Autism resources: "calm down" bag

B is becoming more and more difficult to engage at school,  This has resulted in something that I produced first for A being revisited.  The calm down bag.  Used whenever A got himself in a state it was given to him and he was given 5 minutes alone to calm down.

The original contained:

bubbles - in order to be able to blow bubbles you have to control your breathing
squishy ball for tactile stimulation; ours was made from balloons and rice - A WILL put it in his mouth and I don't want him swallowing the contents of a commercial stress ball since I don't know what is in it.
chewy tube for oral stimulation. This came from a SEN products specialist and cost about £15.  We have also tried dog toys etc in the past up they don't stand up to being chewed as well as this has; it also has the benefit of being able to fit in the steriliser on those rare occasions when we manage to get it back!
discovery bottle for visual stimulation - we used water/glycerine with chopped up metallic shreds.  But we could have used any of our other bottles - see here for master list.
Dried pasta - again for oral stimulation A likes crunchy things.

This hasn't been necessary  for a couple of years now but over the last year but A has started to take it in again since starting a new secondary school where it lives in "the Blue Room" which is the timeout room for kids with learning difficulties.

B doesn't like to chew like A does, although he has started on his cuffs lately so his version would not have the chewy or the pasta.  Just have to convince the school to let him use it now!

Update September 2018 - four years on and this is now being used properly at school thanks to a new SENCO.  We have since expanded it to include a wobble board which is small enough for B to sit on and so goes into assembly with him to sit on the floor.  Pulling in his core muscles to sit still requires focus and also stimulates the propreoception (sp?) part of his brain. We also get the assistants to do pressure on his shoulders, marching across the room and wall pressups as well.

Italy via the scenic route

Not Italy the country.   Recently I came across this article by someone who described what it is like to have a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland. 

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley  


Not everyone flies to Italy - the scenic route can be good too - see you there!