Top 10 tips to help your ASD children, yours that is.

[JsMum]

I was thinking about how some things have got better lately and how many of the stratagies that I am trying are starting to work and its really helping, here is a few of mine, but I would love to hear of others here and see if we can come up with a forums carers top tips to help our families.

 

Visaul communication supported by Text.

Anger Mangement workbooks.

Sequencing and planning support by BIBIC.

Sensory intregration work for Js SID.

Social Stories to support feelings. socail skills.

Routine that has picutres and text to help prepare him for change and give him time for transitions.

support at home and at school.

Reading books on higher functioning autism/AS.

This forum.

 

What has worked for you, especailly making difference for the family.

 

JsMum

[MichelleW]

Online shopping!!! I know ideally they need to get used to shopping and shops, but being single with 2 boys with difficulties, it is traumatic for me doing the weekly food shop at the supermarket! It has significantly reduced my stress levels - and theirs!

 

secondly - a visual "now, next and later" visual timetable. Made one up using photos, and also used at pre-school for 3 year old - we have all noticed a significant change in his behaviour since using it.

[JsMum]

Online shopping!!! I know ideally they need to get used to shopping and shops, but being single with 2 boys with difficulties, it is traumatic for me doing the weekly food shop at the supermarket! It has significantly reduced my stress levels - and theirs!

 

secondly - a visual "now, next and later" visual timetable. Made one up using photos, and also used at pre-school for 3 year old - we have all noticed a significant change in his behaviour since using it.

 

wow michelle that is the kind of responce I was looking for, I love the online shoppping idea, we certainly already get a lot of things online, but not as yet not my weekly food shopping, I can totally understand how it is helping you with the little ones, me and J now do perpous shopping trips to help his life skills and to help him adapt its very very stressful but we are getting there and we live five mins away from the supermarket.

 

I love the now next and later visual timetable, I do little posters if I need to post a letter or if we are going somewhere.

 

Great ideas.

 

JsMum

[KarenT]

Anger Management, especially day-to-day progress monitoring that J does himself, it encourages him to recognise his anger levels

Social Stories, especially success ones. Great for self-esteem and to encourage more of the same. VERY visual!!

Choice cards - less 'positive' than social stories but sometimes J needs to know the negative consequence of inappropriate behaviour

Job Chart and tickets. J doesn't respond to checklists but will work through job tickets for individual tasks

Time Management card game and Good Manners game (which we made ourselves)

Progress charts for trying new foods

Books on bullying, friendship, social skills

My AS support group and The Girls

Consistency

5-point scale (use it for all sorts of things)

Sensory profiling taught me how to find J's comfort zone, then how to stretch him out of it.

 

I'm sure there's more...

 

Karen

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[JsMum]

Anger Management, especially day-to-day progress monitoring that J does himself, it encourages him to recognise his anger levels

Social Stories, especially success ones. Great for self-esteem and to encourage more of the same. VERY visual!!

Choice cards - less 'positive' than social stories but sometimes J needs to know the negative consequence of inappropriate behaviour

Job Chart and tickets. J doesn't respond to checklists but will work through job tickets for individual tasks

Time Management card game and Good Manners game (which we made ourselves)

Progress charts for trying new foods

Books on bullying, friendship, social skills

My AS support group and The Girls

Consistency

5-point scale (use it for all sorts of things)

Sensory profiling taught me how to find J's comfort zone, then how to stretch him out of it.

 

I'm sure there's more...

 

Karen

x

 

Love it, love it, I would really like to know more about the Job chart and tickets how does this work?

 

We are using something similair to the 5 piont scale, we are using colour and size codes, from the book my books of feelings as we are just starting out on this as I thought J understood emotions, he knows what they are but doesnt understand them in himself or others.

 

I also like your progress chart for trying new foods, J has really started to try new foods, we started by just giving him different smells, and different textures and colours and progressed to licking, to toutching it with his tounge, if he doesnt he isnt punished or other foods are not taken away, we just leave it and try again another time.

 

I think your progress chart is one I would love to try on J.

 

I also loved to hear that you have adapted games to help your son, would you consider sharing them, maybe get a copyright before doing so, but Js time management is really poor, we have a time tracker, and he uses his timer on his mobile but its still something we need to develop further.

 

Your ideas are fantastic and creative.

 

JsMum

[KarenT]

Job Tickets: We have an A4 laminated chart stuck in a prominent place (ours is at the bottom of the stairs) where it will be noticed in passing. I?ve printed a variety of tickets for common jobs and left a few blanks so that I can write one out for something unexpected. The original idea was that the ticket itself would be removed from the chart and carried to the job as a reminder, to limit distraction, but J didn't like doing that and it didn't catch on. When the job?s done the ticket is put away and J gets a reward. We use a token system but you could use anything you think you?ll be able to remember ?in the moment?, tv time, favourite snack etc.

 

The Time Management game is really an extension of job tickets. I've made out two sets of cards based on the job tickets, one slow and one fast. Eg Eat My Tea will have one card that says 15 mins and another that says 30 mins. We invent a scenario to play the game, eg it's Friday night, 4.30pm, there are three tasks that you MUST do (eg Literacy homework, eat your tea, have a shower), you have an hour and a half and you have to see how many tasks/activities you can do in that time. There are bonus points for essential jobs like polishing shoes, and for thinking ahead to Saturday's jobs and doing them in advance. Once we've both filled our time we discuss each other's tasks and how we got them done. J will say things like "You're going to get into trouble with your guitar teacher because you haven't done your practice". The idea is that the child learns the theory of time-management and you can then use this as a reminder to help them transfer the udnerstanding to real life situations. We've been working on it for over a year now but J will often go to his chart and work through tasks without prompting. It's been one of our most successful strategies to date.

 

Obviously this is something that would have to be made up to individual requirements, based on the day to day tasks each child might do, but if you PM me an email address I'll send you the game rules and a copy of our cards so you can see how it works in practice. Bear in mind it takes an age to make up the cards and laminate them!

 

Karen

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[rainbow queen]

the job tickets sounds really good

[bid]

Great idea for a thread, JM!

 

I would say a big visual timetable...my son doesn't have one anymore now he's coming up for 19 but I have one for the month.

 

Bid

[baileyj]

Can I ask, what is the 5 point scale and sensory profiling?

 

Thanks

 

Jo

[Guest Lya of the Nox]

accepting

written timetables, for both of us

choosing battles

when younger "more of behaviour "charts rewarding lots of little bits, and we never had to tkae points away for bad, so we won

my mates, online and around me, who every now and then say ahh but???

stepping back and watching what the triggers are/ were

keep her fashionable,

watch soaps to see what happens,in life?

allow her to be herself when she needs to be, she carries a huge mask

x

[dooday24]

online shopping deffinetly

visual timetables

visual pic on cupboards and drawers

freinds

this forum

 

love donnaxxxx

[KarenT]

Can I ask, what is the 5 point scale and sensory profiling?

There's an excellent book called The Incredible 5-Point Scale which uses five degrees to teach a child self-regulation. The Anger Management work we did was based on a Star Wars theme and had Level 1 as Yoda (as calm as you can get) rising up to Level 5 which was Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader (prompted by huge anger - it helped that the transformation took place on a volcano planet - very symbolic!). I used this to teach J how to recognise the emotional differences between the stages of anger, then gradually worked up to strategies for bringing him down from higher levels back to Level 2 and 3.

 

Sensory Profiling - I had him assessed by an autism-specific OT who gave us questionnaires for school and home, asking how he responded to different sensory stimuli. The outcome was recommendations for addressing the sensory problems that were identified. Not sure this sort of thing can be done on the NHS (maybe others can say whether they've had similar done in their NH trust) - we paid for ours through the autism charity that we go to.

 

Karen

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