autism social story asking and answering questions

Autism social story asking and answering questions pdf#
Autism social story asking and answering questions skin#

Focus on the long term objective of building a child’s ability to cope rather than short term compliance.Keep calm and carry on – try not to take things personally model desired behaviours pick your battles treat every day as a fresh start.

Re-balance your relationship – a more equal relationship between child and adult, based on collaboration and respect, builds trust.

Look beyond surface behaviours – outward behaviours are just the tip of the iceberg with many contributory factors lying below the surface as explained above.

Sensory overload – our children’s heightened sensory perception can also contribute to anxiety, overload and avoidance (please listen to our webinar about PDA & sensory processing for more detail).Ī repeated theme in our case studies is that PDA turns “parenting norms” upside down, so our own mindset and mood are key factors in developing a toolkit of helpful approaches.

Intolerance of uncertainty – our children may struggle with all the ‘what ifs’ of life, not knowing how things might ‘pan out’, what might be expected of them, where a situation might lead, when a situation might end and whether they will be able to cope with whatever may come along.

Confusion about emotions – our children may not be able to understand or accurately ‘label’ emotions in themselves or other people, or may feel overwhelmed by their own and others’ emotions.

Difficulties with social interaction – our children may not always understand the ‘unwritten rules’ of social interaction or non-verbal communication including body language and tone of voice.

Difficulties in processing language – our children may have good expressive language but may not be able to process verbal communication quickly enough to keep up during a conversation and may be confused by non-specific questions or instructions (please listen to our webinar about PDA and speech & language for more detail).

In addition, any or all of the following may be underlying … All the helpful approaches explained below are designed to help our children remain on the ‘lower slopes’ of the anxiety curve and avoid escalation where possible. The anxiety curve model is a really helpful way to understand anxiety and echoes the hierarchy of demand avoidance approaches seen in a PDA profile of autism.

Anxiety can be expressed in many different ways including avoidance, anger, shouting, crying, laughing, not talking, restlessness, boredom, fidgeting, rocking, tics, repetitive actions, obsessing, skin picking, swearing, hiding, running off, withdrawing, masking, throwing things and lashing out at others. Anxiety – the most important starting point is to understand and accept that a PDA child’s behaviours are underpinned by anxiety and a need to feel in control.Similarly, these approaches can be helpful with other presentations/conditions as well as with a PDA profile of autism – they may be beneficial for autistic and non-autistic people at times of heightened emotional states or extreme anxiety, or for times of extreme demand avoidance regardless of the underlying cause. Likewise therapists may need to adopt a tailored approach when working with PDA. Many more generic autism resources – such as social stories, books, games, activities, computer games and apps – may also be helpful, but may require some creative adaption, or a more indirect form of implementation, to be effective with PDA children. Our Keys to Care one-pager was written primarily with in-patient settings in mind but is also a useful summary of helpful approaches. There are many resources, including webinars and books, which cover helpful approaches for children with PDA and our adult life section may be useful for older children.

Our PDA Panda ambassador symbolises helpful approaches for PDA and the P A N D A mnemonic on our infographic below provides a useful summary:

This two page PDF is a helpful summary of the approaches outlined on this page.

approaching behaviour that challenges – also see understanding behaviours.

supporting social interaction & communication.

being cautious with rewards/praise/sanctions.

There is no wrong or right way to do things, it’s about learning as much as you can about PDA, finding out what works best for you and your child and building a framework of approaches. Helpful approaches with PDA – children IntroductionĪutism and the PDA profile are dimensional – this means that approaches need to be tailored for each individual child, applied flexibly and reviewed regularly.

Courses & events for social care professionals.

Courses & events for healthcare professionals.

Courses & events for education professionals.

Benefits of understanding a PDA profile.

Autism social story asking and answering questions skin#

Autism social story asking and answering questions pdf#