Helping Autistic Children Understand Death and Dying

October 1, 2017January 31, 2022 by Shannon Des Roches Rosa

Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com Photo © Benedic Belen | Flickr/Creative Commons [Image: Black-and-white photo of an Asian woman comforting a small crying child who is wearing a tiara, and has their hands over their face.] The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism asked Autistic adults to fill out a survey about death and dying to create a resource for people who need to explain death to Autistic children. The response was tremendous—in less than a week the survey had 50 responses, mostly from Autistic adults. What follows is a summary and analysis of the responses. We hope it is useful to you, your child, your family, your clients, and your students. Please note that some of the responses discuss difficult material, including suicide, and suicidal ideation/threats. Bullet Point Summary Autistic adults were surveyed about death and dying. Most learned about death through observation of people, animals, and plants. Learning about death was…

Disability

Book Review: There’s More Than One Way Home

June 5, 2017January 31, 2022 by Shannon Des Roches Rosa

Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com A mother’s worst nightmare: That’s what Anna thinks she might be facing at the beginning of Donna Levin’s spellbinding novel There’s More Than One Way Home. It’s 2004 and Anna has accompanied her Autistic son, Jack, as a class chaperone on a field trip to Minotaur Island near San Francisco. When four children—Jack among them—turn up missing, Anna fears the worst. Everyone pulls together to comb the island, and the boys are found. One is dead after all, but to Anna’s guilty relief, it is not her Jack. Thus begins a mother’s second worst nightmare, as Jack is accused of murder. The story unfolds from there: Jack’s loving but authoritarian father’s hands are tied with respect to the case, since he is the district attorney and thus has a conflict of interest. Free-spirited Doctor Valentine helps keep Jack out of the crushing institutionalization of the combined penal and psychiatric…

Graphic with the title "Karla's Emotion Picture (FYI)" Vertical rectangle divided into five horizontal bars. To the left is an upward facing arrow labeled, "intensity" The bottom bar is white and labeled "Unaware". Text to its right reads, "When I was younger I was 100% unaware of any sort of emotion in me and would be shocked when I was in a meltdown all of a sudden. It still happens sometimes today though I try to actively practice awareness of my physical and emotional selves in order to survive." The next bar up is green and labeled "Happy or Sad". Text to its right reads, "Everything is just fine. I am a mostly happy being and sometimes sad. Neither of these emotions are bad to my current awareness nor cause me distress that I know of". Between the green bar and the next bar up is a dotted line labeled "Emotional Regulation Line" Next bar up is yellow and labeled "Some Fear/Anger". Text to its right reads, "I will feel 'off' here but most of the time I cannot articulate what that means and often cannot tie it to any one thing". Next bar up is red and labeled "Bigger Fear/Anger". Text to its right reads, "Here I know FOR SURE that if I do not take corrective action that I will have a Meltdown. Again I sometimes am not sure why this is happening. Mostly I just need to be left alone here." The top bar is black and labeled "Meltdown". Text to its right reads, "A meltdown to me is an intense mixture of fear and anger and other emotions that confuse me. Sometimes I laugh due to the confusion when nothing about it is 'funny'."

Autism

Autistic Grief Is Not Like Neurotypical Grief

August 1, 2012September 6, 2022 by Karla Fisher

There really are no good articles on how to help an autistic person process grief. It is with this hole in mind that I create this article.