How does an autistic child feel?

Question

i am a student working on a project involving autistic children. my project is to plan a program for them but i am clueless towards dealing with autistic children. how does an autistic child really feel? will the child like a stranger's company if we are friendly? what can we do to interest them? do they have short attention span; do they communicate through pictures; will they pay attention to you or do they prefer to be left alone by strangers? how should we go about dealing with them if our time is limited?

Answer 1

wow lots of questions.. each child is differant

My son has to be taught what to do in certian places (zoo, lib, stores) or he get extremely anxouis.

they communcate differant ways non verbal they can use pic or a typing instrument or may not use anything at all and some use sign lang.

To interest them first you have to intrigue them do what they do evn if it is just sitting in the floor staring at the carpet. sit down next to them and do it then gradually say something simple like my name is ___. Sometimes it take a while for them to come around... if time is limited then show interest in what ever they like... try and ask someone who knows them.. Keep it simple for them to process without any other sensories distracting them. Also the best thing to do is step back and think what your sensories are picking up. that means everything. colors sounds smells. Things we take as an everyday thing and often ignore could distract or upset them. I heard of a teen who say the color orange and would vomit. Have no clue why but there is a reason in his history somewhere..They also have feeling just like you so if you thought you might get nervous or embarressed they may too.

Answer 2

It is hard to know how an autistic person feels, as the condition (which varies in severity) seems to involve being aware of and comfortable with abstractions and concrete objects, and with logic as applied to them, while having reduced awareness of affect and emotion.

Autism is much commoner in males than females, which has led some commentators to the opinion that it is simply an exaggerated form of male-pattern thinking, and probably of a male-pattern brain. This involves accepting the position that males are in general better at abstract and logical thought, while females excel at relationships and emotional intelligence - which is obviously a controversial hypothesis.

I have known autistic people - of all ages - and taught autistic children. I offer my informed but entirely subjective impressions.

They are happy with animals of almost any sort. They accept that the animal is itself, without emotional claims and all the dishonesty this can entail. They appear to bond well with animals, often forming a close relationship with one or a very few favourites. How they actually feel about this, in their own brains, I cannot tell.

They seem to have at least as long an attention span as anyone else. If involved in an absorbing activity (a game of chess, a Sudoku, computer programming) they typically show less impatience than most people and are not easily distracted. They have the normal range of intelligence. They learn reading and maths probably rather faster than the rest of us, but get bored by novels and poetry (all that emotion!)

They can be awkward and stubborn beyond the needs of the situation. This drives some mothers of such children to hysteria, and one can see why. A 5-year-old responding to a request with perfect logic, with a stubborn refusal to see another point of view and missing the whole point of what he is being asked to do is certainly infuriating.

They can have an aptitude for and love of music. This raises the question: is what we call the emotional content of music really that, or a direct neural response which can also,but not necessarily, be activated by emotion? Certainly, I taught (in a special school) one deeply autistic teenager who became violent when crossed, but could always be calmed by Mozart or Bach (Haydn and Vivaldi had no effect). I have known other, less spectacular, examples of an autistic response to music.

As far as I am aware, autistic people respond to pictures much like the rest of us - but I am musical, not artistic, and admit that I am more likely to notice responses in my own field. Perhaps someone with expertise in art education could help us here?

Hope all this is some help.

Answer 3

As autism is on a spectrum every child is vastly different. The best thing you could do before working with autistic children would be to read up on the subject, there are some really good informative books out there. You should treat a child with autism as you would any other child, they will soon let you know their opinion as to whether they like you or not. As a rule most children with autism don't like people who are too in their face or over familiar, they do tend to enjoy their own space. No child enjoys being left alone with a stranger and anyone who looks after an autistic child would never let this happen. You should try to keep activities as low key as possible as some autistic children are very sensitive and subject to sensory overload so a trip to the zoo would probably prove to cause quite an explosive situation. The main thing is to take time to get to know the child and treat that child as an individual.

Answer 4

Children with autism feel like any other child does, they feel happy and sad and angry and excited and bored. They're just people...people who have different thought processes.

What I mean by that, is perhaps best answered by addressing your question about friendliness and interests. Your definition of friendly may differ greatly than theirs. MOST people's friendly means being loud ("HEY! HOW Ya DOING?") and in the face (esp with kids with autism....block out anything else to get their attention...does not work) Friendly for most people means hugging or patting on the back, which may be overwhelming for a person with autism (due to sensory issues) or more embarrassingly trigger a need in the child to seek sensory input from you by touching nonstop, smelling your hair or clothes, or, teehee, l*****g you. One of the teachers at our school got that because she kept wearing sweet smelling perfume. Hey, my favorite bumper sticker is 'autism: it's not like you think'

Friendly for them would be interest in their private interests, stepping back and being soft voiced and letting them adjust to your presence before starting conversations or programs.

Interests depends on the child.

There is no one specific thing that every person with autism enjoys. It's like every other community in the world, no one would assume that there is something everyone liked in the Asian community, or in a community of violin players. Someone listed a love of animals, I can assure you that's not true. My daughter is terrified of anything bigger than a hamster, and once she sees one she is gone physically and mentally. She will run away screaming, and she is not open to anyone talking, much less learning from someone.

Attention spans can be long IF they are interested. I would really suggest a parent form in which they can lists favorites and dislikes, as well as fears and interests. Some kids use pictures, some use sign, some can talk completely normally, while others might just answer yes or no questions, again, important to ask the parents.

I honestly do not think you could do a program if your time was limited. It needs to be either a few hours, or a short amount of time but repeated several times so that they have some time to adjust and get to know you, and then the next session will take less time and you can start the program.

And this is getting long, so shortly

Yes, they will respond to the environment that they are in. Happiness is subjective. You can't prejudge. Even if the child enjoys the zoo on one day, they may not be able to cope with the noise or smell the next. So much is dependent on internal state and the child.

Good luck, i think this is a great idea. If you have any questions, contact me offlist. I've helped do programs at our school for my daughters class as well as design a church program, so I know what you're doing.

Answer 5

I read a book by Temple Garden, who is an author with autism.  The book is called Animals in Translation and gave me a better understanding about autism.  She also wrote a book called Thinking in Pictures.

Autism comes in various degrees.  Some autistic people, like Temple, are very functional in society, while others are not as fortunate.

Answer 6

I work with Autistic pre-school children.  You have low functioning children.  These are the ones that are just kind of in there own little world.  Its hard to get any kind of attention from them at all.  Higher functioning autistic kids most of the time are like a typical child.   We have a little bit of every kind of Autistic child.  They all love music.  Especially if they can be involved.   I have seen high school students come to our school and dance for them.  They loved that.  Then the girls danced with the kids.   Some of them like to perform with a microphone.  You could bring a karaoke machine and sing songs with them.

Just know that these children will have support with them to help them enjoy what ever you decide to do.  

This is a really sweet thing for you to do.

Answer 7

treat them like a normal person, becuase they are normal to some extent. when i was mentoring autistic children, i made them comfortable by asking them what they liked and relating to them. one of them happened to be very good at video games and selling stuff on ebay, although he sold for not nearly what stuff was worth, he enjoyed it. some autistic children has problems with their eyes, so try not to sit or go somewhere where the sun or artificial light is too bright. and try to make sure they aren't in a really noisy environment also, it can cause them to get stressed out