Good Night's Sleep: Guide for Parents!

Any underlying problem may be affecting sleep: from allergies, environmental intolerances, to the medications the child takes.

Most parents have difficulties with their children at bedtime. In children, the problems for sleeping are a common phase in their development. But, if these problems persist, they can have adverse effects on the child, the parents, and even other family members. Children with ASD seem to have these problems for sleeping more frequent and even more intense than neurotypical children. Bedtime can become a daily challenge for parents.

First of all, you should identify the reason for the child having trouble sleeping. Consider allergies or food intolerances, gastrointestinal problems, and seizures, or even the environment. All of these can occur in people with ASD. These problems may also be caused by medications and their side effects.

Environmental Variables

Maybe the environment where your child sleeps is being uncomfortable for him or her. You may need to make some adaptations, so the child can relax at bedtime.

• Temperature. Consider if the child is very hot or cold. Examine the temperature of the room, sleeping clothes or bed.

• Noise. Consider noises that may be affecting your child. In the process of sleeping, the sounds that your child hears can be impossible to ignore. Some children within the autism spectrum disorders may prefer dark places during the day, but that’s very different from sleeping in a large dark room at night. Street lights, the moon, or car lights that illuminate the room at intermittent intervals can affect your child's sleep.

Bedtime Routines

Establishing a bedtime routine is a good way to generate a positive pattern in the child's sleep. However, the children with ASD they are extremely critical.

If you set a fixed time to go to bed, your child will benefit from that. Choose a reasonable time for your child and you to begin to apply a routine sleep system.

A bedtime routine can help the child to calm down, relax and prepare to rest. This routine should include activities that are pleasurable and relaxing, as well as special and individualized that fit the needs and interests of your child. Read a story, go to the bathroom, put on the pajamas, brushing teeth, have a glass of water, sing a favorite song or pray, listen to relaxing music or participate in a relaxed sensory integration activity.

In children within an autism spectrum disorder, it’s very common to have problems with sleeping. These bad sleeping habits are easily created and difficult to change. It can take time to solve this problem, but the family must do their part, so these routines and these changes have good results. A priority that deserves effort!

Routines and bedtime rituals are essential for most children to establish positive patterns in sleep, but they are extremely critical for children within the autism spectrum disorder.

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Sensory Diet: Is It Important for the Child?

This will help the child with sensory difficulties to perform better in the environments in which they interact.

A sensory diet is not a diet, but an individualized program of activities or environmental modifications that help the child with sensory difficulties to perform better in the environments in which they interact: at home, at school, in the park, in the supermarket, thus allowing its finality and participation.

To understand better: a sensory diet is another tool in the child's treatment, composed of activities and environmental modifications to keep the nervous system organized and calm in the daily routines of the child.

Activities or modifications within sensory diets may include:

• Adequate alert level. Activities that help the child by introducing reassuring activities to help him if he’s very hyperactive or offering stimulating activities if the level of the alert is low.

• Stimuli. Supports so that the child learns to recognize his own level of alertness and is able to self-regulate. Visual strategies are a great strategy to use together with these.

• Sensory breaks. Times in which the child can rest or stop to self-regulate.

• Sensory shelter. Place where the child can go and calm down when he has received a lot of stimulation and showed signs of overload.

How to make a sensory diet?

The occupational therapist, the other professionals, and the family have to form a team to determine together the possible adaptations to be made. On the other hand, it’s not about filling the child's routine with activities, but about analyzing the child, its context and from there using the available tools to improve their autonomy. Registering the adaptations we make will be a good idea, as it will help us to verify its effectiveness. If after a few days we don’t see the expected results, we will decide if it’s necessary to change the strategy.

Why use a sensory diet?

Sensory diets aim to help the child to be in the best disposition to face the different routines of his day to day, to improve his attention, learning and to be self-regulated.

The sensory diet provides the child with opportunities to receive the sensory stimuli he needs in his daily basis.

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Boys and Girls: The Difference between Them

And, inversely, girls have ways of showing their autism that is unique to their sex.

When the word autism is mentioned, the image that comes to mind is an introverted child with difficulty communicating. Indeed, the condition is four times more common in boys than in girls, but experts are evaluating in more detail how the disorder affects the two genders differently.

The way in which autism affects females and males differently has become a subject of great debate in the area and could lead to new techniques to diagnose and treat the condition.

Is really important to understand how autism occurs differently between genders.

Differences

-In general, girls with ASD have a more significant learning disability and more problems with schooling than boys.

-Many girls with ASD have better social skills than comparable boys which makes it even more possible for them not to be diagnosed.

-Both boys and girls with ASD, usually have an obsessive subject, a recurring interest but girls tend to look at things like drawings, ponies, dolls, princesses, which are very common passions among neurotypical girls. Boys, on the other hand, tend to focus on less usual activities such as putting building blocks in line or playing with sand, things that need more focusing. The result is that although parents express their concerns, some doctors may think that, when it comes to girls, this is not a symptom, but taking a normal hobby to an extreme and is not something that should be treated as a possible ASD.

Girls with ASD differ from boys in key symptoms and behaviors, particularly in social interaction. The less recognizable symptoms in girls are leading not only to a delay in diagnosis but to problems in identifying the condition.

The more we know about the differences in ASD among boys and girls, the more we will know about autism and its manifestations.

Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls; no matter what condition they live with.

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Exercises to Reduce Anxiety You Can Try with Your Kids

Be there to give them your support.

Raising a child with an intellectual disability can always prove to be a real challenge. It’s also an experience full of love and self-knowledge. You’ll study psychology without even realizing it, and you’ll explore parts of the human psyche that might not even have interested you if the circumstances were different. Most of the time, you’ll have to help your son or daughter to overcome their anxiety, if they suffer from it. It might be worrisome, but you need to remember that anxiety is a natural mechanism and that we all feel it from time to time.

However, children under the autism spectrum disorder are likely to experience it more intensely than other kids, to the point that it can interfere with their development. The world might seem like a very confusing and overwhelming place for children on the spectrum, and this can easily trigger their anxiety. On top of that, they usually have problems understanding social cues, so interactions with others can result in unpredictable scenarios that could also be added to the confusion.

How to tell if your child is suffering from anxiety?

Autistic children have problems communicating what they’re feeling, so learning if they’re feeling anxious, might not be as easy as asking them. Some clues might tell you just what you need to know though. If he or she is anxious, they might:

• Insist even more on routine and sameness.
• Have more trouble sleeping.
• Have meltdowns or temper tantrums.
• Avoid or withdraw from social situations.
• Rely more on obsessions and rituals, like lining up or spinning objects.
• Stim by rocking, spinning or flapping hands.
• Do things to hurt him or herself, like head-banging, scratching skin or hand-biting.

How can you help your child?

Getting rid of the things that cause us anxiety, whether we suffer from an intellectual impairment or not, is impossible. Life is full of things that can stress us out. What we can do is learn how to deal with our emotions in a healthier way. That’s precisely what you want for your kids as well. That’s what your goal should be when you try to help them.

However, one of the first things you can do is understand what’s causing their anxiety. If you know what types of situation can trigger a negative response in your child, you can prepare for them and rehearse them before they happen in a safe environment, so they can start coping properly. Some of these techniques can also prove to be useful:

• Counting slowly to 10.
• Taking five deep breaths.
• Running around the yard five times.
• Doing 50 jumps on the trampoline.
• Looking at a collection of favorite or special things.
• Reading a favorite book.
• Closing eyes for a few moments.
• Going to a quiet part of the house.

You should always rely on your child’s therapist to find the best techniques and strategies to deal with your child’s anxiety. Some will work better than others, and every kid is different, so don’t be discouraged if things don’t appear to be working the first time. Remember, with patience and love, even the biggest of challenges aren’t so intimidating.

Try these tips.

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Make Kids Happy This Christmas with Autism Soccer in Just One Click

Learn more about how you can help.

For many of us, Christmas is a time of love and companionship. It’s a period when we think about how lucky we are for all the people we have in our lives, and we celebrate for the new year that is to come. For Autism Soccer, it’s also a time to remember that not all of us are the same and that our circumstances can sometimes make it harder to find joy during the festivities.

The holidays are especially wonderful for children. It’s an opportunity to dream, to believe in magic and to realize that all things are possible if there’s love in your life. Not one child should spend this season without having someone who cares for them and who shares this beautiful day with them. No matter their background, circumstances, or if they have any type of disability, all children are and deserve exactly the same. They deserve happiness and joy. They deserve hope.

We take this job seriously. Every day we wake up thinking about how we can make children happier, how we can help them dream of a better future. That’s what inspires us and motivates us all year long. Christmas isn’t different. This season we’ve given around 1,500 gifts and toys to children in Florida, and we know that we can always do more! However, we need your help.

If you want to join us and make out of Christmas something more than just nice decorations, then we’re more than happy to welcome you! We’ve worked with children for over five years now, and we can tell for sure that, in life, there are very few things that are more rewarding than seeing them smile, dream, have fun and simply be kids. Live the experience with us and learn what is like to give a special meaning to these festivities!

All you have to do is click on our website, and contact us to give donations or to help in any way you find possible. You can donate toys, money or resources. It’ll all be destined to make our kids happy and guarantee that this 2018 there will be more good things to come: more sports, more soccer, more fun! Find out more about us and follow us on our social media to stay updated on our activities.

You can help children all year long with Autism Soccer!

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A Brilliant Future: The Story of the Boy with an IQ Higher than Einstein’s

Jacob was always an exceptional kid.

Every once in a while, someone is born with the ability and potential to defy society’s paradigms and reshape the way we think about our world and who we are. This might just be the case of an autistic boy who, with only 19 years old, already has an IQ higher than Einstein’s. Jacob Barnett is now considered a genius and his future work could win him a Nobel prize. However, his talent wasn’t always in clear sight for everyone who knew him.

He was born in 1998. He used to speak a few words, tell his mom and dad that he loved them, greet them every day in the mornings. But by the time he was 2 years old, he went completely silent. He was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism, and his mom was told that he probably would never be able to talk, read or even tide his shoes. From then on, he began therapy and was signed up to a school for children with special needs.

However, his mom, Kristine Barnett, was not satisfied. Jacob was fascinated with patterns from a very early age, with sunlight's play in a pond, shadows across walls. He learned how to organize hundreds of crayons into the colors of a rainbow by simply watching how a water glass splashed a rainbow across the table when being turned. However, therapists didn’t indulge these games, claiming he was only exhibiting “perseverative behavior.” But Kristine knew better. She knew it was something that Jacob wanted to do and decided to go against every treatment and trust her son more than any specialist. “I was quite a rebel in his early life because I was always determined to let him explore the world and do the things he loved.” She explained in an interview with Maclean’s.

And so the journey of finding out who Jacob truly was began. She pulled him out of school and one day took him to an observatory, where he listened to a lecture given by a university professor. At the end of this talk, the professor asked why Mars' moons were oblong, like potatoes. Jacob’s hand went up. “Excuse me, but could you please tell me the size of these moons?” He had never talked so much in his life. After the professor told him that Mars’s moons are small, he responded: “The gravitational effects of the moons are not large enough to pull them into complete spheres.” And he was right even though he was 3 only years old.

Jacob started gaining an increasing interest in physics, and by the time he was 15 years old, he was already enrolled in the Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. Today, he’s given TED lectures, he’s studying a doctorate, and he’s considered one of the world’s most promising physicists. He could someday make discoveries that would put him on the list of names to get the Nobel prize.

However, to Jacob, his success has nothing to do with being a so-called genius. He thinks that the only thing that’s needed to accomplish great things is to start thinking about your own perspective and stop trying to learn everything that’s been said about a certain field. Once you use your thinking, instead of your ability to learn, you’ll find yourself creating new things that are unique, just like your way of seeing the world.

Being diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder is many times considered as a sentence of permanent limitation in life. There might not be anything we can do about it, but it doesn’t have to dictate our entire identity. We will always be more than those things we can’t control about our lives. And Jacob is a living proof of that! We think that, beyond his many talents and intelligence, Jacob shows us that the most impressive things can come from the most unexpected places and that, regardless of who they are o where they come from, absolutely no one should ever be underestimated.

Source: Maclean’s.

Jessica A. Yuncoza B. Autism Soccer Blogger

He won't be stopped! 

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