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Detailed break from routine can be invigorating for many of us. That being the case, it is often reassuring to fall back into your own patterns of everyday life. Some of those affected by autism, however, have a very tough time to adapt to changes in their schedules and their environment. The generally strengthen the holidays can spark numerous behavioral challenges and can leave you wondering what happened!
While it is not possible to recreate the individual school or program of holiday breaks and long school absences, it is possible to help add a little more structure. Rigidity, on your part, is not the goal here (it is a holiday after all!) But most people with moderate to severe autism often choose following short activity schedule when available. A short program like this will likely resemble what he / she is in school; and therefore relieve their anxiety or frustration. Unlike a school activity program, holiday program can be composed of mostly fun or relaxing ‘activities’ with some education or chores related items added as you see fit. Examples of holiday activity program might look like this:
10:00 ….
Watch TV
Play Outside
Computer
11:00 …
Clean up your room
Empty Laundry
Practice Piano
0:00 Lunch
Note that there are advantages when it comes to leisure and chores / educational activities. Also, sometimes there are not any alternatives, such as lunch. Making sure that this plan is followed to a tee is not the goal here. It will add some structure to their day and (very important) give you the ability to add unsuspected activities like to go to grandma . These unplanned events have the potential to strengthen routine-break anxiety flare up. When these trips / events added to the active vacation plan in advance, it can help prepare the individual for this change in his life.
Although it is a good goal to help individuals with ASD become more flexible when it comes to the following (and not after) habits, this holiday schedules can really help in the mean time. Many of us (myself included) use written or digital system to organize our days, weeks or months. The digital era now provides any number of tools to help in this area, from PDA Smart phones, laptops, etc. My eyes were opened to this issue when I first started to teach students with autism. After a relatively short month and a half of summer vacation, I was preparing for the demanding week of teaching. After all, my students probably do not have many demands placed on them all summer, and now I was asking them to complete a number of challenging activities. In total surprise, most of my students seemed to enjoy the fact that they could now continue school habits and behavior challenges were low! Again, it is important to improve the periodic changes in practices that will help create more flexibility. Remember to have fun and allow your son / daughter the ability to follow routine that will help them adapt.
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