Products for Autism Spectrum Disorder Families
As parents of children that have austism spectrum disorder we have to be patient and creative to get through our days. Our kiddos may have sensory issues, language delays, all night “parties”, and transition problems. Needless to say, we have our hands full. Here is a list of products that were useful to my family and hopefully you will find something that will help you too.
My kiddo was a wanderer. I think he’d much rather do things himself than go through the arduous task of communicating with me. He is quite independent but along with that trait is the downside of trying to go wherever he feels like. He was able to unlock doors at a very early age which I found out in a horrifying manner. After a couple of incidents I did some research and found a shocking statistic that 49% of children wander or elope from a safe environment. A child locator will be invaluable if your child goes missing and will give you extra peace of mind. We used a different brand that is outdated when our child was wandering quite a bit but I have heard awesome things about AngelSense.
Melissa & Doug Magnetic Responsibility and Chore Chart
This chore chart is a staple in our house. This chart gives my child a sense of expectation and a satisfying feeling of completion. He enjoys putting the magnets up as he completes his tasks. This set comes with preprinted magnets but you can also just write in any tasks if they don’t have what you need. I use the bottom whiteboard as a schedule and write down specific times for things such as speech therapy and game time.
These cards can help us give our kids the extra language support they need. Beyond the regular hello, how was your day interactions it can be hard to come up with topics to discuss with our kiddos. These cards help our kids practice to differentiate between the WH questions and doubles as a deck of talking points. This set contains who, what, when, where and why questions. You can also just pay separately and get one or two decks at your discretion. Super Duper Publications has tons of useful material that we use in our home.
My little one is a sensory seeker. He loves to run, spin, jump and grit his teeth. Investing in a trampoline has helped him get some vestibular input to offset some of those behaviors. Not to mention it has saved my couches!
I saw these on a TV Show one day and thought they were pretty neat. These are temporary tattoos that last a long time and come with a marker so you can put identifying information in case your child gets lost. My son did not like the whole tattoo thing so I had to wait until he was asleep and put it on the outside of his arm near his elbow. As I said before, our little ones can be wanderers so anything we can do to keep them safe and get them back to us is worth a try.
Your child might enjoy this body sock if they need proprioceptive stimulation. The squeezing and stretching. My child enjoyed it but we had one that was made with Velcro and it would get caught on things and eventually did not close anymore. The link I provided has a body sock with snaps instead that will alleviate those problems.
Melatonin This is not a lazy parent move. The insomnia and bursts of energy that our children experience at night are very real. Our son does not use this everyday but sometimes he does need help getting back on a normal sleep pattern. I have noticed that if he takes it early , (9 pm), then he wakes up at an abnormal early morning hour so I only resort to using melatonin When he is up and seems not to be slowing down around 11, 11:30. Of course you want to talk to your doctor about using melatonin and do what’s right for your family.
We use timers for lots of things. We use them to determine how long to sit at the dinner table, for when it is time to take turns playing games, to alert that it is time to stop playing videogames and the list goes on. You can use a phone timer of course but the timer being on a phone is in itself a distraction at my house, not to mention you have to change how long your phone stays on before it goes to the privacy screen or it will keep cutting off so your child won’t be able to see the timer.
Visual Schedules and Social Stories App
We enjoyed this app once we went ahead and paid to have full access. My child enjoyed finishing the activities on the schedules that we made. We also watched the school social story every morning to remind us of school rules and expectations. I liked that we could make our own stories and schedules using our own pictures. It is time consuming to do but it might be worth it if your child is into electronics and finds this style of scheduling motivating. I told his teacher about this app and she is in the process of implementing it in his day at school.
Another way to get that vestibular input that many of our kids crave is a swing. This tree swing allows for a couple of kids to swing together which is nice to have that social interaction. There is plenty of room to lay out and enjoy that rocking motion. A tree swing has the added benefit of being outdoors which so many of our kids are doing less and less.
What products have helped your family? Please comment below.