starting to get angry (e.g., I talk louder, my cheeks get hot, I clench my fists, my heart starts pounding, my mouth gets dry, I breathe faster, etc.).
Once your youngster is aware of his unique warning signs, start pointing them out to him whenever he first starts to get upset (e.g., “It looks like you’re starting to get frustrated" …or "Your cheeks are getting red. Do you feel yourself starting to get upset?"). The more you help your AS or HFA child to recognize the signs when his anger is first triggered, the better he will be able to calm himself down. It’s also the time when anger-control techniques are most effective. Anger escalates very quickly, and waiting until your youngster is already in "melt-down" to try to get him back into control is usually too late.
19. Simple relaxation tools can help your child calm down. For example:
Use imagery; visualize a relaxing experience from either your memory or your imagination.
Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase (“relax” or “take it easy”). Repeat it to yourself.
Breathe deeply from your diaphragm (breathing from your chest won't relax you, so picture your breath coming up from your belly).
20. Help your youngster understand that she can “choose” how to react when she feels angry. Teach her self-control and positive ways to cope with negative impulses. Here are some choices she can make:
Calm self by breathing deeply
Count slowly
Draw or play with clay
Exercise, walk or run
Find a quiet place or sit alone
Hug someone, a pet or a stuffed animal
Look at books or read
Play music or sing
Problem solve
Rest or take a shower
Stop and think
Tell someone how you feel
Tense body and then relax
Write about feelings
By following the techniques listed above, parents can help strengthen their relationship with their AS and HFA kids and give them the tools they need to cope effectively with frustration and anger.
More resources for parents of children and teens with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's:
"I need to understand my son better (ASD, age 7) so we can you come up with some consequences that are appropriate and not so punitive as to remove all possibility of improvement. Please help!"
If you have a youngster with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) who exhibits problematic behavior, you have probably felt like an investigator, searching for clues and seeking hidden motivations.
You may have come up with some quick and easy explanations for your youngster's behavioral issues (e.g., ones offered by parents at the park, your mother-in-law, and even by behavioral experts), but your youngster often has something completely different up his sleeve. Operating according to the easiest explanation will often make matters worse.
Even though there are explanations for your HFA youngster's “bad” behavior that take some of the fault from him, the effects of the behavior are unfortunate and must be addressed. For example, your youngster may push one of his friends or break a toy because of autism-related challenges not under his control, but he still has to face the consequences associated with this behavior.
A full understanding of the situation can help you come up with some consequences that are effective and not so punitive "as to remove all possibility of improvement" (as you say). And the best way to come to a full understanding is through good detective work.
One way to be a good detective is to observe behavior by using a functional behavioral assessment (i.e., observing your youngster and noting everything that happens before, during, and after problem behaviors). With a few weeks of observation, you can often uncover the things that provoke your youngster (e.g., the itchy sweater he is wearing, the long wait in the gym after the bus drop-off, the breeze coming through a classroom window, etc.).
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Here’s is an example of a functional behavioral assessment:
Student’s name:Ricky
Issue: Ricky had difficulty transitioning from resource room to physical education class
Location: The resource room
People involved: Resource teacher and classmates
Antecedent(i.e., what occurred before the incident): Resource teacher states, “It’s time for everyone to put their drawing materials away and get ready to go to the gym.”
Behavior #1 (i.e., what occurred during the incident): Ricky continued to draw in his art notebook. He glanced at classmates who had moved to the doorway.
Consequence #1(i.e., what resulted at this stage of events): Resource teacher talked with the students for about one minute. She looked at Ricky and told him to put his pencil down and to get in line.
Behavior #2: Ricky turned his back to the teacher and threw his pencil on the floor.
Consequence #2: Teacher approached Ricky and told him to pick up the pencil.
Behavior #3: Ricky got up and picked up the pencil and took it to the art supplies drawer. Then he ran to the front of the classroom and climbed under the teacher’s desk.
Consequence #3: Teacher bent down to be at eye level with Ricky under the table and told him he was wasting everyone’s gym time, and that he needed to come out from under the desk and get in line.
Behavior #4: Ricky reached out his hand.
Consequence #4: Teacher took Ricky’s hand and led him to the end of the line.
Behavior #5: Ricky waved goodbye and smiled to his teacher and walked with the others to the gym.
Consequence #5: Teacher smiled, waved back and stated, “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
Hypothesis (i.e., best guess as to why the behavior occurs based on the assumption that other antecedents, behaviors and consequences showed a similar pattern): Ricky was seeking attention from his resource teacher
Goal (i.e., corrective action plan): Teach Ricky a more appropriate way to seek his teacher’s attention
Objectives (i.e., potential strategies used to accomplish the goal):
allow Ricky to ask a classmate to walk next to him on the way to gym
allow Ricky to be “line-leader”
allow Ricky to be the "timer" who pushes the two-minute warning buzzer
post Ricky’s name on the "hard workers of the week" bulletin board
praise Ricky for a specific work-related behavior or academic response just before asking students to line up for gym time
Although the example above involved problematic behavior at school, the same method can be applied by parents for behavior at home. The more you learn about your youngster’s disorder and his unique quirkiness, the better you will be able to discover the true motive behind the behavior and apply appropriate discipline (or leniency if warranted).
Here is a personal example of applying functional behavioral analysis (see if you can identify the antecedent, behavior, and consequence):
One of my child clients with High-Functioning Autism was experiencing meltdowns pretty much daily whenever he was in special education class, which he attended for one hour each morning for writing practice since his penmanship was poor. As most people know who work with children on the autism spectrum, they tend to have poor writing abilities due to fine motor skills deficits.
I was asked by Michael's parents to go to the school and sit in the classroom to investigate. Here is what I observed:
Michael entered the classroom and took his seat, which was in the rear of the room nearest the door that led to the hallway. As he began to practice writing, he would get frustrated and erase what he had written repeatedly to the point where he wore several holes in the paper. At that point, he picked up his paper, tore it into tiny pieces and threw it on the floor. This resulted in the teacher escorting Michael to another room where he was isolated from the other students for a period of time.
To make a long story short, on the day of my investigation, I took my seat in the very back of the classroom behind Michael. I immediately noticed that since we were sitting near the exit, most of the hallway noise was very audible. I also knew that based on personal experience, many children with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's have hearing sensitivities.
As I sat there, I had the thought that it would be difficult for even me to concentrate with the hustle and bustle right on the other side of the door. So purely on a hunch, we moved Michael to the front of the room furthest away from the door. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Michael was able to stay focused on his writing at that point and was not making as many mistakes, thus reducing his frustration-level.
So the hypothesis was this: Michael was unconsciously distracted by the noises in the hallway, which contributed to his frequent writing mistakes and frequent erasing. This in turn resulted in the writing paper being torn, which was the tipping-point for Michael to slip into a total state of frustration.
Obviously, the corrective action was to move Michael to an area of the classroom that was less noisy and distracting. It also appeared to help that he was near the teacher and could receive frequent one-on-one assistance.
As a mother or father, you will need to develop a trained eye for your AS or HFA child, as well as an intuitive understanding of what makes him tic. Your youngster needs you to read all the hidden cues. He also needs to follow his own instincts, which may be telling him that something's too difficult, too uncomfortable, etc. Your youngster has no choice but to follow his instincts. Knowing this can help you be more empathetic and skilled in addressing difficult behavior.
Not all hidden cues are worth following. When you're investigating your youngster's confusing behavior, red herrings may show up (e.g., his eagerness to end a stressful situation by accepting blame even when it’s not his fault, your preconceived notions of “whodunit,” another youngster's self-protecting accusations, another adult's spin on the situation, etc.).
If it feels to you like something is awry, chances are it is. Keep an open mind even in the face of seemingly “solid evidence,” and allow for the possibility that things may not be what they seem. Your intuition is still worth following – all “evidence” to the contrary.
Of course, there will be times when you have developed a wonderful hypothesis based on a good-faith investigation, but for some reason it just doesn’t pan-out (e.g., there is a missing piece of the puzzle that would make the picture so much clearer and turn your guesswork into certainty – if you could just find it; the strategies that have always worked in the past don't get the job done this time; the explanation you've developed through your intuition is not what is really going on, etc.).
Always keep an eye out for that “missing link,” even if you seem to have resolved the situation to an acceptable degree. That little bit of extra information can resolve things more completely, and can help you prevent a particular problem behavior from occurring again.
Resources for parents of children and teens on the autism spectrum:
More articles for parents of children and teens on the autism spectrum:
Social rejection has devastating effects in many areas of functioning.
Because the ASD child tends to internalize how others treat him,
rejection damages self-esteem and often causes anxiety and depression.
As the child feels worse about himself and becomes more anxious and
depressed – he performs worse, socially and intellectually.
Meltdowns are not a pretty sight. They are somewhat like overblown
temper tantrums, but unlike tantrums, meltdowns can last anywhere from
ten minutes to over an hour. When it starts, the Asperger's or HFA child
is totally out-of-control. When it ends, both you and your child are
totally exhausted. But... don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet. At the
least provocation, for the remainder of that day -- and sometimes into
the next - the meltdown can return in full force.
Although Aspergers [high-functioning autism] is at the milder end of the
autism spectrum, the challenges parents face when disciplining a
teenager on the spectrum are more difficult than they would be with an
average teen. Complicated by defiant behavior, the teen is at risk for
even greater difficulties on multiple levels – unless the parents’
disciplinary techniques are tailored to their child's special needs.
Your older teenager or young “adult child” isn’t sure what to do, and
he is asking you for money every few days. How do you cut the purse
strings and teach him to be independent? Parents of teens with ASD face
many problems that other parents do not. Time is running out for
teaching their adolescent how to become an independent adult. As one
mother put it, "There's so little time, yet so much left to do." Click here to read the full article…
Two traits often found in kids with High-Functioning Autism are
“mind-blindness” (i.e., the inability to predict the beliefs and
intentions of others) and “alexithymia” (i.e., the inability to
identify and interpret emotional signals in others). These two traits
reduce the youngster’s ability to empathize with peers. As a result, he
or she may be perceived by adults and other children as selfish,
insensitive and uncaring. Click here to read the full article...
Become an expert in helping your child cope with his or her
“out-of-control” emotions, inability to make and keep friends, stress,
anger, thinking errors, and resistance to change.
A child with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) can have
difficulty in school because, since he fits in so well, many adults
may miss the fact that he has a diagnosis. When these children display
symptoms of their disorder, they may be seen as defiant or disruptive.
Do you have a teenager on the autism spectrum? Is he or she really having difficulty coping with life? Are you worried about how he or she is going to handle adulthood? For teenagers with Asperger's and High-Functioning Autism, change is especially hard. They have grappled with the perplexing and disturbing nature of a highly unpredictable world most of their lives.
7. The Asperger Teen's Toolkit
is to waken your child's senses. Items in the room can include 
, 
, colors, sounds, and 
- all within a safe environment that allows him or her to explore and interact without risk.
can provide physical exercise and sensory input.
that they can use for deep breathing.
from your ceiling (if it is reinforced).
or vigorous music.
around the room.
for both scent and touch.
for deep touch.
for touch activities.
