05/03/2026
Planning for Success; Build in Accommodations to Lessen Demands
Once you appraise the seven demands that activities present (see post below), you can identify accommodations to lower the challenges. Especially for major sensitivities that will compromise the child. For example, if the activity is going to be noisy, and the child is sensitive to noise, then the child may need to wear earplugs to help mask the noise. When going to a family gathering, if your child cannot handle people talking to them or hugging them, you may want to notify others ahead of time not to hug or ask the child questions. If the child is beginning a new group activity, it may be easier for the child first to sit back and watch from the periphery, and not actively participate, until they feel more comfortable. Or, they may benefit from a peer buddy or adult support to assist with peer interactions. If the activity includes some task performance expectations, it might help to practice these expectations ahead of time to prepare the child. If the child is expected to wait in line, sit quietly, or tolerate boredom, you may need to include their favorite electronics to keep them preoccupied. Sometimes you can modify the event to reduce the processing challenges by inviting fewer people, turning down the noise and lighting, shorting the event, etc. and other times you can provide added assistance (sunglasses for bright lights, peer buddy to coach, etc.) to help support the child through the demands.
The chart below can provide you with a worksheet for pre-planning events, what stressors will be present, and what accommodations (supports) are needed to reduce the challenges.
This worksheet can be used to appraise and predict what barriers an event will pose and plan for accommodations to lessen the drain. Used to evaluate the seven processing demands just discussed. You assess potential challenges and what accommodations could be made to support each challenge. Obviously, you cannot do this for every event that occurs. However, for those common and reoccurring events, it is beneficial to lowering the processing demands of daily living.
The first column lists the seven categories of stressors that we just summarized above. It systematically lists the major variables that produce mental and emotional stress. The second column lists specific challenges that may be experienced in these categories. It helps to isolate out and list specifically what challenges could be barriers. The last column provides accommodations or modifications that we hope to build in to lessen the effects of the challenges. This column helps us modify or adapt the activity, so the event is less challenging, matching the event to the processing abilities of the child. Although this chart may seem cumbersome at first, you will quickly learn to appraise situations without the need for the chart. It also helps to use this chart with the child, together assessing and strategizing barriers and supports. This chart allows the children to visualize how activities can be broken down and made more manageable. The more the child understands the stressors and how to reduce them, the more empowered and confident they become.
This example (chart above) includes a birthday party for twelve children at a classmate’s house. As you can see, the event presents many challenges including sensory sensitives of the noise and hectic activity, extensive uncertainty, minimal control, sitting quietly during the unwrapping of gifts, ongoing social interaction and lasts way too long for this child’s processing abilities.
Mom calls the friend’s mother and gets an idea of the sequence of events that they have planned. This way, mom can help prepare her child for what to expect and what will be expected of them. There is a lot of uncertainty since this is the first time the child has attended a party. Together they watch some YouTube videos of birthday parties, unwrapping gifts, and eating birthday cake. They talked about wearing their earplugs to minimize the noise and sitting off to one side to minimize chaos. Mom also thought that sitting off to one side would minimize uncertainty, give the child some degree of control, and reduce the amount of socializing for them. Mom knew they would have problems sitting still while the birthday child unwrapped gifts. She asked the parents ahead of time if her child could be responsible for handing the birthday boy the gifts to unwrap. This gives her son a role that keeps him sitting and staying in one place. Mom knew that staying two hours would be too much for her child. She decided to arrive late and leave early. This shortened the time and avoided the chaotic transition of everyone arriving and leaving.
This article was published in the brown¬¬¬ book, “The Autism Discussion Page on stress, anxiety, shutdowns, and meltdowns”
https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Discussion-Anxiety-Shutdowns-Meltdowns/dp/178592804X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=bill+nason&qid=1553451610&s=gateway&sr=8-3
