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Phobias - fire, fire alarms etc

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Could anyone point me in the direct of any information about helping children who have autism and specific phobias?

 

I've made a list of all the worries and fears, we've ordered them according to how anxious they make the them feel and my plan was to start one by one working on the fears, for example fire drills. This fear encompasses the alarms, the lights, being in the building. I've wrote some social stories on every aspect of this such as why the alarm is loud, why we have lights, why we have fire drills, what to do when the alarm goes off etc. We might take photos together and eventually will have a book all about fire drills! Then we'll start on things that beep.

 

I just wondered if there are any websites out there on dealing with phobias etc that are specific to people with autism?

 

I did think about fire safety websites but the problem is that the fire safety information given previously has been taken on board almost too well. We now need reassurance that really we're very safe in school, but obviously we can't say that there will never be a fire. School alarms are quite sensitive too and go off with science experiments etc quite a lot!

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I think we dont like things like this is because we are sensitive to loud noise. For me when we have a practise and not a fire drill and the practise one involves us staying inside, i cover my ears because the noise is to loud and disrupts me. this is the same with thunder and fire works.

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Hi

 

I think there are several aspects here. As SpecialTalent says it can be due to hypersensitive hearing. Also they don't like unexpected things, and they may not know how to tell if it's a drill or real.

 

My youngest is at home all the time and I worry about what would happen if there was a fire, but I can't talk to him about what he would do in that situation as he worries big time over anything like that anyway, and might end up not wanting to ever be alone in the house!

 

With my son his specific phobias are the result of severe generalised anxiety - he even worries about worrying! So not sure aiming at a specific phobia would really help. Sorry can't give any advice.

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Hi

 

I think there are several aspects here. As SpecialTalent says it can be due to hypersensitive hearing. Also they don't like unexpected things, and they may not know how to tell if it's a drill or real.

 

 

I think Mandapanda pointed out a good relevant point also i have a really strange phobia of flowers and moths and butterflies etc in my head i feel threatened as if somehow its gonna entangle around me or infect me and make me not me but like a host or something. This fear has been with me since i can remember however my friend took me too one of those big dome shaped botanical museums where there was lots of exotic flowers and i was totally frightened and she made me touch any flowers i was scared of which after a few attemps i managed to do although on most first attempts my instinct kicks in and i relexively back away.

 

Now i can ouch flowers if i will myself too but if someone catches me unexpected i freak out and get scared but i can still buy women flowers and pick them and eat herbal foliage or herbal medicine and i even have some growing in my room to remind myself it is an irrational fear.

 

For some fears i feel they are routed quite well in our biological or primitive self so much so hat even if we want to touch wha ever scares us or confront it our biological or primitive self kicks in by activating defense mechanisms like reflexs making us back away and raising the heart rate o cause anxiety and panic and if it is them you will notice by how they react to the stimulus like if you ask them to confront it , if its just a fear then they will look unsure and maybe take it into consideration but if its a phobia which wont be cured then they will usually back away and start to panic just from the anticipation of facing it. - own oppinion ,not from a text book so dont take it as fact its just oppinion

 

so you should start by trying to find out if i can be cured by support and confrontation if not then the most you can do is try to your child use to the fact that sometimes this fear can interfer with daily life and if it does the key is not to run or panic but try and stay calm and by exposing him to his fear often the child should start to learn that although it scares them its not an immidiate threat

 

Hope that helped

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