April 27th - You Talking To Me?

Today my boys have displayed the very common issue children with ASD have with attention.  I may as well have been speaking to the neighbours in the street, I'm sure they heard me, unlike my children who were in worlds of their own.  It's very easy for a child with ASD to be labelled ADHD and be popped onto to medication.  For sure medication helps as it would for a true case of ADHD on occasion.  However, just because there are attention issues does not necessarily mean your child is ADHD or warrant medication as the first course of action.  Understanding the causes of the attention issues come from the ASD brain and the sensory system is the first port of call.   

Executive functioning is the area of the brain which controls attention and it is a known area of weakness for children with ASD.    The two attention characteristics which cause regular mayhem in this house are shifting attention and paying attention.  Shifting attention is the ability to stop doing one thing and start another.  The child's ability to shift attention is affected by whether he is focusing his attention so intensely on something he doesn't want to stop.  Or what you are asking him to pay attention to is less interesting than what he is doing.  

Children with ASD either get so engrossed in something that not even a bomb going off near them will distract them, think watching tv, playing the iPad, playing with their favourite toy.  It's a very admirable trait to be able to focus so intensely on something that nothing else distracts you and can be an asset on occasion.  As a mother who wants a child to get ready for school, asking a child with ASD to stop blowing up baddies and shift attention to putting on socks is a bit like asking Kim Kardashian to reveal her bum less often.  It's not really much of an asset.

Their other frequent issue is of course not paying attention.  If you are asking them to go tidy their room then chances are they will suddenly find that toy they never play with fascinating!  Add in the genuine 'I've got something more interesting to do factor' i.e. the tv on and it's like playing tennis with a child's head back and forth trying to get them to focus on some part of your body so  you can say whatever it is you need to.   All they hear is blah blah blah oooh look sparkles!  If I want any chance of order in this house in the morning (ha!) the tv is off even in my room.  Suddenly my boys can find the stock exchange prices on the morning news riveting if it means ignoring me.  

Focussing attention on one thing is also a potential health hazard.  Prior to Long Legs' party, he kept sneaking into the kitchen to pinch the mini chicken pies I was cooking ready to box up and take to the kart track.  Every time I turned around he was sneaking away with one in his hand, I am surprised there were any to take.  Once we got to the kart track he didn't touch one!  He was too busy doing other fun stuff like drive at over 60kms per hour.  I literally had to stick a water bottle under his nose as drinking water to stay alive was clearly an annoyance.   Things like eating and drinking really do go down the list of priorities in their heads until all of sudden they will realise they are gasping the minute you stop their 'fun' activity.

The other reason why they might not be able to pay attention is due to sensory issues.  Either something is bugging them that is taking their attention away from you or they need to seek out something sensory to regulate their system. Long Legs is a serious sensory seeker and he is forever making us late for school because he seeks out sensory input at the start of the day (as soon as he's asked to do something boring like eat breakfast of course) and whilst doing so he goes into a trance like state.  The Short One struggles with paying attention at school because he's very sensitive to things that annoy him.  Add in the poor muscle tone he has and he fidgets from side to side because it hurts him to sit up straight for long periods.  This year his class is trialling a new classroom set up which involves limited desks and lots of beanbags, sofas and rugs on floor.  It seems the ideal set up for helping a child with sensory issues to be able to pay attention.  Unfortunately, this does not help me at home in the mornings so if you hear a holler, you know it's me trying to get my boys' attention :D  Til tomorrow x