Social Stories

Autism gives MJ a lot of OCD issues and a tremendous amount of anxiety. One of MJ’s anxieties is anything out of routine. He appreciates a very strict regimented schedule and if we deviate off it is overwhelming to him, he feels out of control, his anxiety hits the roof and he literally cannot function.  It was not uncommon for MJ to burst into tears then quickly escalate to meltdown mode because he felt so out of control of his environment and his situation. We figured out (even before autism diagnosis) after continuous melt downs that preparing him ahead of time seemed to help his anxiety.

We noticed if we mentioned what was going to happen (in any situation) ahead of time it helped him feel prepared. So we experimented to see if we discussed the next day’s activities with him before bedtime if that made a difference giving him more control of his situation and feeling prepared for the next day. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” is now part of our bedtime routine and a nightly question from MJ.

It quickly became a necessity to him and he has now been heavily relying on that part of his nightly routine or (again) he has a melt down and can’t function. What we learned from his neurologist during his autism screening in summer of 2012 is that what we had discovered helps our son simply by trial and error actually had a clinical term and is a very common therapy for children with autism called “social stories”.

I had not researched Autism therapies at that point in his life because he had not been diagnosed and I didn’t want to jump ahead of ourselves. We really were just going by prayer, instinct and trial and error in figuring out what helped our son. I was amazed that God had already led us to a proven method to help our son without even realizing what we were doing. I knew it was Him leading us because I certainly could not have come up with that.

Thank you Lord for the ways you lead us and guide us.  I am so amazed at even the practical ways you provide and the ways you continue to prove you are right there leading and guiding us – even when we don’t realize it until later.  We are counting our blessings each and every day.