Let’s start with children who are on the Autism spectrum or are Autistic, what does that
mean? When a child has difficulties functioning with social skills or continuing to do tasks on a
repetitive level, they may have speech or nonverbal communication skills.
How or what do we do to engage them in so many different areas? Well for now let’s
start with the children who you know or parents who have gone to medical advisers to know
their child is indeed Autistic. As an Early Childhood Educator in the school environment for
almost 20 years, I can tell you that it is challenging but also fulfilling to get children to move
forward and survive in this big world of ours.
There are so many areas we need to talk about to advance children altogether, but today
I would like to talk about having Autistic children and working towards letting them understand
texture. In my opinion, this has to be one of the areas an Autistic child may love to do or will run
the opposite way to avoid anything different from what they know. We should always start with
little things to get a child engaged with feeling items and using their senses. When you know a
child does not like to do anything that involves getting messy or sticky, squishy, or even wet.
The best way I have found is to start with what the child knows best what he or she is
used to feeling. Smooth service a tabletop, a piece of wood blocks, a spoon, or even a
glass/plastic. This will not only be very easy for the child as he/she is exposed to this texture
every day, but it will also make the child trust you as now they know you like what they like and
you will not hurt them. Once you have established this trust you can begin to introduce new and
more difficult things. What does that mean, well what we take for granted to just jump into water
and soap or handle flour and water would surely drive an Autistic child into a frenzy. So let’s
continue with more of the same, continue with crayons without the paper wrapper and lego
blocks with bumpy edges new introduction for them. How about some pencils with a spare
point? These are all still in some way smooth but you can get them to feel new aspects of these
items, trust is what you have on your side.
As you move forward you can help the child with more difficult items like water play, and
throw some toys (plastic toys) into a bin with water. The temperature at this point will matter this
is why you try out room temperature first then cold water finally lukewarm water. When you have
the correct temperature which the child likes you can now introduce soap, then a cloth, or some
textured toys(dolls, rainmaker toys, teething rings) these toys are different textures for the child
to experience for the first time or maybe re-establish the experience from a previous time they
played with these types of toys.
Moving on, we take children with trust in hand to more disturbing items they don’t like for
example tree bark, paint, paper mache, sand or soil, and even clay. Visually this is going to
make them run the other way but repetitiveness is the key. As much as it will be difficult for them
to do this they will understand and they do understand this is what you want them to work
towards. Its been my experience that it will not happen right away but introducing it over and
over again will help each child move forward because every little bit will help them to accept
new challenges.
After all in this world if these children are to be able to function in our society we need to
prepare them as they get older. Hiding them in their playroom is not the way to give them a chance, and all children who are identified as being autistic or not autistic need a chance to
function in this world.
In my next blog, I will be discussing food which is the most important thing an adult
needs to know how to manage a child with or without autism.
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