Bonding with Autistic Children

Most (but not all) autistic kids do NOT respond well (if at all) when they are bombarded with questions. ❌

While some autistic kids might like ✨conversational questions✨ related to their areas of interest…many would prefer other ways of connecting.

Whether you’re a therapist, teacher, caretaker, or family member…remember to try alternative methods for strengthening your relationship & getting to know the autistic child in your life. ❤️

#autism #autistic #autismawareness #neurodivergent #psychology #therapy #appliedbehavioranalysis #aba #specialeducation #teacher #slp #ot #autismacceptance

[Meili-qx]

remember - especially for people who struggle with either speech or social interaction (or both) questions are often not fun, they are demands. We are asking something of them - we may be asking them to do something theyre not very good at or takes a lot of effort (processing speech - formulating an appropriate answer - speaking)

[mozie]

Okay but imitating noises they make is how I've connected with several kids I've worked with. I'm a school parapro who also happens to be autistic. My first year I worked one on one with a little girl who made a sort of "humming" sound to communicate. So I started doing it back to her. She was so shocked the first time I did it I'm confident no one has ever tried it with her before, but it became a surefire way to connect with her and even calm her down!

[pardalote]

As an Autistic adult, my instinctive response is parallel play. Playing with similar objects nearby. Eg those unused dinosaurs on the floor look mighty tempting 🦕

[skybug]

this also works for very young children in general! i remember learning to "tone it down" for 1-3yos and they immediately stopped ignoring me and turning from me. I began just watching and saying small things like "ooh... ah... wow..." and suddenly toys were being thrust in my hands and I was yanked into participation. It took me a while to make sense of it, but intuitively I knew it had something to do with control: time & time again it seems the heart of being there for kids is respecting their autonomy as much as possible because so little of life is at their disposal. They make so few choices for themselves that answering lots of questions or having their play overly infiltrated is a huge experience for them even if for us it feels like barely a moment in our day. When you look at it like that you realize how polite ignoring actually is, because I know when I feel invaded I wanna yell "get away from me!" so they're _still_ trying to behave. It's wonderful to learn how to be truly invited into a child's world instead of just tolerated.

[LilChuunosuke]

I have so many memories from early childhood where I would line up my toys in beautiful, perfect rows, only to have some random adult mess them all up, grab a random toy out of the middle, start roleplaying a corny scene with it, and act shocked when I don't enthusiastically join in.
Like do you think I dumped all my toys out on the ground and the animals just happened to fall into perfectly straight lines, organized by color and species??

[sjfrench]

In a weird way, this made me think of how I get into fandoms as an Autistic adult. If you ask me to watch something with you, I won’t watch it. I got into a bunch of my fandoms because my parents or sister were watching it one day and I walked in and slowly became engrossed with it, and next thing I know it’s 3:00am and I’m ten pages deep on AO3

[_me]

I remember as a kid, it was so frustrating when someone would come insert themself into my play, demanding I speak and focus on them. I also hated feeling condescended to in any way, which of course the simplified questions and baby voice didn’t help with. I know now that they just wanted to bond with me and had no way of knowing that what I needed was different than other kids… but all through elementary, I felt like adults were my enemy, an could never understand me or be talked to like we were both people.

[Accrovideogames]

As a neurotypical person, I treat young autistic kids as if they were cats. I ignore them and do my own thing, i.e. parallel play. I wait for them to make the first move. It's only once they're very comfortable with me that I start entering their personal space unprompted. I also give them space if they suddenly get upset. I'm a cat whisperer and people are always amazed to see my cat follow me everywhere. I simply take the time to analyze their body language and mimic it to communicate. I noticed that the same strategy works with autistic people, especially those with high support needs and/or those who are really young.

[lost_boy]

My non-speaking autistic niece recently came up and held my hand completely unprompted. I nearly cried.

My younger brother, who's allistic but despite that is really intuitive when it comes to people, figured out the way to bond with our niece was to just be near her, not bother her, not to try and force yourself into her world. After a few visits of just sitting quietly near her but otherwise essentially ignoring her, she'd start to feel comfortable enough to allow you into her world. It worked.

She grabbed my hand, and we spun around together, something I hadn't done since childhood and we giggled. It was so lovely. Can't wait to see her again.

[ovalandovoid]

My god, YES!!! You don’t have to push in with children right away. Observe first, and accept that maybe it’s not about you and what you need out of the exchange.

As an adult, how do you feel when you’re reading and someone comes up to you and starts talking your ear off?

Love this!

[laurenj]

Yes omg your shorts remind me of my childhood. Adults were so annoying with all their condescending questions and pretending to care, as an adult obviously now I know they mean well and most kids are just simpler to bond with, but as a kid it was like “why are they so set on annoying me like this!!”😂

[veronicawexel]

Autistic people are like cats - they might make zero sense until you start paying attention to the individual and then communkcation becomes second nature.

At least that's a how I felt growing up being all hissy and biting things I didn't like. It's honestly kind of funny how my cats helped my parents read me because I would often copy The Felines in some way depending on the situation because they behaved more similarly to me than other people, especially when I stressed. Sometimes we would go be stressed together, as they didn't like having guests arlund either, so one cat would usjally go outside and the other one would come stay in my room with me until every person that we didn't want to be there had left. I was the cat whisperer in the family so maybe it was just random, but it's hard to deny how helpful having a couple of furballs around was for improving me and my parents' ability to communicate.

[sleeplessmax]

Im an autistic adult and have found that in general, i work really well with kids. Like that point you had about letting them take the lead. I have genuine curiosity about what theyre are doing and if they want me to participate they usually involve me physically or verbally. If they dont, i just chill. And it even comes to getting me when i leave even if we werent directly interacting

[ellepalabra]

I was trained in child play therapy and this is literally exactly what we’re taught. And not even for autistic kids specifically! This was just the number one rule for the child centered play therapy model.

[dance_ofThaDEAD]

Im an autistic adult but when the guyy started asking all those questions i qas immediately ticked off. I guess I still have this trait even as an adult

[theslitherysylvie]

I am 42 and I have Autism. I never liked it at all when teachers or adults would exclaim "cool! Good job!" Or any of that, because I was severely bullied, and the kids would say "cool! Good job!" in a sarcastic way, but it was hard for me to see the difference. Having an adult say 'I sincerely like what you are making" or "I like those toys too, those are awesome" is more helpful. It is so hard for me to tell if someone is friendly, so as a way to keep myself safe, I used to assume everyone was mean and avoided them. Not trying to upset anyone with my opinion. I wish us all the best in this life ❤

[saraH-yumx]

I’m autistic and work with autistic children and I use phrases like “I wonder” a lot. It’s open ended and my clients never feel the need to respond, but typically do. I’m basically narrating play alongside them. Also, mirroring typically creates connection as well for me.

[JaderaMaeFurmage]

I have started watching my autistic nephew during the week and came on here looking for resources to help him grow.This was very re-assuring and helpful, I would love to see more things like this! (also laughing because I JUST watched you on LOTS) He was diagnosed non verbal a while back but recently started making sounds really close to words! I have been trying to casullay introduce numbers and letters as we play and he loves pointing at things to make me count them and laughs so hard when he goes really fast and I trip over my tongue. Anyway, today we sat down and were sticking popsicle sticks into play dough and he counted the sticks as he stabbed them in (slurred, but still!!!) I almost cried seeing him making a connection like that because everyone has assumed he simply can't but I just know he is a smartie.

[abbysimmons]

Great skills for working with kids who are just shy too. I babysat a kid who was super shy and attached at the hip to her mom. I would gently offer her something I was using and if she didn't want it I would play parallel to her until she showed interest in what I was doing. Let kids show you how they operate and what they are comfortable with. Don't force things on them or control them when you don't need to.

[blueturtle]

I've worked in childcare since i graduated high school, and imitating the child is the number one tip I gave my coworkers when it comes to autistic kids. It's also great with any kid who doesnt have a great hold on language yet. It very quickly becomes a game where we are mimicking each other and they always light up. I realized that it helps by accident. One day I just decided to copy a baby who kept leaning her head over, and she got a kick out of it so I kept doing it.