Why do some autistic students struggle with transitions and change?

Transcript

 A lot of autistic people, myself included, spend a lot of time preparing for new situations, whether that's going to a new restaurant, uh, meeting new people, or adjusting to a new class schedule. And that's really important because a lot of the time we know that if a change is unexpected and we don't have the time or ability to process or prepare for that, then it adds a whole other cognitive load onto what we need to do, and it makes it a lot harder.

So when it comes to autistic students, when you think about it, they don't have a lot of control over their day, right? And so when there are these additional changes and sensory stimuli that they didn't prepare for - these scenarios that they didn't know about - that creates a lot of overwhelm that builds up over time. And that kind of thing can lead to outbursts, shutdowns, and meltdowns.

So when it comes to autistic students and helping them out, especially with unexpected changes, it's really important to give them sort of the physical space to be able to kind of get that overwhelm out, uh, and to prevent it in the first place, right?

So one great thing that you can do to sort of prevent that overwhelm, especially when potential changes you know about are taking place, is to have a visual schedule or a way for students to just know the potential changes that are coming that day and letting them know at the beginning of the day, so they have plenty of time to process.

These kind of tips and a whole lot of other stuff that you can do to support neurodivergent students is available on our website at socialcipher.com. Thanks!

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