Autism Home Learning

Behaviours which feel challenging can be frustrating and upsetting. Pause and give yourself a break. It is important to have some everyday strategies to maintain wellbeing which in turn may reduce difficult behaviour.This post offers some tips for everyday strategies, some suggestions for what you might do and what it is better not to do, which may help to prevent behaviours from escalating.  Structure  Always consider structure and routines as part of your everyday strategies. We all need structure and routine in our daily lives. For autistic children and young people, structure and routines are essential to provide information in a meaningful way and to reduce anxiety. The use of structure is empowering. Structured Teaching (TEACCH) strategies increase independence, raise self-esteem and as a result can reduce difficult behaviours. For example, a visual schedule provides vital information about the structure of the day: what, when, where, who. This is not that far remov...

Kindness is the theme for Mental Health Awareness Week. This is a great opportunity to focus on what 'kindness' and  'being mind' mean. How about you introduce 'project kindness' for the week! This week's focus on kindness as part of Mental Health Awareness Week is a great opportunity to introduce some kindness activities during your home learning week.  Being kind to others helps us to feel good and the more we do good for others, the more we are doing good for ourselves. Many schools would include 'kindness' as a topic as part of Personal, Social and Health Education or PSHE. So this week you could introduce 'project kindness' to your learning week, teaching your child(ren) about kindness through some engaging and fun activities. Kindness has a positive effect on wellbeing for both giver and receiver, so use this week to spread some kindness. What is kindness & how can we see it? For many autistic children, the ...

Life during lockdown is an emotional roller coaster for us all. For many autistic children and young people, the emotions they are experiencing may be intense and confusing. In this post I share some of my experiences and thoughts on ways to support emotional wellbeing at home.  The confusion and unpredictability of the current situation, and when/how  we will eventually exit lockdown, is causing a good deal of anxiety for everyone. Awareness of the risks to emotional wellbeing for autistic children and young people is an important first step to supporting their wellbeing at this time. An earlier post focused upon increased anxiety which of course risks emotional wellbeing. Other widely recognised factors also impact emotional wellbeing for our children including: difficulties in communicating about feelings, barriers to interaction, differences in ways of thinking - such as lack of flexibility, sensory processing differences, difficulties with asking for help, lack of re...