How to treat an autistic child

Autism spectrum disorder is a child's developmental disability in which their social, communication and behavioral skills are significantly affected. The intellectual abilities of each child with this type of disorder may vary, since we can find cases ranging from intellectual disability, mid-range intellectual abilities, as well as superiors. Therefore, some will need more help than others in their day to day life.

But, How to treat an autistic child? The purpose of this Psychology-Online article will be to provide you with a series of tips that will help you know how to help an autistic boy or girl from the family and school environment.

Index

1. How to treat an autistic child at home
2. How to treat an autistic child in the classroom
3. How to deal with an aggressive autistic child

Knowing how to treat a child with autism and, above all, putting it into practice is sometimes not an easy task. You have to remember that each situation is different and sometimes what works for one will not have the same effect on the other. For this reason, it is important to know the little one very well.

If you want to be able to identify it, the Master in Autism Online prepared by the Center specialized in Postgraduate Training EDECA trains professionals to address neurodevelopmental disorders caused by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children. The training program is aimed at people interested in the subject and professionals who wish to specialize in the field.

The master's degree allows mastering the process, elements and purpose of diagnosis and evaluation in Autism Spectrum Disorder, identify the main learning difficulties associated, know the main theories of development, recognize the main associated symptoms, as well as master the techniques and intervention strategies in children with autism.

In this sense, a series of tips that can be very useful for treating a child with autism at home will be detailed below:

• stay informedabout this disorder: It is advisable to consult a professional and consult articles, among other things, that allow you to keep abreast of current events related to this disorder.
• Don't try to be the perfect father nor pretend to act correctly with your child all the time, because it is impossible. Remember that the more you push yourself and obsess over doing it right, the more you can end up doing the opposite. Try to do the best you can, but also allow yourself to be wrong.
• Don't tell your child all the time what they don't have to do: better reinforce the desired behaviors when they have them and motivate him to continue doing them whenever you can.
• Promote a conducive school and family environment for your child to be comfortable.
• Identify the best way to communicate about your child: to improve communication with him or her, it is important to know how to express themselves, because autistic children have a particular way of showing what they feel. From there, you can establish new forms of communication adapted to her style in particular.
• change your routinedaily when needed: try to do it as progressively as possible, since children with autism are very anxious about changes, even small ones.
• Never compare your child with other children: when treating children with autism, remember that their development may be slower than that of others and that the changes they experience are also different.
• When you communicate with him or her,send him messages clear: remember that the boy or girl will not understand things that you could be taking for granted. For example, if you want her to pick up her toys and you just tell her “you always leave your toys lying around”, the child will not understand that you want to tell her that you want her to pick them up too. Therefore, the message would have to be the following: “Can you pick up the toys please? Whenever you finish playing, you have to do it.”
• Make an effort to understand the logic of their actions: Although their actions seem strange to you, you must make an effort to put yourself in their place and discover the reasons for them.

Teachers need to learn how to deal with children with autism, as they will probably at some point they will have to deal with one and not knowing how to understand or treat it could have consequences for the boy or girl in question.

Some of the tips to know how to treat an autistic child at school are:

• Encourage the boy or girl to have more contact with their peers: This can be done through organized games and group tasks. It is important that respect between each one is promoted beforehand.
• The educational environment must be very goodorganized and structured, as well as sudden changes should be avoided.
• Use visual supports to more easily comply with the schedules and rules established in class. For example, you can make cards or signs with the rules, use timers to respect the times properly, etc.
• Pay close attention to the strengths and weaknesses of the autistic child: This will be very useful to be able to take advantage of those strengths to motivate him to study and/or finish tasks.
• Adapt the school environmentto facilitate the child's learning: for example, it can be verified if the location of your table is the one that best suits your needs, what there is so much noise in that area and if it is appropriate for him or her or if it has good light in her place, among others factors.
• Receive support from professionals in the matter in order to offer a better education to children with autism.
• positively reinforcethe child's behaviors or the girl in case these are positive.
• Treat the student with respectgive you support: this will help you to adapt in the best way to the school environment, with your classmates and in the accomplishment of your tasks.
• Use role plays to practice and reinforce social behaviors appropriate. It is a good method for the autistic child to constantly observe and participate in accepted social behaviors.
• Promote the use of maps and images in which the concepts that she has to learn are described in an understandable way. Remember that children with autism learn best through visual content.

When helping an autistic child, it is advisable that if parents have problems with their child's education, ask help of a professional. If they feel that the way she behaves with them is not the most appropriate and they have problems controlling her, it is important that they ask for help from a child psychiatrist or psychologist.

The professional will take care of assess the particular situation of the child and, depending on her, she will determine what are the most appropriate guidelines to follow in order to know how to deal with an aggressive autistic child and that he is not harmed by her actions. In general terms, these are some of the recommended strategies to improve self-control of children with autism:

• Keep him away from stressful situations.
• Show him relaxation techniques like counting and deep breathing.
• Make some guidelines so that your child can tell you if something is bothering him.
• Validate her feelings and ask her what is bothering her.
• Model the behavior you want your child to follow. If you act calm and express your feelings clearly, over time, he or she tries to imitate you and do the same.
• Give him a quiet space of his own to keep him away from the overstimulation that makes him nervous.
• Write down the causes of your child's tantrums to understand her behavior.
• If she is doing something cruel or dangerous, ask her to stop and explain why she is not doing it right.

First of all, we must remember that it is not possible to generalize and that often the advice that works well with some does not work the same with others.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to treat an autistic child, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotional and behavioral disorders.