Coping with change and transition

Points to note

• Children with autism are often rigid in their way of thinking so they thrive on routine. They like to know what is going to happen next.
• When their routine is disrupted or something unexpected occurs, the student may experience great anxiety, even outbursts of challenging behaviour. It doesn’t have to be a major change. In fact, some students seem to cope well with a major change, like moving house, but a minor change can cause a surprising response. Any of the following can cause an emotional reaction; timetable changes, substitute teacher, new class rules, losing their favourite pencil, a friend or aide absent from school.
• Transitions between classes, particularly in secondary school, can be problematic and unsettling. The student may become distressed when moving through noisy, crowded hallways. Some students are tactile defensive; they have an intense dislike of the inadvertent bumping and jostling that naturally occurs in a crowded hallway. Some students have proprioceptive difficulties; they have difficulty judging where people are headed, so they might bump into others unintentionally.
• Students with poor spatial ability will easily become lost moving through hallways, leading to great distress and frustration.
• The anxiety caused by a fire drill could potentially upset the student for the rest of the day.
• Change should not be avoided entirely as it is a part of life. The student needs to learn how to cope with change in a supportive environment.

What you can do

• Write the daily routine on the whiteboard or provide the student with a hard copy and stick it in his diary. Give a copy to the student’s parents so they can discuss daily activities with their child and help him learn his timetable.
• Younger students will benefit from a visual schedule. Print the timetable onto A3 colored card, use a magnetic button to identify the current activity. Children can take it in turns to be timetable monitor and move the button to the next activity. This will help all students in the class, but particularly those with autism who require constant visual reminders. This simple strategy can decrease anxiety about ‘what happens next’ and reduce interruptions with questions that may have been relevant to a previous activity.
• Classes need to have a clearly defined structure. Chaos and disruptions can be unbearable to the student with autism.
• On a map of the school, use highlighters to color code areas and routes between classrooms.
• Give the student a 5 minute warning prior to the end of class so that he can prepare for the transition. This might be a verbal signal, a visual signal or both.
• Where possible, give as much warning as possible of any change in routine. This advance warning can help the student cope with the change.
• Arrange for a quick telephone call to the student's home if a teacher will be absent.
• If an unexpected event occurs, tell the student what will happen in clear, simple language. Many children are reassured by hearing what will happen after the unexpected event, eg. an evacuation drill.
• Have a place for the child to go to if he is lost. Make sure it is a place that is quick and easy to get to and where an adult can readily provide assistance before the child becomes too upset. It would be useful to have a copy of the student’s timetable here, along with information and strategies that help calm the child.
• The student will need a constant and stable person at school he can rely on and talk to, such as a counsellor. Prepare the student well in advance if this person will no longer be available.
• If you think the student can cope, allow for some spontaneity to prevent him becoming too dependent on routine. A ‘surprise’ card (laminated card with an exclamation mark on it) can be used to alert the student to an imminent and unexpected event. Reassure him that there is nothing to fear and that possibly it will be lots of fun! (Avoid promising that it will always be fun or he will come to expect this.)
• Give the student positive self-talk phrases to help him cope with change, such as “It’s different today” or “It’s a new way today”. Social stories can be a good way to introduce this concept.
• To avoid the stress of moving between classes, have the student’s aide to take him to his next classroom a few minutes before the other students. Older students or those who do not have an aide could go to their next class a few minutes early, accompanied by a peer.

Difficulty with rules

Points to note

• A student with autism will rely on rules to give his life structure and make it predictable. This can be an advantage, as rules can be used in a positive way to promote good behaviour. However, when rules change or become flexible the student can become anxious.
• Changes in routine can raise the student’s level of anxiety and affect his ability to concentrate. Too many changes in one day can be so overwhelming the child may have a complete ‘meltdown’.
• The child may be extremely rigid in the way he learns and applies rules. He may see things as either black or white. He may not understand that some rules can be bent or broken in exceptional circumstances, such as an emergency.
• Sometimes a child will develop his own set of rules or firmly-held beliefs that help him cope with a confusing world. He might become very upset if others do not play or act according to his rules.
• Sometimes the child will insist on enforcing rules or buy into grievances that don't really concern him; he might scold others as if he were an adult. This can happen when the child lacks social awareness. It can have a serious impact on social acceptance by his peers.
• There is often no understanding of subtle social rules. For example, social convention dictates that children make friends with others of a similar age. The child with autism may prefer the company of someone significantly older or younger.

What you can do

• Be careful when teaching rules. They need to be taught in a way that allows for some flexibility; the student needs to understand that some rules must be adhered to at all times, some rules can be flexible and some can be broken in exceptional circumstances. For example, rules such as respecting peers and school property should be observed without exception. ‘No interruptions when the teacher is talking’ can be a flexible rule, ie. the child can put his hand up if he needs to go to the toilet, or is feeling unwell.
• Children with autism are mostly visual learners so use visual supports to reinforce rules. Make a poster with classroom rules printed on it. List these in positive terms, eg. “Keep your desk tidy.”
• If the student is constantly ‘telling on’ other children, he needs to be taught when it is appropriate to seek adult help. For example, that he needs to tell a teacher if another child is hurt or in physical danger, but not for name-calling.
• Carefully explain to the student that other children do not appreciate him taking on an adult role and constantly ‘telling on’ other children.
• Limit the number of times the student can tell his teacher about others breaking rules. Draw ticks on a wall chart so that the student can see when he has reached his limit for the day.
• A social story can help students with autism understand why it is sometimes OK to bend or break rules. Social stories are also helpful in teaching subtle rules of social interaction. See Social stories for more information.

Obsessive topics

Points to note

• The child with autism may have a narrow range of interests. Sometimes this will be one obsessive interest that excludes all other topics. He may have an encyclopaedic knowledge of his obsession.
• Obsessions can take a number of forms. They can be;
  - self-stimulatory behaviours (auditory, visual, tactile, motor)
  - attachment to objects (trains, cars)
  - interest in one topic to the exclusion of all others
  - verbal obsessions (facts, dates, statistics, car number plates)
  - insistence on sameness and resistance to change (lining up objects)
  Obsessions may change or alter with time but are likely to be part of the child’s life forever. They provide the child with pleasure and satisfaction. The child feels safe talking about his obsession because he knows what to say and how to answer questions on the subject.
• It is common for the child to talk about his preferred interest without any regard to the listener’s interest in the conversation.
• The child may be keen to engage in conversation, but the only way he knows how is by talking about his obsession. He lacks the pragmatic language skills to just have ‘a chat’.
• Talking about a favourite topic can be a way of reducing anxiety as this helps to control the child’s environment and increases predictability.
• Obsessive interests can intrude on the child’s thoughts, leading to distractibility and poor concentration.
• The child may have little motivation to work on topics that fall outside his preferred area of interest.

What you can do

• Try to understand the child’s reasons for continually going on about his obsessive topic - then try to limit the extent to which it intrudes on his thoughts and conversations.
• Identify certain times that the child may talk about his obsessive topic, (for example only in the morning.) Gradually reduce the length and frequency of these times. Use visual sequencing to help with this (ie. timetable).
• Help the child recognise the signs that a listener is growing tired of the conversation, ie. yawning, looking away, lack of positive verbal response. Suggest a change of topic when these signs are observed.
• Try not to get caught up in obsessive talk or questioning. If the obsessive talk is a way for the child to reduce his anxiety, look at ways of reducing stress and help him to find other ways of coping with that stress. See Interrupting, repetitive questions and talking too much for more hints on handling obsessive talk.
• Show interest and give lots of praise when the child talks about something other than his obsessive interest.
• If the child’s interest is limited to one particular topic, such as diesel engines, try to expand his interest into other areas such as different types of transport and machines. Incorporate the interest into other areas. If the obsession is with animals, the student could learn about the countries in which they would be found.
• One of the most effective ways of managing the obsessive interest is to use it as a reward. It is very motivating for a child to be allowed to engage in his obsession without interruption for a certain amount of time each day. You could reward him for completing his work with free time in the library to read about his obsessive interest.
• Utilise the child’s expertise in his preferred topic (provided the interest is socially appropriate) by asking him to share his knowledge with the rest of the class. Common obsessions include trains, dinosaurs, maps, capital cities, weather patterns and statistics. These topics can be incorporated into many areas of the curriculum.

Rigid routines

Points to note

• A child with autism can build up rigid routines for himself because he becomes stressed when he doesn’t know what will happen next. These routines help to relieve his anxiety. When things happen in a set order, he gets a sense of comfort and security. Children can become hooked into a routine that is very hard to break. Attempts to stop or modify these routines are likely to be met with great resistance.

What you can do

• While these rituals may seem odd or bizarre, the behaviour does serve a purpose. Only try to change routines that interfere with the child’s learning or that of others, or behaviour that is offensive.
• It will be necessary to conduct a review of the student’s stress level and look at ways of reducing his stress before trying to change any behaviour.
• One way to reduce stress about daily routines is to use schedules. See Visual Schedules for more information.
• Allow for some spontaneity and flexibility within the structure and routine of classroom activities. It is good for children to learn to cope with minor changes in a supportive environment, however not all will be able to cope with this. If you want to try this, use a large exclamation mark on a visual schedule or on the blackboard. Tell the student that this means a surprise and emphasise that it will be lots of fun! Make sure it is an activity that you know the child will enjoy. (However, avoid telling the child that the unplanned activity will always be fun, so that he can learn to cope with unplanned activities that may not be so enjoyable.)