Category Archives: Autism Strategy

Autism Haircuts: Top 11 Tips to Ensure Success

January 7, 2022 maggs.hay

With autism goes sensory processing challenges. And haircuts are the ultimate challenge for all things sensory.

People have spoken about physical pain at their hair being snipped, and others have explained the unbearable feeling as their hair is brushed or combed. These challenges are all before even considering the environment, the noises and most importantly communications.

But success can be achieved when you know the steps to tackle. It is about taking on step at a time, ensuring awareness of the process and what to expect.

Let me share the top tips for haircut success.

Speak to the hairdresser about your child’s needs. I have found them to be very accommodating and keen to help. If they aren’t, go to the other hairdresser on the other side of the road, cause it is not like we are in short supply of options.
After explaining the situation, ask the hairdresser if it is possible to come in 5 minutes before they open. I have never found this a problem, as it only takes 5 minutes to cut a child’s hair, and they tend to always be in a bit before opening time to grab a cuppa or get the different tools out.
Arriving before they open and discussing your child’s needs, lets your child have the salon to themselves with no hairdryers, no fresh strange shampoo smells, and even the opportunity to ask for the music to be turned off and lights dimmed.
Book the top hairstylist. This is due to a number of factors. They are experienced and can provide an excellent cut on child’s head no matter what contortion they put themselves in. They are quick, so less time in the stressful situation. They tend to be the manager of the salon, so something simple as turning down the lights does not need anyone’s approval.
Before going to the appointment, visit the hairdresser a couple of times, with your child. Go inside and have a sit down. Take some photos to show before the appointment. This is all about becoming aware of the environment. Do this at the beginning of the day when it is quiet. You may need to do this in stages, firstly just going up to the door, and working up to actually going inside.
On the day of the appointment, explain to your child where they are going. This can be verbally if they understand, pictures if they want to look at them, or my personal favourite, YouTube clips of a child getting their haircut to provide familiarity of the situation ahead.
Brush your child’s hair before you leave the house. This removes one task for the hairdresser and starts a bit of desensitisation on their scalp. The hairdresser can immediately start cutting as soon as you arrive.
Don’t feel your child needs to sit in the hairdressing chair with a cape around them. Let your child sit where they like. Offer to clean up afterwards.
Distraction is key. Take an ipad, book, chocolate, favourite toy or do your signature crazy dance to entertain them while the hairdresser does her job. You have the place to yourself, so who cares what you look like.
Keep to a simple cut. In my opinion, I have always kept Rhys’ hair in a long surfer cut. It allows for easy cutting, zero styling, and if he does miss a haircut, it is not as noticeable.
At the end provide loads of praise.

You may manage to get your child’s hair cut following the above or you may not. It is about progression and taking one step at a time. However if it doesn’t work, there is an alternative option, and this is what we have now done.

Special needs schools have qualified hairdressers that cut the children’s hair. Phone around the special needs schools in your area, and get the name of the hairdresser that visits the school. These hairdressers tend to be freelance and will come to your house.

Follow the same steps as if you were going to a salon, the pictures, hair brushing and distractions. The benefit of a special needs hairdresser is that they know about things like autism. They are not scared about an anxious child, and accommodate and adapt to your child’s needs. They are also supper quick and will cut your child’s hair in the broom cupboard, if that is where your child feels safe.

I would recommend getting a siblings hair cut at the same time, or if you don’t have one, get a friends child or your husband to have their hair cut. This avoids you feeling bad about a hairdresser coming to your house and your child refusing a haircut. At least the hairdresser will be able to do someone else’s hair instead.

At the end of the day, if all fails and your child finds a haircut too distressing, remember, it is only a haircut. There are a lot bigger worries in our lives and our children having hair halfway down their backs is the least of them.

I suggest reading the below in conjunction with the communication strategies on this site as everything we do is better through communication.

Autism Strategy

Getting your Child to Talk: 8 Alterative Autism Communication Strategies

August 19, 2021 maggs.hay

So your child is not talking. They have missed saying their first word, the milestone of speech, or their ability to understand language. Your Google search will come up with many strategies and methods of encouraging engagement, prompting speech and communicating differently with your child, but there are many other ways you can communicate and engage, from using everyday items around your house to some of the latest technology.

There are strategies you will find and learn from speech therapists which are fantastic in developing communication skills, helping your child to understand everyday requests and helping them to tell you what they want.

I am a strong advocate of these methods. They are proven to work and I have seen the results with my own son. If you want more details you can read of these methods here, where I explain step by step in how to implement them and some real life examples.

But what I found when learning about communication and the tried and tested methods by professionals, is that you have the opportunity to adapt and tweet these methods to your environment. Additionally you can also introduce technological developments into the strategies as we move into a more digital age.

Times change. Our world evolves. Things modernise and although the fundamental strategies will always remain, we can adapt them, mold them and use them in different ways.

Six of these strategic adaptions are detailed below.

Photos

A lot of visual communication aids make use of universal symbols. But there is no rule that you have to use these. The objective is to communicate, and this can be easily done with taking photos of items you use most often or your child, for example doing activities or visiting places.

Photos are great, because with today’s technology we all have a camera in our back pockets with the ability to take the photos wherever we go.

When words are not an option for communication due to barriers to understanding and language processing, a photo tells a thousand words.

Leaflets

Leaflets are a great resource and worth collecting when you see them, or even when you are at a location to store for future.

It is dependent on the individual, but leaflets can consume a lot of space and aren’t freely available when you need them at that split second moment.

However they are a great communication options to add to the collection.

Books

An adaption of the Social stories strategy, books are an amazing tool for communication. A lot of stories for children are based around a specific scenario, for example a trip to the dentist, or the supermarket, or when granny came to stay.

Whether the story is centered around our well known Peppa Pig family or a little girl’s first day a school, they all come with a message and a sequence of events.

If a new outing or visit is planned in for the future, reading a book about the experience is a great way to introduce familiarity about the event and a reference point to relate back to when the time arrives.

Even consider taking the book with you to refer back to, is always a good shout.

Cartoons

Our children love a bit of telly, and although we may think the majority is a load of codswallop and cringe as we hear the theme tune emanating through our television speakers for the hundredth time, there is some value in children’s television episodes.

Not all children’s cartoons follow the model but the majority do. They center around a story or theme and message that is being portrayed.

In a familiar fashion to books, episodes of a bunch of paw patrol pups rushing into the fire station or the poor kid from Fireman Sam getting into a pickle once again, we can use the stories to highlight a new event or activity we have planned.

On our last visit to the beach son, we acted out a Peppa Pig episode about Georges sandcastles, which encouraged engagement, imaginative play and family interaction.

Video

There is nothing better than the video of an activity, attraction or location. If YouTube is not giving you the options you need, search videos by Google and watch a visit to the dentist or local attraction.

There is also nothing more powerful than your child watching themselves on video from a previous visit. Record outings and save them in easy-to-find folders on your phone or PC. Then the next time, instead of using words to communicate where you are planning to visit, you can communicate with the aid of a video illustrating your previous experience.

YouTube

YouTube is an amazing catalogue of resources. Take your pick and you are guarenteed to find a video that will be of benefit to your situation.

A few years ago I was determined to introduce a balance bike to my son’s activities, with the hope that a zoom through the park would be on the cards.

I did everything to demonstrate the mechanism of the push vehicle only to be met with blank stares and a pair of painful quad muscles from attempting a ride on a bike too small for my physical build.

YouTube saved us when I found a video of a child pushing himself around a skate park on a balance bike.

It wasn’t a fancy video, just a ten minute clip of a child riding. But with the ability to repeat the clip, I played it on our television, over and over again, allowing my son to become familiar with the activity and gain knowledge of what the two wheeled piece of apparatus in the corner could be used for.

Familiarity of a new activity or experience is always best shown multiple times to gain awareness and comfort. The foundations of what is expected take away the fear when the real life item is presented.

Webcams

Thank goodness for technology and the virtual power of the Internet.

Previously I would spend hours finding pictures of places and items, then printing and laminating them to allow a method of communication for my son. But there was a great tool that gave him the real life experience from the comfort of his home.

Webcams of beaches, local attractions and public venues are great to allow our children to see where you are going and what it actually looks like. The video gives added value compared to a flat two dimensional picture.

Use Google to search the location you plan to visit plus the word “webcam” to see if you can get a live image stream.

Virtual Reality

Often technology and fancy geeky gadgets can put those less techy folk off, but virtual reality is a great tool and with today’s advances it is easily available for anyone to try at a very low cost.

There are many apps that are VR enabled and allow a virtual experience of the outside world from the comfort of your own home.

However, as a communication mechanism, google maps are one of the best tools you can use to communicate where you are going and give a real life experience of the location without actually going there.

With the use of your smart phone, the only additional piece of kit you will need is a VR headset. If you are not sure this is something you want to venture into or just want to have a go without breaking the bank, the purchase of Google Cardboard will get you into the VR world for only a few pounds.

Google cardboard will give you an insight into the virtual world, but if you want to get a more durable headset, there are many on the market, but I would recommend Samsung gear as a good headset to provide you with all the functionality you would need.

For more information on the use of VR with Google click here.

If you are new to finding ways to communicate with your child who is not yet speaking, have a look at the different strategies here.

Also check out all our posts via the different social media channels below.

Autism Strategy

Autism Communication only needs three words!

June 22, 2021 maggs.hay

He ran.

The cars flew down to his left, but I stayed calm until the point I felt he had gone far enough.

“Rhys, stop!” I shouted. Then I watched his feet continue to motion forwards a few paces before he stopped, and turned to face me.

When Rhys was three years old, preverbal and unable to process any language, we had the objective for him to talk, to understand and to communicate. But those things take time, and they are still a work in process today.

Knowing we were in it for the long game, we continued with the speech therapist’s guidance and methods. But we did something else too.

I was worried about safety. I wanted engagement. I needed calm transition.

So we focused on three words.

Stop. Look. Finished.

I wanted to build up my son’s speech and understanding. I wanted to be able to communicate with him. But those things take time, and I wanted to focus on key areas that we could make a difference now.

So we focused on the three words.

When Rhys ran, I would run after him. I would stop him with my arms and hold him still. Crouching down to his level, I would say “Stop!” Just the one word, clearly associated with the action.

When I saw a duck, a cow, a car, a tree, I would crouch down again, take his hand and use it to point to the object. “Look!” I would say. Over time I would add the name of the object. But the word “look” started to make him notice objects and his surroundings.

When activities were to end, I would use my paper traffic lights, and announce last go and “Finished”. It was a word I started to assign to the end of activities, the end of food requests and a statement of ‘no more’.

Three words allowed me to introduce safety, engagement and transition. I was happy to wait for more words, but the three others could let us progress and live our lives.

Always focus on one goal at a time. The communication will come. It is amazing what we were able to achieve with just three words.

Three words we used constantly over and over and over again. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Until my son associated them with an action.

What three words will you use?

Autism Strategy, school

7 Tips for a Perfect World Book Day

March 3, 2021 AMe

📚 World book Day 📚
A day to celebrate the joy of reading and to encourage our younger generation to explore hidden magical lands, discovering tales of adventure and courage.

Thursday will see some amazing costumes, from the extraordinary ten pound ready-made costume from Amazon, to the parent who has delicately crafted a costume from scratch (hats off to those folk).

Any dress up occasion for Rhys is a challenge. The fussy material, the added weight and inconvenient additions to his clothing. He won’t have it. He is uncomfortable in any abstrusity or difference to his normal comfort, and that’s when I actually manage to get him into something for a few seconds.

These small events, like costumes for World Book Day, are the memories that us parents of children with special needs miss out on. I just want to be like everyone else for once. I don’t want people thinking, “Oh that poor child, their mummy forgot about today” not realising the fuller picture and challenges we face.

But I have found ways to make Rhys part of the day and hope that these tips can mean your children can too.

Accessorise
Choose a book/character that is just an everyday boy/girl. Then add the accessory.
Charlie Bucket: Normal clothes with bar of chocolate.
Dennis the Menace: Jeans with a red and black stripy t-shirt and added slingshot
Harry and his Bucket full of Dinosaurs: Normal clothes with a bucket packed with all the dinosaurs you can find.
Top it Up
Find a T-shirt with the book character. Amazon is great for this or some supermarkets have the rights to specific books/characters.
Last year Rhys was perfectly happy to go in his Gruffalo t-shirt, purchased from Sainsburys.
Search Amazon for “T-shirt World Book Day” there are amazing t-shirts for Marvel Characters and many other books, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Customise
Rhys will happily wear some items but the fussiness of others are a bit too much. If you have a costume you think will work but the hood gets in the way, or a piece of material is a bit scratchy, carefully cut it off. Use the costume as a starter for 10 and make it your own.
Create Your Own
If you are feeling creative and have the time there are so many options with this one. A plain tshirt can be the foundation of many costumes.
101 Dalmatians: white t-shirt painted with black spots.
Stickman: brown t-shirt with black lines in the shape of tree indentations.
Funny Bones: black top and bottoms with a skeleton painted in white.
Keep Your Hat On
Rhys has a love/hate relationship with hats, but it is a great option for a costume.
Wearing some plain clothes, add a hat with the book character.
The Velveteen Rabbit: buy a brown, bunny hat, and dress in plain brown clothing.
Room on a Broom: Witches hat and dress plainly in black and purple.
Where’s Wally: white hat with red bobble coupled with red-white t-shirt and jeans.
Onesies are for all Occasions
Rhys loves to feel snug and comfortable. Onesies are amazing items of clothing, and with the variety on offer, there are loads of ideas for World Book Day. From animals to famous book characters, or just simple printed onesies with no fuss, only comfort.
It is not just Fiction!
Last year my eldest went dressed as a dinosaur with his 101 facts about the Triassic period under his arm. Books are not just the fairy stories we love, they are also the reference books and encyclopaedias we dip into from time to time.
If your child already has a favourite outfit or t-shirt/jumper, use that as your reference, then find a book to associate with it.
The Wonder of the Solar System (Brian Cox): wear their favourite space t-shirt
Seven Worlds One Planet (David Attenborough): Enjoy while wearing their favourite monkey onesie
Counting to 10: Wear t-shirt with a number on the back.

Always remember the book and either get them to carry it (good luck with that) or more realistically hold it yourself and wave it around your child in the school playground to demonstrate your efforts. If you don’t have the book, take a visit to the library or do a shout out to friends to ensure you have the ultimate World Book Day item.

The last tip for this day …

The change in dress code plays havoc for us in regards to differences in structure and confusion of whether it is a school day or weekend day 🤔

As Rhys gets ready in his World Book Day costume on Thursday, the last item he will put on is his school t-shirt. It will go over his costume defining the day as a school day. In the past his older brother has been amazing and worn his t-shirt on top of his costume in pride, helping Rhys know what day it is. The visual representation of a school day is on display leaving the normal routine of a school morning to progress.
At the last minute, when putting on our coats, we will pull off the school t-shirts, and be ready to go. We will be just like everyone else, because there are times during our challenging lives where we just want to have a moment to fit in and be part of the crowd.

What will you be doing for World Book Day?

Autism Strategy, Speech

The Communication Pyramid

January 8, 2021 AMe

The one question that parents, with non-verbal children, always ask other parents is, “When did your child start to talk?”

I asked this question hundreds of times, to parents in my social circle, to professionals and in user community forums. Each time, I got a range of answers:
“Lots of children have speach delays”
“His older brother is probably speaking for him”
“My son didn’t talk and then just started speaking in sentences”

And the list went on. I kept reassuring myself that there was nothing wrong and that Rhys would speak in his own time.

After months of speach therapy and very slow progress, I was still extremely confused. I wanted to know the timelines for getting Rhys to talk, but it was all unknown and no one told me what to expect.

After loads of reading, I finally came across what I call “The Communication Pyramid”. As soon as I saw this, it all started to make sense.

Every person who learns to talk goes through different stages. We all start at the bottom of the pyramid being non-verbal and unaware of our surroundings. This was where Rhys was at 2 years old. Totally in his own world, zero sound and totally unengaged.

A child needs to move through all the levels of the pyramid to start communicating verbally. Some are quicker than others, and some (like Rhys) need the extra support to progress.

After seeing this image it made me realise that there were progress markers that would allow me to track against. Rhys was not going to wake up one morning and start speaking. He needed to move through the different stages.

In the case of Rhys, he was non-verbal at 2 years old. I distinctly remember that it took a lot of work on the first stage of the pyramid to even get him making a verbal sound. It was only when he was 3 years old that I heard a sound from him. Not a word but just a vocalisation. It took another year before his first word and then one more before we started to get a few two word phrases. We are still on the journey, but at least now I have something to track this against. It is a long road and not something that is going to happen over night.

The understanding and following of instruction is progressive. He started to understand certain instructions from 3 years old, and this is improving all the time.

I still cannot imagine asking Rhys “How was your day?” and getting a response. Every day after school I just need to assume it went well by the smile on his face.

I have no idea of any aspects of his day, or the names of any children in his class. I have to count on teachers letting me know of any issues, or his non verbal cues as to whether he is upset or unhappy.

I know it will come and it will be something I have waited years for. I am lucky in that Rhys is moving up the pyramid and through the continued hard work we all put in, he will reach the top in his own time. But we need to remember, you dont need to reach the top of the pyramid to communicate. It is a communication pyramid, where communication starts from the lowest layer even when words are not involved.

A&Me