How do I help my autistic students when they experience a meltdown?

Transcript

 How do I help my autistic students when they experience meltdowns? So I would say that in the moment, there are two phases, stabilization and recovery. For stabilization, you want to think safety first - so physical safety for them and you and everyone.

If they're on high alert, even supportive interaction can feel like a threat. So you usually want to give them space and keep the talking to a minimum.

Then you think about emotional safety, like bringing in someone that they trust and removing sensory overstimulation, like bright lights or loud sounds. Once things have stabilized enough, they need to basically reboot their brain.

It often helps to get them connected to their body in the present moment, like by going for a walk or by eating something crunchy. Your school's occupational therapist can be a good resource for more ideas. And then something familiar and predictable can help them to collect their thoughts, like a favorite song or reading about their interests or an activity that's simple but takes focus like a puzzle or sorting things. Something that helps them feel like the world makes sense.

And this is a neurological reaction, so sometimes it can take a long time for the brain to be ready for learning and working again. If the meltdown is big enough, people can sometimes stay dysregulated at least into the next day. Sometimes there isn't much that you can do besides giving them time while protecting them from anything that would make it worse.

But even if you can't see that anything is helping at the moment, you're still building trust that can make it easier and easier for them to come out of that protection mode each time.

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