Continuing on behaviour issues of persons with autism, in today’s poster I am attempting to touch up on the issue “Routines and Resistance to Change”.
One of the diagnostic criteria for autism is insistence on sameness and an inflexible adherence to routines. Getting down to minute details with things such as placement of toys, or type of food available at certain meals and the order in which they may be eaten etc. This insistence of routine and sameness can be categorised into obsessive and compulsive.
Any deviation from any of these particulars, even one almost undetectable to a neurotypical individual, can result in enormous anxiety and tantrums from as autistic person. Adherence to routine becomes obsessively important and any sort of change is a major cause of alarm.
The world can be very unpredictable and confusing place to autistic people, who often prefer to have daily routine so that they know what is going to happen every day. They may want to always travel the same way to and from school or work, or eat exactly the same food for breakfast.
It may be difficult for an autistic person to take a different approach to something once they have been taught the ‘right’ way to do it. Sometimes minor changes such as moving between two activities can be distressing; for others big events like holidays, starting or changing school, moving house or Diwali kind of festivals, which create change and upheaval, can cause anxiety.
We are living with this situation each and every day of our life. For past many years, we are having only Upma for breakfast on Mondays! Evan a talk on change to any other item, or making Upma on any other day would trigger aggressive tantrums from Pratibha. This is just one instance. Many such situations we face every day with respect to ‘routines and resistance to change’. Many of them are fairly harmless, but many are not easy to deal with.
Some of the changes that irritates the persons with autism could be:
- leaving for school / work a bit early or a bit late,
- having visitors at your house,
- going somewhere new,
- switching between toys, activities or tasks,
- doing things in a different order - for example, having a bath at an unusual time,
- eating new foods,
- cancelling activities - for example, not going to the park because of bad weather…
Unexpected changes are often most difficult to deal with. People on the autism spectrum may not be comfortable with the idea of change, but may be able to cope better if we can prepare them for changes in advance.
If you are able to watch an 8 minutes long, short film ANNA, by Harriett Maire, you will understand “resistance to change” and its implications. Anna is a young woman on the Autism Spectrum who enjoys living a life of rigorous routine. When someone unintentionally sits on her seat on her morning bus, her day is sent spinning out of control. The movie has won Jury Choice award at Cannes.
Here is the link to the trailer of the film..
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