On the Move

In treating children with Autism practicing Pediatric physical therapy or Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) here at Child and Family Development in Charlotte, NC, I see core difficulties in children with Autism as they try to manage the challenges of daily life.  People with autism have difficulty negotiating a world where so many things happen in such surprising ways. 

To come up with ideas for this post, I spoke to a mother of a child who is high functioning with only aspects of his personality in common with people who are autistic. I thought he might be able to verbalize his concerns.  I spoke to him and his mother and asked them to tell me what was hard about surprises.  His mother explained that she tries not to tell her son about potential surprises that are upcoming in his schedule...unless they are definite. Then a warning could help...otherwise the potential drives him nuts. 

She said that vacations were really stressful for him.  "Stressful?  Vacations?" I asked.  Yes, she said that on vacations the family tended to make last second decisions and decide to go fun places without notice.  This unnerves him.

Another great example was the problem with the monthly fire drills at school. His mother explained that if it got toward the end of the month and the fire drill hadn't happened that he became convinced that it was going to happen at any moment.  She said, "Don't even think about concentrating on the teacher or getting any work done.  He would just sit and worry."  They finally coordinated with the school to let him know before a fire drill so he wouldn't have to worry about the potential surprise.  

His mother explained that she thinks her son feels that with surprises...that if anything changes...that anything could change....and then nothing could be trusted.  Then the world just becomes unbearable chaos...

At this point in the discussion, the son looks up and says, "Is this your way of telling me something is about to change?"  His mother reassured him, "No honey, we are just talking about surprises."  ..."Just answer the question?"  "No, no surprises honey", she answered. "Why don't you just tell me?..."  and on and on for several minutes...

Surprising challenges task all of us, but are particularly challenging for people with Autism. Relationship Development Intervention targets the core deficits of autism to work on the building blocks of these skills. Call me if I can help you, (704) 332-4834 ext 114.