The end of summer can be a dreaded time for any child. However, none fear the end of the school holidays more than those who are autistic. For autistic people returning to school, this means a new schedule, potential new faces and, if you’re anything like me, a whole new set of ceiling tiles to count. Often this ‘dread’ turns to stress and this stress can turn into a meltdown… or worse.
With September right around the corner, today I wanted to discuss what we can do to support autistic people who will be returning to a new school or a different class in the coming weeks, through offering some handy tips to make the whole back to school process a lot easier, along with explaining why we dislike change and how, in the past, change has personally walked me hand in hand along a pathway named disaster.
Why do Autistic People Dislike Change?
The rivalry between autism and change has always been fierce. However, despite our many documented clashes, the connection between the two of us is still yet to be fully understood. According to a test conducted for the Neuroscience journal in 2015 (the closest thing I could find to a solid answer), it can be suggested that the potential cause for our hatred of change is due to the threat it causes to our routine.
Although these findings would definitely shake up the status-quo – as most people believe that our love of routine is caused by our hatred of change and not vice versa, these tests are far from conclusive as the subjects were not autistic humans but were rats, which had been exposed to behaviour altering chemicals to give them autistic traits.
If this research is to be taken as true, then it could be suggested that the reason autistic people hate change is because we are naturally drawn to obsessing and focusing on single things and, as such, when something comes along which challenges our understanding of what we have got to know or takes away our access to it, then our brains freezes, unable to move away from our initial focus and unable to process the new.
This is especially true for autistic people returning to school, as a new school year means that everything we spent 779 hours getting to know, during the previous year, is about to be tossed aside – as we are expected to auto adjust to this entirely new environment whilst our minds are still fixed on the last (and yes, 779 hours is the average time a student will spend in classes during the school year– how depressing is that!).
In response to this change, many autistic people will enter a kind of ‘shut down mode’ where we are unable to embrace the new and can’t seem to return to the old and this. However, as I mentioned in the introduction, a ‘meltdown’ isn’t always the worst way an autistic person can respond to change.
How Change affected me at College:
Out of all my years in education, the hardest by far was the leap I took from high school to college (between the years of 16-17). In high school, I studied in small classes of around 20-30, I had a close group of friends who all studied the same subjects as me and I had a support network of teachers who had got to know me over the years and would call me out if I was being lazy with my work. College, on the other hand, was a different story.
In college, I knew relatively few people and of the people I did know, none of them shared the same classes as me. My teachers had their hands full dealing with the kids who were being naughty, or the ones who weren’t making the grade and so, as I was coasting along, doing the bare minimum, they didn’t seem to care.
This change may not have seemed too big at the time. However, as I was in a vaguely familiar setting, with people I sort of still had contact with, instead of getting upset and worked up, I carried on trying to force my old routine into this new setting.
As a result, I struggled to make new friends and slowly lost my old ones as our different timetables meant we didn’t see each other. My grades slipped massively and I spent an entire year being dragged along with the current, unaware that my head was only just above water.
Things definitely got better during my second year, but unfortunately, so much damage had been done during those initial 12 months that, even though I would be finishing with much better mental health, I would still be leaving college with marks that I would be embarrassed to share online.
How to prepare Autistic People for School
Thankfully, under the right circumstances, change doesn’t have to be an autist’s kryptonite. So, before we finish, I thought I would share some easy to implement steps which can help limit the fallout caused by the mystery of uncertainty for any autistic person starting school, college or university in the coming months:
1. Make us aware of the change
Although change definitely ranks highly on the list of things which cause unparalleled frustration to autistic people, a change which comes as a surprise is even worse. Help take the sting out of this experience by preparing us well in advance, before the coming amendment catches us off guard.
Make sure to be thorough when preparing autistic people for this and make sure to use examples and details which contain reference points. It’s also important for us to know what will stay the same, so don’t forget to include those This will remind us that, when the world does feel like it’s going to end, there will always be some kind of planet to call home when it’s over.
2. Find a support network
One the biggest problems I had at college was that I had no one to lean on whilst I was gathering my bearings. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you or an autistic person you know, by ensuring that we have a way to get in contact with someone who can talk us through the change whilst its happening (and if that someone can offer answers to the millions of questions the autistic person will raise then even better).
If this isn’t possible, try introducing the autistic person to a teacher or teaching assistant beforehand and if THIS can’t happen either then at least remind us that there will be a familiar face ready and waiting to greet us at the start and end of every day. This will help to establish some sense of a routine and you know how much we LOVE routine.
3. Help us to establish a new routine
Whilst we’re on the subject of routine, try working together with the autist to create a schedule of what they can expect during the change. If it’s not possible to fill in every detail, then remember the advice from tip 1 and still acknowledge that at certain times something unpredictable will happen within the schedule.
For some autistic people, this might be an ideal time to create and use a social story (something I very briefly discussed in my Why Comics Are GREAT for Autistic People post) as these will help give the change a structure – oh! and if the autistic person is anything like me, remember to give timings with a little wiggle room for each activity.
4. Give us the tools to succeed
Lastly, when carrying out all these steps, remember that accuracy is key. If one of the details doesn’t go to plan, then this change within in a change can cause severe consequences for the autistic person and in trying to help us you could wind up being our downfall.
If you can’t find an exact time when the change will happen give us a rough estimate of when we can expect it. If you can’t say what a teacher will look like, tell us their name and how we can recognise who they are.
Be precise, but only when you can be sure you have the exact details. Autistic children can sometimes surprise you with how capable we actually are so, even if it’s not possible to paint the whole picture, give us the paints and a canvas so that we might just be able to create the image ourselves.
Carry on the Conversation:
Have you got any suggestions on how to help autistic people prepare for change? Let me know in the comments below.
As always, I can also be found on Twitter @AutismRevised and via my email: AutisticandUnapologetic@gmail.com.
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Thank you for reading and I will see you next Saturday for more thoughts from across the spectrum.
