MomofThree1975 wrote:
autismdad2011 - Does your daughter need to be moving all the time or only when you are running errands or taking a walk? Apart from wanting to go for a walk, does she show any other signs of being stressed? How does she handle going to school where she has to be somewhere else and can't move around as she would like?
Well, with moving all the time it really depends on the day she has. Going to school and therapy involves a bit of travel so the car ride also keeps her calm. If she misses school or has a day off there is definitely more walking required to keep her calm. also if she's had a busy day then she is fine when she goes out shopping with us without having to keep moving all the time. So I would say she does need approx 1 - 2 hours of some type of movement, either walking or car. At school at times she needs to wander around a bit around the classroom or sometimes she just needs to come outside for a few minutes and then she is fine again.
Her major signal of stress is her twisting her fingers, she's had this issue for a while now and if she keeps doing it constantly we know she is getting stressed about something. she's never done the closing the ears or rocking back and forth but the finger twist is her main giveaway. Being non verbal does make things a little difficult so at times, if we dont pick up on her signals she just drags us out wanting to go for a walk so she has kinda figured it out too that walking or moving calms her down. No one has been able to give us any advice on how to overcome this.
02 Apr 2012, 12:04 pm
