Anxiety, Autism and the Power of Preventative Breaks

Research has shown that more than 75% of all children with ASD experience INTENSE anxious feelings. Today education is full of choices, open ended tasks and constant changes. For most students this makes learning interesting BUT for students with ASD, ADHD, ODD, etc. this creates many challenges and one of these is anxiety.

Anxiety can look like

• Avoidance of new situations
• Preference for sameness
• Rigidity
• Insisting on same rules/routines
• Social withdrawal
• Anger
• Meltdowns
• Repetitive noise, movement or sentence

The power of Preventative Breaks

• Students self-regulating their anxiety is a VERY important part of their behaviour management programme
• A student being able to request a break before a meltdown is a fantastic strategy
• You will need to teach them a range of strategies to calm themselves. When you are teaching them, you will begin to notice which ones are more effective at calming. You can then write social scripts and use visual cards to help them remember what to do when they feel anxious.