How to Teach Autistic Children Flexibility

Autism is a mysterious neurological disorder that many people are still trying to figure out. Neuroscience has not yet advanced to the point where it can identify the specific cause and specific treatments for autism, although that is likely to happen some time in the future, as the rate of autism has been skyrocketing in recent years and this condition is now demanding more attention than ever before.

While the public continues to await improving levels of treatment for this condition, it is important to remember that it will probably be a century or two before neuroscience advances to the point where it is able to pinpoint what is exactly wrong with the neurochemistry of this population. In the meantime, a few methods exist for dealing with the different aspects of autism that can cause harm in the child's life.

One aspect that is often a part of autism (this exists on a continuum) is rigidity in thinking and a strong desire for routine. On the one end of the continuum, an autistic child will react with minor annoyance to a small change in his or her routine. For example, the child might have a plate with a different picture on it than yesterday. The more flexible children will become irritated, but will accept that this change is okay for now. The more inflexible children may become extremely frustrated to the point where they melt down, and begin to hit, kick, and scream because this change is just too much for them to handle.

Some children, based upon observation through professional experience, have a higher need for routine than others. In the non-autistic population, children definitely go through phases of watching a favorite movie many times per week for a couple months or so. An autistic child on the more extreme end of the rigidity continuum may be unable to go to sleep if he or she does not watch the same movie each night, and in one case, it was observed that one child had watched the same movie every day, or nearly so, for the past couple years! This level of rigidity is where the child's need for consistency and routine becomes so great such that he or she cannot enjoy any part of life.

So, what is the solution for the rigidity of autistic children? The fact of the matter, at this point, seems to be that autistic children will need a higher level of routine and consistency than non-autistic children, on the average. However, autistic children, like non-autistic children, can be taught flexibility. Say for example, that a child demands a certain movie every night for several weeks and seems to be unable to function without viewing it. The way to teach flexibility is to simply offer up to the child something else that would be more fun instead, and rationalize with him or her that maybe something else would be better to do. Make sure that this something else is something that the child finds very entertaining and fun so that he or she will become immersed in the experience and forget about the movie. Another trick is to offer the child a bowl of ice cream, or some other favored food, instead. A final method to teach flexibility is for the parent to model flexibility in his or her own life. For example, the parent could make a real scene of not having his or her favorite donut in the morning. The parent can think out loud and say to him or her self, "Oh no, I did not get to have my favorite donut today. Oh well, I guess that I'll have something different." Using one of these methods alone might not work, and in that case it might be a wise idea to combine the methods and offer the child a fun activity and a treat as a reward for engaging in that activity instead of the routine one.

With these methods in mind, it is important to remember that there are qualifications to the methods described. The first one is to remember to pick and choose the right things to try to change. Trying to change to complete flexibility on a consistent basis will upset and stress the child out so much that he or she will be too emotionally exhausted to tolerate any changes at all; the moral of the story is to pick the important things that need to be changed. The other qualification to autism is that it requires patience. It may take months or years to break habits; this is certainly true of human beings in general but is even more true in the case of autism.

With all this in mind, this is how the process of teaching flexibility works. Do not try to force the child into a different way of life; this will only strengthen his or her already strong resistance to change. Rather, help to enlighten the child as to why flexibility is beneficial and fun, and praise even the smallest effort the child makes at tolerating change. Keeping these tips in mind will ensure that the child will make progress in adapting to change and becoming more flexible.