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  • Introduction to Autism
    • Characteristics
    • Common Myths >
      • Negative Narrative >
        • Autism Controversies
  • How to Interact
    • Stigma & Discrimination
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  • Advice for Parents
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    • Explaining Autism to Kids
    • A Mother's Story
    • My Sibling Perspective
    • Autism Explained for Kids Site
  • All Kinds of Minds
    • Culture of Autism
    • Late Diagnosis
  • More
    • How to Assess Claims
    • What Causes Autism?
    • Additional Resources
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      • About the Website
      • ASE FAQ
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  • Our Blog
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Idea for Head Banging

9/27/2015

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Picture is of a black mesh back support
So a while back I was working with a child on the spectrum who liked to bang his head, which is pretty common. It's generally a sensory seeking behavior...but it's pretty bad for your head!

I happened to have one of these mesh back supports in my car and on an instinct attached it to the head of the chair the child was banging his head on. He LOVED it! He was able to still move his head back and forth and meet resistance when he went back, without actually banging his head on something.

Since it's mesh and elastic, the material gives quite a bit, which protected his head as he banged it and made sure he never actually made contact with the chair itself. The nice thing is, they're also super inexpensive - you can get them off of Amazon for less than $5.http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Office-Suites-S…/…/B000MUSOZ6 (I'm not affiliated, just providing a link.)

Let me know what you guys think! As always, I'm not a professional, just writing from personal experience - it went well for this boy and I thought I'd share the idea with the rest of you! 

-Creigh
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Communication Placemat

9/15/2015

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Photo of a hand-drawn communication placemat. Silverware and plates are drawn in the center, surrounded by handwritten messages on the edge of the paper, such as
In my AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) class today my professor mentioned a great idea - communication placemats for meal time! She said she'd used one at a pre-school she'd been at before, where communication placemats were made. She said they distributed them to all the children, speaking and non-speaking alike, both for normalization and so the speaking children could model how to use them for the non-speaking children.

I made mine with a camp I helped out for elementary school students in mind - I put meal related things on top, social-related on the right, and adult related on the left. But this would be great to adapt to your own personal needs, too! You can use picture symbols instead of words for non-readers and use vocabulary more common at home. If I had to go back, I'd add in "like", "dislike", "I", and "want" that way you can prompt for sentence production (ie the child can point to "I want food").
​

Let me know what you would do to yours! You can buy them online but I literally drew this one in five minutes in class and all you'd need to do is laminate it.
​
-Creigh
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    About Creigh

    I'm a college student who grew up with my Autistic younger sister, Caley. I've got a bachelor's degree in Psychology and I'm currently studying for my Master's in Speech Language Pathology.

    Neither of those, however, have given me an understanding of autism. All of my understanding comes from learning from the many autistic people that I know. As a result, I have a very different outlook on autism than most, and a burning desire to tell the world what I've learned. This blog is one of the many areas in which I attempt to do that.


    *Note, none of these make me a professional, so advice I give is not professional advice.

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    Starting about in March 2014, all of these posts are originally published on Autism Spectrum Explained's Facebook page, and later reposted here for archiving purposes and easy access for ASE readers, including those who don't use Facebook. 

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