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Page 2
6. Difficulty coping with body changes, having to talk on the phone to friends, relatives or parents.
A sudden awareness of the world around him/her with the resulting anxiety that we will all blow each other up one day.
There are several things that you can do to help your child or youth with Asperger Syndrome cope with the many changes in life. Implementing a warning system at home can assist with the transitions from activities. At first, I used a 15 minute warning and a 5 minute warning. I would say "In 15 minutes it's time for dinner", then 10 minutes later, I would go back and say "It's 5 minutes until dinner". This has worked really well for us over the last 4 years and now I just say "It's a few minutes until dinner". This helps my son wind down the activity he is doing and is less disturbing than abruptly stating "It's dinner time, come to the table". I just recently started giving him a 10 minute warning when it's time to get out of bed in the morning and this has alleviated the difficulty I had been having getting him out of bed and ready for school. Talking about change and the fact that your child does not like change helps him/her realize that the actual difficulty is with the change itself, not the anticipated activity. We have had many conversations about this and when I wish to change something (like the furniture in his room) I discuss it with him, long before the change will happen. This helps him get used to the idea and if it's a change that he really doesn't like and it's not that important to me, I don't implement the change. This gives him a sense of control over some aspects of his life. Be very clear about expected changes and what will happen. Last summer I told my rather anxious child that when we went on vacation, we would be taking a plane to get there. After many discussions about how often planes crash, who would look after our pets while we were gone, what would happen when we got to our destination, he was actually looking forward to the trip. Imagine my surprise when we got off the first plane to change to a bigger plane and he absolutely refused to continue the trip because I hadn't told him that we were actually going on two planes!
The copyright of the article Transitions in Asperger Syndrome - Page 2 in Asperger's/Autism is owned by Barbara Fowler. Permission to republish Transitions in Asperger Syndrome - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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