There are dangers to assuming autistic people need routines, without understanding why. Routines imposed by other people are likely to do more harm than good.
Tag: routine
Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com [image: rainbow colored hands in silhouette, upraised and reaching out with joy.] The saying goes, “if you’ve met one Autistic person, you’ve met one Autistic person.” That was really hammered home for me today as I watched a short video in which an Autistic man explains why Autistic people flap our hands … and pretty much nothing he said matched up with my own experience. A few of the things he said even bothered me. My intention is not to erase what he said, however. His view of why he used to flap his hands is just as valid as my view of why I still flap my hands. There are many ways of being Autistic. (Since the video was not captioned, I took the time to make a transcript of it for those who can’t hear or understand it. That was fortunate as the original video…
Photo © skywaykate | Flickr/Creative Commons [image: Photo of a table set up to serve a holiday buffet, lit by candles.] Corina Becker nostereotypeshere.blogspot.com Up here in Canada, we had our Thanksgiving back in October, so we’re all getting ready for Christmas/Hanukkah/other winter holidays. I’m going to be very honest: I celebrate Christmas, so my default for the holiday season is Christmas. This doesn’t mean that stuff I say cannot be used for other holidays, it’s just a religious difference, use as need. But I’m kinda using my own experiences for this, so I’m going to resort to my default of Christmas. Also, I’m mainly addressing parents in this post, but I’m certain that some of these pointers can be used for Autistics of all ages. But yes, the winter holiday season is approaching, and it’s a very busy, hectic and overwhelming time of year, full of all the things…
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.thinkingautismguide.com www.squidalicious.com Summer. Now there’s a word that terrifies parents of school-aged kids with autism. We do not necessarily associate the word with “break.” For us, summer means potential implosion of carefully orchestrated school, services, and respite schedules — and the resulting scrambling and scraping to make new arrangements. My son Leo’s last day of fourth grade was Friday, and I am fretting. He is in such a beautiful space in his wonderful new school — progressing on his IEP goals, excited to get on the school bus every morning, arriving home trailed by email reports of successful, action-filled classroom days. Getting him to this point has taken months of routine-reinforced effort. I’m worried that summer will undo it all. Children with autism work hard to gain skills during the school year, and that learning can quickly slip away without ongoing, reinforcing learning opportunities. This means…