Shopping is a normal “everyday” activity; we think nothing of hopping on a bus or in the car and going to the shop.
However, this normal everyday activity can be a complete nightmare to children with autism and autistic parents.
Autism spectrum disorder is a disorder affecting the brain and social development of the individual on the autism spectrum disorder scale.
If your child is on the autism spectrum disorder scale taking them shopping can be stressful and will need careful planning.
Children with autism are very sensitive to stimuli affecting, touch, smell, light and sound; making shopping an anxious and often painful experience.
Things we do not even notice like the strip lights in the shop, or spotlights above some displays can hurt their eyes. The bright lights in the fridges or flashing signs can all be autism anxiety triggers.
The smell of the shop, the fresh food display, aromas from perfumes, soaps, deodorant and the smell from a flower stand. Smell of the stale air in the shopping mall, the smell of the perfume the lady at the checkout is wearing; the aftershave of the man behind you, the smell of the gum the little girl in front of you is chewing. The smell from the bakers shop to us tempting and yummy to an autistic child can all be autism anxiety triggers.
The sound of the checkout, the loud speakers, people chatting, a shrill laugh, the drone of the escalator, the ping of the lift, children laughing, giggling a baby crying, a mobile phone ring all normal noises we shut out and put into the background.
But to an autistic child these noises can be overwhelming and frightening.
Children with autism don’t process sensations in the same way we do and although to us these normal everyday sounds are ok to them they can be dreadful.
Touch is a big issue also with children with autism, some autistic children do not like being touched, and in a busy bustling shop sometimes this can not be avoided!
As a parent your child’s safety is always your first thought; in a busy supermarket, what do you do when that child won’t let you hold their hand? How do you keep that child safe?
Autistic children are sensitive to touch; they may dislike rough material, silky material, and bubbly feeling fabric. They may dislike the feel of the chair in the cafe or the cold metal table.
The journey to theshop on the bus the uncomfortable fabric of the seat the sound of the engine the lights the buzzer the chatter the laughter, a mum telling of her child, a cry a mobile phone ring all can cause autistic anxiety triggers.
So how are you going to make this normal everyday activity less stressful and painful for your child?
A good starting point is to have these autistic anxiety triggers in mind before setting out on a shopping trip, choose a less busy day, and prepare your child for the trip.
A good place to begin is with social stories for children with autism. Social stories are an excellent autism resource for teaching social skills like “I can go shopping” to an autistic child-giving clear focus to the key points the autism social skills story will focus on the main points and give clear instruction on how, why, where and when we shop.
Helping the child make sense and feel more comfortable with the shopping trip, a good social skills story will prepare the autistic child for the shopping trip and find coping strategies and methods of dealing with the anxious moments and fears the autistic child will have.
Autistic parents use social stories for children with autism going shopping as well as other stories to help their child cope with social skills, personal care, events and all of life’s normal and not so normal happenings and situations.
Download this autism resource social stories for children with autism going shopping and other autism social skills stories from
No parent likes to hear that there is something wrong with their child. Hopeless self blame, guilt and anger are all common and natural emotions all part of the beginnings of life as autism parents
There is as yet no proof to the cause of autism spectrum disorder and research continues into this complex disorder.
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder, affecting four times more boys than girls.
There is no cure for autism, but there are services and autism resources available to help with the symptoms of autism.
The symptoms of autism will vary between autistic individuals from low functioning autism where speech is severely delayed or may never actually happen; with the individual likely to also have learning disabilities.
To the symptoms of autism; such as asperger syndrome or high functioning autism where the individual will have average or above average IQ this set of autistic individuals are often referred too as the little professor or geeks!
Wherever on the scale you child falls within autism spectrum disorder scale, all autistic children will have the same triad of impairments:
Social deficits
Communication deficits
Interaction, imagination deficits
Mother’s day is of cause one of those days as a parent that we will expect our children to act in a certain way.
As a growing child you would have picked up social cues from your parents, peers and the environment and the realization of how Mother’s day affects our Mum’s is learned.
We learned in a number of ways through school, making cards, through our environment the shops being full of Mother’s day posters, presents, cards and flowers, to in the home Dad cooking breakfast, giving Mum a card and spoiling her on her special day etc
This knowledge of Mother’s day we take into our own family setting and our children will like we did realize what Mother’s day is and what is expected of them.
However this soaking up of social knowledge is missing in autistic individuals and without prompting and directly teaching social skills an autistic child will fail to understand. They will likely ignore the social cues such as cards, posters and presents, and ignore subtle cues like Mummy loves flowers.
Try not to be upset with your autistic youngster autism is a social impairment and unless you come right on out and say it they just aren’t going to get the hint!
Try introducing an autism social skills story explaining about being Mum, include a social skills story on Mother’s day and chances are you will get a Mother’s day card.
Social skills need to be taught directly and this is achieved through the use of autism social skills stories.
These clever expertly written social skills stories are used for a variety of situations like Mother’s day, Easter, Thanks giving, Christmas and for events like weddings, or even a trip to the dentist, the zoo a party and for daily life skills like showering, going to the toilet and eating habits.
Download and begin giving your autistic child social cues and teach social behaviors that a normally developing child can learn naturally, this will help with social anxieties and isolation.
Being autism parents with anxiety and stress can be helped when social skills stories are used.
It is perfectly normal to make a judgment about a person as soon as you meet them. We judge their hair, face, voice even their stance and quickly decide what we like and dislike about the person, before we even get to know them…We can read a persons body language and realize if they are happy, sad, pleased to see us or angry
People with asperger syndrome can find it harder to read the signals that most of us take for granted.This means they find it more difficult to communicate and interact with others which can lead to high levels of anxiety and confusion.
Asperger syndrome is a form of autism.
Autism is a lifelong disability, which affects how a person makes sense of the world.
How they processes information and relate to others. Autism is often described as a spectrum disorder.
This isbecause autism spectrum disorder will affect people in different ways and to varying degrees.
Asperger syndrome has been described as the ‘hidden disability’.
….Because the asperger person will look normal to the outside world. The individual with asperger syndrome will have difficulties in three main areas.
They are: Social interaction, Imagination and communication difficulties
You may have heard them referred to as “the triad of impairments”
Whilst there are some similarities with autism, those people with Asperger syndrome will present less difficulties with speaking and are often of average, or above average, intelligence.
With the right support, encouragement, and social aids people with Asperger syndrome can lead full and independent lives.
One such support you can give an asperger person is in the form of printable asperger social stories
Research has shown that asperger social stories can be regarded as a valuable part of an asperger person’s life Giving them the social know how that the condition renders them without.
Making social acceptance easier and less stressful Asperger social stories are used as a tool for teaching and re-enforcing appropriate behaviors and social skills.
To access and immediately download suitable asperger social skills stories visit one of our many sites PLUS grab your free report Managing your autistic child’s behavior from:www.autismsocialstories.com
Kids with autism need to be taught autistic social skills directly, as they do not easily pick up on these skills from their environment like a normally developing child will.
Autistic children tend not to pick up on social skills and are unable to understand body language or facial expressions, which makes interpreting the thoughts and feelings of other’s an impossible task.
It is very important to think about how you will help your child understand the need for certain social skills.
For example if you intend your child to be included in main stream education a certain amount of social skills is important. The ability to wait your turn in class to ask a question, manners, good eating habits and the ability to toilet themselves appropriately for their age.
Kids with Autism and Asperger Syndrome are often capable of working at the same level as their peer’s; but are at risk of not being included in a classroom because of behavioral issues or poorly developed social skills.
Teaching social skills to autistic children has become one of the primary focuses when working with autistic children.
Success in teaching social skills to kids with autism can increase self-confidence and lead to positive result in other areas of the classroom and life in general for autistic children.
A good autistic social skills story will focus on a particular social situation or interaction. A trip to the dentist, moving school, going shopping, or recess - these are all good examples of situations a social story might focus on.
The best place to start is by carefully selecting the school which will suit your autistic child the best.
So what questions to ask autism school? Well firstly the journey needs to be established and looked at.
Distance from home is always a big consideration; will your child need transport? How long will they be on the transport? Who is the driver, the escort? Try and arrange prior to the start of school for your child to meet them.
Look in the bus and get a general feel for the space, look at the color of the bus, seats, floor, walls etc. How many seats, the fabric, are they noisy, itchy, soft etc? The steps to get in, noise of the engine, is their an air freshener? The smell in the bus, aftershave of the driver, the escort, autistic children have very sensitive senses and smells can be distressing to them. Do they play the radio in the bus, will this affect your child?
Autistic children are very sensitive and all of these factors will need to be taken into account as well as where they are on the collection list. Who will already, be in the bus, who is collected next, and so on?
Establish the bus rules, try out the seat belts, will you need to buy something soft to wrap around the belt if the fabric is hard, will it rub your autistic child’s skin. Will your child be seated next to the window? Who will be sat next to them?
Find out about the homeward journey again what time will they leave school? In what order are the children dropped? Is it going to be the same driver etc? Repeat all the questions as above for the journey too school.
Ask what happens when the driver or escort are on holiday or away? Who will replace them? Will you get prior notice so that you can explain the change to your child, autistic children like things to remain the same and a simple thing like different driver or seat could cause anxiety and stress.
After you have gathered all the relevant information you will need to establish a social story which will explain what is going to happen to your child.
A good social story (autism social stories) will help your child understand the what, why, where and when of the situation.
You will need to add specific details yourself like the names of the driver the name of the school etc to the story. Choose autism social stories with pictures. Autistic children will take in information a lot easier if it is visually presented.
Autism social stories are an excellent tool for giving your autistic child clear social cues and coping strategies for all those situations they may find difficult, stressful or distressing.
The social story will give your child clear instructions and help them feel more comfortable with and in those situations a social skills story is needed for.
To view an example autism social story visit us at: www.autismsocialstories.com the story link is roughly half way down the page.
Have you ever stopped to consider how often you use visual supports during the day? How about when you look at a TV Guide, use a recipe, look at a map…
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All of these are visual supports. Yes of cause we could live without visual supports, but just consider how limited our lives would be…no internet, newspapers, maps etc!
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A similar rule applies to autism, autistic people also need visual supports, and pretty similar to the visual supports we ourselves use “everydayâ€.
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Visual supports in autism include visual timetables, autism social stories, communication systems, PECS, flashcards and other visual supports used for autistic coping strategies.
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As we are already aware autistic children and people think and learn visually.
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Therefore, it is essential that “visual supports in autismâ€, is given great consideration. Autistic people have difficulties with communication, and sometimes will lack the ability to speak, or their language may be restricted.
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Which in itself can cause problems, but when this is coupled with their lack of social awareness also, it can prove to be a recipe for social mistakes.
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Social mistakes can cause embarrassment and stress, which can lead to anxiety and sometimes trigger violent or aggressive outburst, which then can become a vicious circle.
One excellent tool is the use of autism social stories. Social Stories can be used for teaching social skills to children with autism and related disabilities.
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Social skill stories present appropriate social behaviors for situations, which include answers to questions the autistic person will need to know to interact appropriately with others…for example, answers to who, what, where, when, and why.
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Autism social stories can provide an individual with accurate information about those situations they may find difficult or confusing.
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The social story will describe the situation in detail and focus is given to a few key points. These are the social cues…the events and reactions the individual may expect in the situation, the actions and reactions that might be expected of them, and why.
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Using Autism social stories will increase your child’s understanding of why things happen and why they are expected to act in certain ways or do certain things, like washing their teeth, or using public toilets.
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You can see an example social story at www.autismsocialstories.com Studies have shown autistic people respond well to social stories. Visually social stories can be pictorially rich and colorful-giving the autistic person clear social cues and prompts for managing and understanding the situation, task, event or activity.
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Immediately download and begin using appropriate visual supports in autism such as autism social stories, to help your autistic child, teen or adult find appropriate coping strategies for all situations they find stressful, confusing or difficult.
To view an example social story and immediately download appropriate autism social stories visit us at:
More often than not autistic people will have social impairments and lack the ability to “mind read†or understand what others maybe thinking. They will not have the ability to understand body language or facial expression. Something we as a whole take for granted.
Social impairments become apparent early in childhood and continue through to adulthood.
Autistic children will pay less attention to social stimuli, they will probably smile a lot less and won’t be interested in engaging with others, they may also respond less to their own name.
You may find your autistic toddler for example, will give less eye contact, may respond less to his/her name, not be as cuddly and is more likely to communicate by pulling on your hand and leading you to what they desire.
By the ages of between three to five years old most normally developing youngsters will understand facial expressions, body language and non-verbal communication skills…and most definitely learnt how to manipulate their parents!…
Autistic children are less likely to exhibit any social understanding, they will almost certainly be less likely to approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, and still not grasp the concept of turn taking.
However, autistic children do form attachments to their primary caregivers, parents, and teachers. They will undoubtedly display less attachment than that of a normally developing child though.
Children with less severe Autism Spectrum Disorder, like aspergers or mild autism may be more likely to form stronger bonds, but as they grow older studies have shown they perform slightly less on tests of face and emotion recognition.
Making and maintaining friendships often proves to be difficult for those with autism. For them, the quality of friendships, not the number of friends, predicts how lonely they are.
Autistic children like all normally developing children do need friends…and as a parent or teacher of an autistic child there are ways in which you can help them understand the importance of being a good friend. As well as helping them learn the skill of making friends, something again we take for granted, as an autistic person this skill does not come naturally, but needs to be learnt.
As a primary caregiver, parent or teacher, you can help by introducing the idea of autism social stories as a technique of explaining how we make friends, why we need friends and how to then maintain those friendships in easy to understand language.
These valuable short pieces of text are an excellent tool which you can use with your autistic child to help them understand and control situations.
Appropriate autism social stories are well written in the first person and will have images and or photos showing your autistic child in a clear helpful manner how, why, where and when they should do something. They will give the appropriate responses the autistic person may expect and also the responses they themselves should expect from others.
Self-injury is probably one of the most distressing and difficult behaviors that any parent, carer, family member and autistic person can be faced with.
Mostly the causes of this behavior are quite complex and the level of risk to the autistic person’s safety and well-being can at times be quite high.
Normal behavioral intervention is not always appropriate; but it is generally felt that professional help should be sought to help deal with this problem.
What is self-injurious behavior?
Sometimes referred to as self-harming behavior, self-injury takes many different forms, such as:
head banging (on floors, walls or other surfaces)
hand or arm biting
hair pulling
eye gouging
face or head slapping
skin picking, scratching or pinching
Forceful head shaking.
Autistic people who have complex needs and who have concurrent learning disabilities are more likely to engage in severe self-injurious behaviors.
However, people across the spectrum and of all ages may engage in self-injurious behaviors at some point.
Individuals who engaged in self-injurious behaviors as children may return to these as adults during times of stress, illness or change.
Causes of self-injurious behavior
The reasons a person has for engaging in self-injurious behavior, is almost alwaysfound to be varied, and will involve numerous different factors.
For example an Autistic child may have begun head banging as a form of sensory stimulation (stimming, repetitive behavior) at first, and has now learnt that the head banging is a way to avoid certain situations.
Hitting the face or head may initially have been a response to earache or maybe toothache. Which may have led on to being a way to have wants or needs met.
Some possible causes that should be considered when thinking about self-injurious behavior:
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, you should consider when dealing with self-injurious behavior, is there a possible medical or dental problem that the Autistic individual may be having.
Autistic people may have some difficulty in telling others that something is wrong physically and some self-injurious behaviors (such as ear slapping or head banging) may be their way of dealing with pain or communicating discomfort.
Here are some examples of medical and dental problems which may be expressed through self-injurious behavior:
Some illnesses such as: colds, flu, viruses or infections such as sinus, ear or urinary tract infections.
Pain such as: earache, headache, toothache, pre-menstrual tension
Seizures, some types of epilepsy
General feelings of being un-well such as: rashes, constipation, indigestion, heartburn, flatulence.
There is also research to suggest that there may be some connection between types of self-injury and tic disorders plus compulsive behaviors.
If your autistic child is using self-injurious behaviour and you need help, visit us now at www.autismsocialstories.com.
…To obtain excellent social skills stories which will help your child understand and control behaviors. Studies prove social skill stories are an excellent tool in helping autistic children better cope with confusing and often stressful situations…helping you to cope with their often aggressive and sometimes self-injurious behaviour.
Autism is a developmental disability of the brain; autism is not a form of mental retardation.
The word autism can refer to several similar disabilities, like Autistic Disorder, Aspergers Syndrome, also Atypical Autism (a type of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified) etc..There are differences between these conditions, but on the whole they are quite similar.
The word ’spectrum’ is used because, while all people with autism share three main areas of difficulty, their condition will affect them in very different ways. Some are able to live relatively ‘everyday’ lives; others will require a lifetime of specialist support.
There are three main areas of difficulty which all people with autism share these are referred to as the
‘triad of impairments’. They are:
Difficulties with communication
Difficulties with social interaction
Difficulties with imagination.
Some autistic people may be affected more by one symptom, while others may be affected more strongly by a different symptom.
People with autism may experience some form of sensory sensitivity. This can occur in one or more of the five senses - sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. A person’s senses are either intensified (hypersensitive) or under-sensitive (hypo-sensitive).
For example, a person with autism may find certain background sounds, like the hum of a fridge for example unbearably loud or distracting, while the rest of us can ignore or block out the noise. To an autistic person the noise can cause anxiety or even physical pain, this can be referred to as an autism anxiety trigger.
People who are hypo-sensitive will often not feel pain or extremes of temperature. Some may rock, spin or flap their hands to stimulate sensation, this is called autistic stimming. An autistic person will use stimming to help with balance and posture or to deal with stress, another autism anxiety trigger.
People with sensory sensitivity may also find it harder to use their body awareness system. Which tells us where our bodies are, so for those with reduced body awareness, it can be harder to navigate rooms without walking into objects or bumping into others. They will not appreciate what is an appropriate distance from other people to stand.
This can cause social problems, as the person will be unaware of the need for personal space and may stand very close, making people feel very uncomfortable.
They may also have problems with ‘fine motor’ tasks such as tying shoelaces, or fastening buttons…
Sometime autistic people may have learning disabilities, which can affect all aspects of their life, from going to school, to learning how to wash themselves, clean their teeth, Or how to feed themselves.
The symptoms of autism will vary from person to person each autistic person will have a different degree of learning disability.
Some autistic people will be able to live fairly independently, but may need some support.
While others may require lifelong, specialist support. However, all people with autism can, and do, learn and develop with the right sort of support and resources.
One such form of autism resources is something called autism social stories…These are short pieces of text with appropriate pictures-giving your autistic child, teen or adult specific social cues for everyday living skills.
Like how to wash their teeth, visiting the doctor, eating out. Social skills stories for autistic children and teens, or adults can be printed and used as instructions for all of life’s “normal†and “not so normal†life experiences and actions.
They can be like a best friend to an autistic person helping them feel better in, and cope with, situations they may struggle to understand or deal with - by giving them clear and accurate information about those situations.
It is not un-common for an autistic child to become aggressive as they enter the teenage years, whether this is due to hormonal changes or the rebellious onset of teenage years as a child becomes more independent of their parents we don’t know…
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However as your child grows and enters the teenage years, if you are finding aggression a problem there are a few ways you can find help.
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Autistic aggression can be sudden and quite out of the blue, one of the first things you need to remember is the safety of the child as well as his/her peers and any other person within the vicinity.
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You will need to first of all determine what is causing these violent aggressive outbursts.What sort of signals do they send before an upset? Can you read his/her body language to know when he/she is becoming upset?
What sort of things are causing the behavior? Are the outbursts connected to school work? To how he/she is feeling physically? To the amount of sleep he/she had? To the clothes he/she wearing, or the clothes of a peer, or maybe teacher? To a scent/smell? To who is near him?
Some experts will suggest not to react to this behavior…however this can be hard and certainly easier said than done. So what do you do when faced with an autistic teenager who is becoming increasingly more aggressive?
People with autism tend to be stronger visually than auditorally. This means they take in information better that they can see, rather than what they can hear. Unfortunately, we as parents, helpers and teachers are talkers. We will talk to explain, we talk to connect. And when we are upset, we tend to talk even more.
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An autistic teenager, even one who is highly verbal, when under stress will have increasing difficulties understanding what it is you’re saying. Â Thus when he/she does not respond appropriately, the chances are you will talk even more trying to make them understand, which will actually compound his/her stress even further, rather than decreasing it.
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It may well be a good thing to remember when a situation arises it’s better to talk less, far less than you would want too. In fact, ideally do not talk. During the outbursts, anything you may say will do little other than aggravate the situation.
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Instead, when you do need to speak, try and keep your sentences short and blunt – a mere one word would be best. You could then couple the words you use with visuals or hand signals.
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Try and remember that your autistic teenager will take in information better when it is visual (i.e. what he/she can see), rather than what he/she hears.
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Because of the problems many autistic and asperger kids have making sense of the world, they often appreciate having rules and expectations set out clearly for them. Â Autistic people respond well to repetition and sameness. Therefore it has been found that they will respond well to, “The rule is…”. Â This simple technique can have a great impact in many situations.
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“Establish rulesâ€.  You will need to make them clear and precise.  Then stick them in every place that your autistic teenager will go to. It won’t work if you simply tell him/her the rules or discuss them - they have to be visual.
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You may well want to consider doing the same thing with the consequences you’ve set up for rule infractions. Therefore when you feel an incident or outburst may be building, rather than issuing verbal warnings, tap on the visually posted rule.
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Also remembering autistic people are visual learners a visual concise timetable should also be put in place if it has not already been done.
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Plus social stories should be introduced. They are an excellent tool for letting a child know what is going to happen and what is expected of him. Thus taking away some of the anxiety triggers that can cause the outbursts. When using social stories ensure they are pictorially rich showing the autistic teenager visually what is expected, “The rulesâ€, and giving them clear cues for behavior and what is expected of them in any given situation.
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These short pieces of text can be like the autistic teenagers best friend not only are they visual but there is text to accompany the images giving your aggressive autistic teenager clear social cues for their expected behavior, giving them the rules and possible consequence of inappropriate behaviors.
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By using the techniques set out above and the introduction of social stories, aggressive outburst should be kept to a minimum.
To immediately download autism social stories visit
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