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Coping with sensory issues in the real world

Abitlost

Hi there. This is my first time posting. My son is J is 8 years old with a diagnosis of ASD, i guess he is probably high functioning. He has a lot of social interaction issues and difficulties making friends that are becoming more obvious as he gets older. One issue (although there are many) that I have no idea how to deal with are his sensory issues. For example - He has a complete intolerance for his little brother singing and whistling. His little brother likes to sing/whistle quite a lot and it absolutely drives J over the edge, he cannot cope with it - it causes a melt down. My question is this though - How do we give him the skills to cope with things like this in the real world? - If someone starts whistling in school he can't behave like this, as he gets older if he has these melt downs in front of his peers he is likely to be picked on (although i hope not, but i know what boys are like) - so - what do you do?! All of his issues seem to be becoming more obvious as he is getting older...i want to give him the skills he needs to be able to cope but i don't know how

Parents

  • Hi, my son was diagnosed when he was 8, he has sensory problems but are more to do with touch, how his clothes feel, certain materials and textures, there was a period of time where we struggled to get him to dress at all. We found a website that produced clothes for children with sensory issues and produced seamless clothes and used soft materials. The primary school also allowed him to wear none school uniform clothes that we a similar colour and he wore crocs to school instead of shoes. He has made leaps and bounds since then and on his social skills especially since being at senior school. He is in mainstream school and although he does find if difficult socially he has a small group of friends. Both his primary and seniors schools have been exceptional and it is well worth finding which ones have very good SEN departments.

    For hearing the only thing I can think of is as O says, using headphones at home, you can get earbuds which are also noise cancelling so even if he is not listening to anything they will shut out a fair bit of noise. there maybe something similar to this that you could inquire about with your GP?

    It is difficult in a classroom as he will still need to hear the teacher whilst trying to cut out other noise, i suppose you could discuss with the school for him to be able to wear some headphones when he is becoming overloaded or allowed to be excused from the class for x amount of time to allow the overstimulation to subside and then come back to the class.

    With regard to bullying, I don't think that my son has been picked on anymore than a child without autism has, there has been a couple of issues in the past which the school has nipped in the bud very quickly. Again this will all be down to the school aswell.

    Hopefully you can speak to the school and find some solutions.

  • in reply to Wilko

    Thanks for replying Wilko. It's strange sometimes what sets him off and we are still learning. He is also in mainstream school as he is very intelligent and high functioning. A few weeks ago his teacher printed a worksheet out in black and white (as they do in school to save money on colour printing) and it completely set him off. He couldn't cope with the fact it was black and white and not colour and he was trying to explain to me how it made him feel and I could see how physically uncomfortable he felt even recalling the situation. In the end the classroom assistant took him to the sensory room to de-stress. I do believe it's all about teachers that understand as well, 2 years ago he had an awful teacher who really knocked his confidence a lot and it took him a long time to come back from that. this year is much better. He also has issues with shouting out in class, he's has quite an encyclopedic knowledge about some things and likes to share that, and obviously that's not great, but at least his teacher is understanding. 

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  • in reply to Wilko

    Thanks for replying Wilko. It's strange sometimes what sets him off and we are still learning. He is also in mainstream school as he is very intelligent and high functioning. A few weeks ago his teacher printed a worksheet out in black and white (as they do in school to save money on colour printing) and it completely set him off. He couldn't cope with the fact it was black and white and not colour and he was trying to explain to me how it made him feel and I could see how physically uncomfortable he felt even recalling the situation. In the end the classroom assistant took him to the sensory room to de-stress. I do believe it's all about teachers that understand as well, 2 years ago he had an awful teacher who really knocked his confidence a lot and it took him a long time to come back from that. this year is much better. He also has issues with shouting out in class, he's has quite an encyclopedic knowledge about some things and likes to share that, and obviously that's not great, but at least his teacher is understanding. 

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