#Sensory meltdown autism how to#

And knowing that difference is crucial for parents of autistic children to be able to best help their kid get through the outburst.

The two look similar, but the causes and strategies to manage them are vastly different.

And because one in 44 children in the U.S. Just about every child is prone to temper tantrums once in a while. “But for a child with autism, he may be screaming because he has no way to communicate that he needs that toy to feel safe in his environment.” “Young children don’t have sophisticated emotional vocabularies, so a child screaming for a specific toy is going to look like bad behavior in a neurotypical kid,” says Noor Pervez, the community engagement manager for the Autism Self Advocacy Network. The National Autistic Society (NAS) defines an autism meltdown as an intense reaction - such as shouting, screaming, crying, kicking, lashing out, or biting - in response to being overwhelmed.

#Sensory meltdown autism how to#

( To learn Fatherly’s best advice on how to stop temper tantrums, click here.) What you think may be a temper tantrum could actually be an autism meltdown. There are some nuances between tantrums - what triggers them especially, and how to deal with those triggers - but when your kid is autistic, it’s a whole other ball game.

Whether at home or out at a park or the grocery store, a kid moves through a tantrum, from anger to sadness, while a parent stands by unable to do much of anything to shorten it. Temper tantrums are universal - and look pretty much the same for all kids.