Preschoolers With Autism
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Preschoolers with autism: mostly young infantile autistic children or babies are normally not cuddly babies.
They will not normally raise their arms to be picked up…and will avoid eye contact, or make eye contact then quickly look away.
Sometimes your autistic preschooler or baby may stare into your eye, as if they are looking into a mirror.
You will probably find they lack interest in objects and the ability to point…some infantile autistic children will point but this is normally quite a vague point and not necessarily at any thing. Some autism preschoolers will have an unusual interest in an object or thing, to the point of an obsession, which they will find difficult to share.
They may show very little variation in facial expression in response to others. For example, if smiled at they may not smile back.
Autistic preschoolers will usually have impairments in the ability to make friends.
They may latch on to another child at preschool and want to be with them all the time regardless of the child’s reaction to them.
They may display a particular preference for some children based on their appearance, hair color, or other quality in the child’s appearance rather than their personality or whether they actually like them.
Sometimes this can work also the other way an infantile autistic child may not like someone for the way they look.
They will have difficulties with ‘autism and play’ and interaction with other children and may prefer to play or be on their own. Preschoolers with autism will normally have difficulties with things like group activities and sitting on the carpet for story times or teaching.
They will not have the ability to share or understand why we share; autism preschoolers may have tantrums and outbursts of aggression.
Their ability to joint sharing will be missing, this is the ability to concentrate and share an object with another person, for example reading or looking through a book with a teacher or parent.
However there are strategies you can put in place now which will help your autistic preschooler better cope with preschool and home life, also the transition to school.
One such strategy is something called autism social stories, these marvelous tools can be shared by home and preschool keeping a routine. Autism social stories work best when they are introduced at home and preschool at the same time, this keeps continuity.
….Autism social stories are short pieces of text and pictorially rich, normally only one page long. They can be read to your preschooler with autism by the teacher or another adult, and used for all situations they are finding difficult like toileting, sharing or other behavior issues.
They are excellent tools to help you deal with aggression and other problems you may well be experiencing with your autistic preschooler.
When introduced an autism social skills story will help your autistic child understand and better cope with the frustrating and often stressful situations they encounter like playing games, turn taking, listening to stories, snack time and tidying up.
Even if the child has little or no language, autism social skills stories are going to prove valuable resource and may well be treated by your preschooler with autism as their favorite.
To obtain autism social skills stories visit
www.autismsocialstories.com/preschool_one
jANINE
What Questions to Ask Autism School – Autism Social Stories
The best place to start is by carefully selecting the school which will suit your autistic child the best.
So what questions to ask autism school? Well firstly the journey needs to be established and looked at.
Distance from home is always a big consideration; will your child need transport? How long will they be on the transport?
Who is the driver, the escort? Try and arrange prior to the start of school for your child to meet them. Look in the bus and get a general feel for the space, look at the color of the bus, seats, floor, walls etc.
How many seats, the fabric, are they noisy, itchy, soft etc? The steps to get in, noise of the engine, is their an air freshener? The smell in the bus, aftershave of the driver, the escort, autistic children have very sensitive senses and smells can be distressing to them. Do they play the radio in the bus, will this affect your child?
Autistic children are very sensitive and all of these factors will need to be taken into account as well as where they are on the collection list. Who will already, be in the bus, who is collected next, and so on?
Establish the bus rules, try out the seat belts, will you need to buy something soft to wrap around the belt if the fabric is hard, will it rub your autistic child’s skin. Will your child be seated next to the window? Who will be sat next to them?
Find out about the homeward journey again what time will they leave school? In what order are the children dropped? Is it going to be the same driver etc? Repeat all the questions as above for the journey too school.
Ask what happens when the driver or escort are on holiday or away? Who will replace them? Will you get prior notice so that you can explain the change to your child, autistic children like things to remain the same and a simple thing like different driver or seat could cause anxiety and stress.
After you have gathered all the relevant information you will need to establish a social story which will explain what is going to happen to your child.
A good social story (autism social stories) will help your child understand the what, why, where and when of the situation.
You will need to add specific details yourself like the names of the driver the name of the school etc to the story. Choose autism social stories with pictures. Autistic children will take in information a lot easier if it is visually presented.
Autism social stories are an excellent tool for giving your autistic child clear social cues and coping strategies for all those situations they may find difficult, stressful or distressing.
The social story will give your child clear instructions and help them feel more comfortable with and in those situations a social skills story is needed for.
To view an example autism social story visit us at:
www.autismsocialstories.com the story link is roughly half way down the page.
To obtain autism social stories for the classroom and school visit us at
www.autismsocialstories.com/school
jANINE
http://www.articlesbase.com/learning-disabilities-articles/what-questions-to-ask-autism-school-autism-social-stories-672348.html
Info for Moms – Autism and Vaccinations Update
There is a lot of info for moms to digest on the subject of autism and vaccinations. There is one camp that claims that it is the over 40 vaccinations each baby receives in a span of four years that causes this handicap, and others who believe it is genetic and has nothing to do with shots at all.
Autism does seem to run in families, with males being 4 times more likely to have it than girls. This would seem to promote the idea that autism is NOT in fact related to vaccinations. So does the fact that in identical twin boys when one has autism the other has over a 60% chance of having it too, and in fraternal twin boys, there is only 10% chance (much less genetic material in common).
However, many celebrities, most notably Jenna McCarthy, maintain that their children were diagnosed shortly after their vaccine shots – pointing the finger more specifically at the mercury found in the MMR shot for measles, mumps and rubella. However, the level of mercury in the vaccine is harmless, and there have been no reports of autism in children genuinely poisoned by mercury.
One study run in Japan pointed to a population of 300,000 that stopped vaccinating with MMR, and the number of autism cases went up, not down. Opponents of vaccination still point to Amish communities and state they have never vaccinated and have no autism. If autism is a gene related disease, however, it may not be prevalent in the genetically isolated Amish communities, which are legendary for rare genetic diseases due to a tight gene pool and repeated inbreeding.
Info for moms on the possible side effects of vaccines is confusing and runs on both sides of the arguments. Children who are not vaccinated do run risks of dying from childhood diseases all but eradicated except where vaccinations are not administered. On the other hand, there are those who insist their vaccinated children are permanently damaged as a result of the vaccine.
Some have put forth the theory that the vaccines don’t actually cause the autism, but simply act as a trigger in those who have a family history of it. If this is the case, then anyone with autism in their family may wish to hold off on vaccines.
Karina Lawrence
Preschoolers With Autism
Preschoolers with autism: mostly young infantile autistic children or babies are normally not cuddly babies.
They will not normally raise their arms to be picked up…and will avoid eye contact, or make eye contact then quickly look away.
Sometimes your autistic preschooler or baby may stare into your eye, as if they are looking into a mirror.
You will probably find they lack interest in objects and the ability to point…some infantile autistic children will point but this is normally quite a vague point and not necessarily at any thing. Some autism preschoolers will have an unusual interest in an object or thing, to the point of an obsession, which they will find difficult to share.
They may show very little variation in facial expression in response to others. For example, if smiled at they may not smile back.
Autistic preschoolers will usually have impairments in the ability to make friends.
They may latch on to another child at preschool and want to be with them all the time regardless of the child’s reaction to them.
They may display a particular preference for some children based on their appearance, hair color, or other quality in the child’s appearance rather than their personality or whether they actually like them.
Sometimes this can work also the other way an infantile autistic child may not like someone for the way they look.
They will have difficulties with ‘autism and play’ and interaction with other children and may prefer to play or be on their own. Preschoolers with autism will normally have difficulties with things like group activities and sitting on the carpet for story times or teaching.
They will not have the ability to share or understand why we share; autism preschoolers may have tantrums and outbursts of aggression.
Their ability to joint sharing will be missing, this is the ability to concentrate and share an object with another person, for example reading or looking through a book with a teacher or parent.
However there are strategies you can put in place now which will help your autistic preschooler better cope with preschool and home life, also the transition to school.
One such strategy is something called autism social stories, these marvelous tools can be shared by home and preschool keeping a routine. Autism social stories work best when they are introduced at home and preschool at the same time, this keeps continuity.
….Autism social stories are short pieces of text and pictorially rich, normally only one page long. They can be read to your preschooler with autism by the teacher or another adult, and used for all situations they are finding difficult like toileting, sharing or other behavior issues.
They are excellent tools to help you deal with aggression and other problems you may well be experiencing with your autistic preschooler.
When introduced an autism social skills story will help your autistic child understand and better cope with the frustrating and often stressful situations they encounter like playing games, turn taking, listening to stories, snack time and tidying up.
Even if the child has little or no language, autism social skills stories are going to prove valuable resource and may well be treated by your preschooler with autism as their favorite.
To obtain autism social skills stories visit
www.autismsocialstories.com/preschool_one
jANINE
