- Singing Lessons and singing, lying on the floor and hums. Feeling the vibration of the voice which is self calming. It is preferable to lye on floor boards to feel the vibration of humming through the floorboards and associated effects felt through body.
- Martial Art – a routinized sequence of self defence movements the kid can resort to when feeling overstimulated.
- Dancing
- Movement based activity
- Massage the kiddo to remind kiddo that he has a sensory body and tends to distract him from his distress.
- Books
- Sunglasses – to shade eyes
- Put the child in room and tone down light stimulation.
- Jumping and rolling around in heaped up pillows or old mattress on the floor.
- Go walking/running.
- Ball pit
- Trampoline
- Cooking
- Piano or guitar, instrument where kiddo is moving his hands or fingers
- knitting
- White board on wall with morning routine and afternoon routine on it to refer to, it is so helpful for me to track morning procedures and be on time.
- Laminated routine sequences instructions are written down, where you can just show your kiddo instead of you having to repeat things one hundred times.
- Structured time on the computer, if they insist that they like the computer then use it as a reward based system. You do a household task and you can have 20 mins computer time. Great technique for helping out with housework. That’s all I can think of at moment.
- Set tasks such as mowing the lawn, wash dishes, cleaning, washing cars is a way to earn points or money towards something he wants to purchase. This is a great way to encourage writing practice.
- Butcher’s paper roll, use it as a table cloth. While you are eating at table you can leave some pens lying around on table. While you are eating or talking or just sitting you can use your hands and draw/write or play a game like O’s and X’s on the table cloth. It’s fun and interactive also exercising manual dexterity of hands and encouraging writing/maths.
- Playing Rock/Paper/Scissors with hands
- Search and find games
- Get a wall full length body mirror so the kiddo’s can self check their own skin and cleaniness when going to loo. As the visual information input will challenge the other sensory feelings that he may have. Helps to instill a sense of self confidence in child and independance. Very helpful strategy for a stressed out parent.
- Get a paper bag from Coles (easy to leave some at school or pop some in schoolbag) which are there for him to use as a calming devices, as my son can get so distressed in a meltdown that he feels he is blowing out too much air, blow into a paperbag to help stabilize breathing. Pulling one out at times when a meltdown is triggered can also be a visual emotional soother which can help as well. (100 paper bags at Coles is a few dollers). Also can be turned into a fun thing by blowing them up and popping them/drawing faces on them.
- Swim
- Pop a David Attenborough nature video on which are very good for getting kids to sleep, wonderful soothing nature music
ASD Supernova 2 Shining suns 