Many children with autism and other disabilities have a very different sensory regulation and behavioral, Children who constantly have objects in their hands, who put everything in their mouths, who have to be constantly moving... They present other rhythms, another way of exploring the environment and are sensory seekers with high needs and high anxiety if they are not properly satisfied.
First of all, note that sudden changes in the dynamics they are not at all recommended And they won't be easy at all, so you'll need to be very patient to help them and implement variations rather than changes effectively, with love, respect, and empathy. These changes can lead to a destructuring of the child.
Second, we have a multitude of situations that behave in this way, each in its own way, and we also determine that These behaviors are sustained and unsustainable because they directly affect the attention, learning, communication and, most importantly, their emotions.
Third and key to the problem and the intervention is… When doesn't it do this? During what activities is it as if we've pressed "pause"? At what moments does everything seem to flow, and does that sensoriality self-regulate, which the 90% of time keeps distant, distant, and absent?It is of utmost importance to evaluate when this happens (or stops happening) to identify these moments in order to intervene and delay themWe must be very attentive and be able to analyze how in those moments this need is satisfied by another and enhance those moments so that they happen more often.
Perhaps this is the most important key to any intervention because all conduct, whether sensory or not, is fulfilling a function but never is all the time. I usually give a very graphic example when parents come to me for help with their children with behavioral problems that are difficult to "manage," and that's when I tell them we're going to start "rewarding" them. How? Sometimes it's not about looking for positive behaviors, which would be fantastic, but rather when they could be negative but aren't—that's where the reward lies! These behaviors, like many others, act just like sensory behaviors. We often have the default habit of looking for that, the defect, the need, the lack, the next goal that, on many occasions, It is unattainable because we look for it outside the child.
This also happens with language and communication, when a child makes sounds, or says a syllable or simple word we try to find others, or even more words and what we don't realize is that Encouraging those sounds, those syllables, and those simple words is the key to more emerging; they are the ingredients for building future language.
So let's try to focus on what we want to be repeated in our children: moments without self-stimulation, hearing those words or sounds again, seeing them calm again without behavior... and we will have a clear path for the development, whatever it may be, of each of our little ones.