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Sunday, January 8, 2017

Proactive vs. Reactive Strategies

Normalizing family life is a tall order with a child with learning differences. I can remember thinking, that "this shouldn't be that hard." My son has high functioning autism. It is not a significant disability. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, it was hard and it would continue to be.







There are many strategies but I found that proactive interventions were helpful as I anticipated potential problems. As structure and Predictability were added to the mix, anxiety decreased and life became manageable. Some proactive strategies included visual cues, motivation with reinforcement plans, sensory lifestyle, routines and language cuing. You might say, "I'm not sure that I understand what these strategies include." Don't worry, we'll take each one and explore tit over the next few weeks.

Just for as a point of reference, without proactive strategies, the alternative is reacting to anxiety and crisis in the moment. It create the following behaviors: meltdowns, strong emotions, sensory overload and general chaos.

Join me next week as we look at ways visual information can be a way to plan ahead to create more structure and Predictability and greater calm in your home.




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