Many people describe having had an anxiety attack. While the experience can be different for different people, most agree that they are uncomfortable, distressing, abrupt, and that they would like to never have one again. While doing the items on the list cannot ensure they never happen again, it may help reduce their frequency and the intensity of the attack.
Search for:. Educate yourself about panic and anxiety. Notice the sensations. Identify what is happening in your body by nonjudgmentally labeling your physical experiences. Recognizing that you are having a panic attack is a way to remind yourself that the experience is temporary, and it will pass with a bit of time. Take away the fear that something worse is happening.
Take deep breaths. Breathing in deeply through your nose for a count of 4, holding for seconds, and breathing out for a count of 5 not only can start to slow your breathing but it also gives you something else to focus on that you have some control over.
If you can ease into this transition a little more slowly, you may be able to reduce the need to rock. Similarly, sensory experiences like loud noises, clothing tags, food textures, or busy lobbies may excite the sensory system. The autistic person may need to rock back and forth in order to make sense of these experiences and calm himself or herself. Although it isn't possible to avoid all stimuli, you may be able to reduce the exposure and therefore reduce the rocking. If you notice that you rock when you are trying to concentrate or you suspect this is the case for your autistic child or teen, you may be able to provide this type of sensory stimulation in another way.
For instance, if your child always rocks before arts and crafts time at school, try taking him on the swings right before class. The swinging may satisfy the vestibular sensory need, allowing him to focus on his project. You can also try substituting a different behavior for the rocking at the time the individual needs it. If rocking occurs during dinnertime, for instance, she could try jiggling her foot instead. Although this movement doesn't provide the same level of sensory input, it may be sufficient to allow her to concentrate on the meal.
Rocking can be frustrating, and it's perfectly natural to feel upset by this behavior. However, don't punish your child for rocking or feel ashamed of this behavior in yourself. This negative response can add to the stress level and make the behavior worse. These tips may help reduce autistic rocking behavior, but there's no substitute for professional guidance.
If you have concerns about rocking, have your doctor recommend an occupational therapist who specializes in sensory integration therapy. Why Autistic People Rock For many people on the autism spectrum, the world is an overwhelming place.
There are several reasons you may want to stop autistic rocking behavior: The rocking is violent, and you're concerned about your child getting injured. You're worried about the social aspects of rocking back and forth in public.
The rocking is interfering with your child's or your ability to perform motor tasks or other appropriate activities.
Your child or teen seems unreachable when he or she is rocking. You associate the rocking with the autism diagnosis , and it causes you anxiety. How to Stop the Rocking Whatever reason you want to stop the rocking, it's very important to remember that this is a coping behavior, and it's there for a reason. Gather Data Keep a log of what is happening when you notice the rocking. Reduce the Stimuli If you notice that the rocking is in response to a sensory experience or a stressful situation of some type, you can try to remove this stimulus.
Provide An Alternative If you notice that you rock when you are trying to concentrate or you suspect this is the case for your autistic child or teen, you may be able to provide this type of sensory stimulation in another way.
What Not to Do Rocking can be frustrating, and it's perfectly natural to feel upset by this behavior. Hyporesponsive -- in spite of large amounts of sensory input, the brain fails to register and doesn't respond to input. Hyperesponsive -- the brain "short-circuits" and registers sensations too intensely. Let's break this down to get a better picture of these responses. Most children enjoy being touched by their parent. A light touch on the hand or head usually makes a child respond positively.
However, there are some children who view this touch as a "fight or flight" response. That is a hyperesponsive response. The brain records this as danger and the child reacts by screaming, pulling away or avoiding this touch or sensory input. The response is comparable to walking down an unfamiliar dark alley at night. All of our senses are on "alert" in order for our body to respond to danger.
Our eyes widen, our breathing is shallow, heart beats faster and we are preparing our body to respond by either running or fighting to avoid danger.
Imagine if your system was always on alert and you felt that every touch or movement meant danger. It would be very difficult to explore your environment and learn from those experiences because your brain is constantly registering danger. As a result, many children who are hyperesponsive avoid any form of input through tactile touch vestibular gravity , or proprioceptive movement. Due to the brain's abnormal response to sensory input, this child usually avoids input and doesn't actively explore his environment, thereby missing out on valuable sensory learning experiences.
This child may also prefer certain positions and scream with any type of transition or change in daily routine. He may avoid certain clothes, food textures, hate movement or sit in one position and perform a perseverative same action repeated over and over movement in an effort to "calm" down his system. The hyposensative child may be viewed as someone who constantly bombards his sensory system in an effort to gain appropriate sensory information.
This child may be constantly touching objects, mouthing everything in sight, bumping into walls or falling repeatedly. He may fall or hurt himself, but doesn't appear to respond to pain in a way you expect such as crying, rubbing his arm and so on. A hyposensitive child doesn't process information correctly: he may bang into the same object repeatedly. For example, a child with a normal sensory system may run into the room and not see a toy on the floor. He may fall, get up and continue to play.
If he comes into the room again, he will not necessarily look at the toy on the floor but rather his body and postures will adjust to run around the object rather than falling into it again. Suppose you were in a darkened room, unable to see and you were told to find your way out. You would immediately try to "call in" all other senses available in order to gather as much information to find your way out of the room.
You would touch the walls, feel the floor, and listen for clues to be successful. This works fine if your sensory system works well; however, someone who is hyposensitive will use their brain to constantly search for information in this intense way to "make sense" of the world.
Although it seems as though a child could fall into either category, the majority of children with a sensory processing disorder fall into both categories. This means they can be hyporesponsive to some input and hyperesponsive to other types of input. Also, even though their brains are not processing information in a "normal" format, they will exhibit behaviors that may appear "weird. For example, if they feel they need proprioceptive input they might jump, push or pull; for vestibular input they might spin or rock; for tactile input they might seek deep pressure.
They may also demonstrate odd behaviors, such as, playing only in a specific area, not explore a room, avoid certain toys, move or run around constantly, purposely run into walls or push people. Children tend to know what sensory information they need and although these behaviors appear strange to us, it is the child's way of making sense of his environment and trying to adapt to daily life.
It should be noted, that all of us will have quirks about certain types of input and we adapt to the conditions. However, as long as it does not impact our ability to learn and function within our environment, it is not considered an issue. Children with a sensory dysfunction are unable to learn and function within their daily routine and until they can "make sense" or modulate the input turn up or down the sensory response for the brain to process and respond appropriately they will continue to demonstrate a dysfunctional sensory system.
Through therapeutic intervention, an occupational therapist provides the appropriate sensory input in order to help the child modulate information correctly. The child will then begin to register, modulate and respond in a normal fashion which will increase exploration and allow learning to happen. Families will usually report that their child was developing within normal limits for a child with Down syndrome only up until they were around a year old.
At that time, they began to demonstrate decreased skills in playing, social interaction and many abnormal behaviors. Some on these reported behaviors include shaking fingers, chains and similar objects in front of their face, food refusal, looking directly into a light source and preservative type motions rather than purposeful play. Some of the other behaviors that have been reported or observed by families of children with DS-ASD include:.
Many of the behaviors listed are also noted in the children with autistic spectrum disorder.
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