Time to get your child with autism ready for the holidays

Another winter holiday season is just around the corner. It’s both a hectic time and one that we look forward to, mostly because we get to spend time with family and friends, sink our teeth into comforting food, take part in fun activities, and maybe even open a present or two.

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the many celebrations and traditions that are celebrated this time every year are anything but routine for kids with autism. Instead, all the festivities are often seen as an unwelcome disruption to their daily routines, which can lead to a great deal of anxiety for them and cause them to act out.

Science hasn’t revealed a neurological basis for why kids with autism find comfort in routines. One practical reason is that autism often comes with sensory and verbal communication deficits that make it difficult for a child to quickly grasp and make sense of the unfamiliar. Knowing that, it’s easy to see how anything new or any deviation from the routines of everyday life could be scary for a child with autism.

ABA therapy helps children with autism manage change better.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, the gold standard autism treatment, has proven over decades in practice to help children manage change better and build routines that reinforce positive behaviors. ABA also helps kids learn important social and communication skills that enable them to talk through changes in their life (planned and unplanned), and ultimately, work towards independence and self-confidence.

To learn more about ABA therapy and how it benefits children as young as two, search the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence® (BHCOE) directory to find an accredited ABA therapy provider in your area. Early intervention is key.

If you live in the North Texas or the Boulder (CO) areas, you’ve got a partner in The Behavior Exchange. Our autism and ABA therapy experts have earned our center-based practice the highest accreditation possible as a BHCOE. Contact us anytime. We’re here to help!

Steps parents can take to create a happier holiday season for their child with autism

In addition to enrolling their children in ABA therapy, parents can do their part at home to minimize holiday stressors for their child.

The first and best thing you can do is to tell your child about what’s going to happen during the holidays. Prepare them a couple weeks in advance so they won’t be caught off guard. By introducing them to activities your family will be doing, places you might be going to, and people you might be visiting, these normal holiday situations won’t be a surprise to them. They’ll have time to take it all in, become more comfortable with it, and be more prepared when their routine changes.

Tips to prepare for holiday plans:

  • Gradually introduce your family’s holiday plans to your child. You don’t want to overwhelm them all at once. However, repeating the information is good. Children with autism need and like repetition.
  • Use visual aids, like social stories and calendars, to tell your child about how their routine will change during the holidays. Children with autism are more comfortable communicating through pictures and written words versus through talking and using social skills.
  • Include things your child likes in your holiday plans to give them some control and reassurance about what’s going to happen.

Another thing you can do as a parent of a child with autism is to stick to your routines as much as possible during the holidays. This might seem obvious, but it’s easy to lose sight of what’s right in front of you when you’re busy.

Tips to keep a routine in motion:

  • Even if you’re traveling, try to keep bedtime the same time every night and continue to the same routine as if you’re were at home.
  • The same goes for meals and morning routines. If you’re eating at someone else’s house, just let your host know about your child’s likes and dislikes, so they can try to accommodate them. You could also bring food you know your child will eat with you. Your host will understand either way.
  • When you’re away from home during the holidays, be sure to have a toy or two that your child likes on hand that they can use for comforting themselves if needed.

Lastly, when the holidays are in full swing, give your child with autism (and yourself) breaks and some down time. Meltdowns will likely happen. Giving your child a chance to step away can help minimize challenging behavior.

Tips to minimize problem behavior:

  • When you’re visiting a holiday destination or another person’s home, find a room or location beforehand where your child can safely go for some quiet time away from the holiday crowd.
  • Show the space to your child and tell them how they should let you know when they need to use it.
  • Place toys and other things your child likes to play with in the quiet place, ready for them to use during their downtime.

We hope you enjoyed this article. Please let us know if you have any questions about what you’ve read or just in general about preparing your child for the holidays. Our expert team of holiday helpers is ready to lend a hand!

If there’s one thing you take away, please make it this: You’re not alone. The best ABA therapy teams can help you with all of these extra holiday to-dos and make this time of year a little merrier and brighter for your whole family.

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Ashvina attended University of Bombay and graduated with a Bachelors of Commerce. She got her Montessori Diploma in 1985 and taught ever since. Ashvina came to TBE in January of 2016 as Admin Assistant. During the years she got the opportunity to learn and work in different departments such as HR, Finance, Office Manager and Executive Assistant. Last summer TBE bought billing in house and her current focus area is Revenue Cycle Management. She is detail oriented and enjoys working with people. Ashvina volunteers to deliver meals to seniors and local shelters on the weekend. She loves to spend time with her family and grandkids. Ashvina loves her job because she enjoys hearing different points of view, and she feels her contributions help fuel the direction of our company.

Working with children comes naturally to Angela. Her mom was a special education teacher for 30 years and often had Angela join her for Take Your Child to Work Day. And in high school, Angela spent every summer as the nanny for a little boy with an autism spectrum disorder. It was this experience where her passion for working with children with autism started to blossom.

From there, she went on to graduate from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Sciences. She learned about Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in a non-normative development class and from that moment knew that ABA would be her life’s work.

Angela moved to the DFW area shortly after and began working at The Behavior Exchange as a therapist. She worked on her Master’s in Behavior Analysis at the same time. A year after graduating, she earned certification as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

Now, as a Clinical Director at The Behavior Exchange, she brings a life-long passion to her work, holding a special place in her heart for children with limited language skills and working closely with families to develop healthy sleep habits.

Danielle’s passion for working with families is deeply personal and from the heart. Her younger brother has an autism spectrum disorder, and through their journey as a family, she found her purpose in life as an advocate for individuals with special needs.

After graduating from the University of North Texas with a degree in Human Development and Family Studies, Danielle began volunteering at The Behavior Exchange. She saw passionate therapists, meaningful change for clients, and families with hope for the future. After a summer of volunteering, she officially joined the team as Director of Admissions and found her home with The Behavior Exchange family.

With her extensive experience working as a client advocate with insurance providers, Danielle perseveres to help individuals of all ages and abilities receive the services they need to reach their full potential. She feels truly honored by each and every family who entrusts The Behavior Exchange to be part of their journey and is committed to the organization’s core values, mission, and goal of being a beacon of hope for the community.

Adam has always had a passion for helping individuals of all ages thrive and reach their full potential. He’s also an enthusiastic musician, songwriter, leader, and devoted family man, who has been helping children and team members grow with The Behavior Exchange since 2010.

Prior to joining the team at The Behavior Exchange, Adam was a mortgage loan consultant and grad student, pursuing his master’s degree in Education at the University of North Texas. He graduated in 2013 and also earned a graduate academic certificate in Autism Intervention. The following year, after years as a Behavior Therapist and seeing first-hand the power of ABA and the meaningful impact it can have on children and their families, Adam became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. He then commenced from the Stagen Leadership Academy after completing the Integral Leadership Program (ILP), a 52-week practice-based program designed to develop executives serious about transforming themselves, their teams, and their organizations.

Adam is truly grateful to be a part of a dynamic, inspiring and compassionate team, and he’s dedicated to bettering the lives of all children and their families through the delivery of the highest quality of ABA services, while supporting the amazing team at The Behavior Exchange.

Soraya is from South Africa and moved to Texas in 1996. She graduated from The University of Texas and pursued a career, at that time, in Education. Soraya taught at a Montessori school for a few years and then took on a leadership role.

During her time in the education system, Soraya realized her passion was to assist children with special needs. So she joined The Behavior Exchange as a therapist, transitioned into a supervisory role in 2017, and a year and a half later, was promoted to Clinical Operations Manager.

She quickly learned the ins and outs of ABA operations and scheduling and successfully collaborates across departments to ensure The Behavior Exchange continues to provide quality services to clients and their families. She’s thankful to be part of such an amazing organization and excited to see what the future holds.

You could say Walter’s career started when he spent hours as a young child drawing superheroes and coloring maps. This passion, along with extraordinary swimming skills, landed him a full swimming scholarship at Texas Christian University, where he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Graphics.

During the next 13 years, his design and art direction skills, conceptual-thinking abilities, and marketing-savvy know-how were honed at a few prestigious advertising and marketing agencies around the Dallas area. In the mid 2000s, he helped his wife Tammy Cline-Soza (founder and CEO of The Behavior Exchange) create a unique and concise brand for her new business. From logos and websites to uniforms, brand voice and visuals, Walter has been the main creative force for all things The Behavior Exchange.

Aside from giving birth to The Behavior Exchange brand, Walter is helping Tammy raise two amazing, beautiful children, River and Sierra. In his spare time (the two minutes he’s got per week), you can find Walter illustrating iconic landmarks of Dallas and Texas or looking around for this next open-water swim. Once he gets back in shape.

After 20 years of building The Behavior Exchange, literally from the ground up,
Tammy couldn’t be more proud of the team, culture, and organization that it has become.

As a family helping families, The Behavior Exchanges looks for opportunities that will make the biggest impact and produce life-changing outcomes – for clients, families, and even for team members. Tammy believes that if a team, a family, a community takes care of each other, the possibilities are endless and the relationships built along the way can make life more enriching and challenges easier to navigate. You could say her goal has been to build a kind of utopia full of support, love, and expertise that brings the best services possible to the community and ensures more families have access to those services.

Tammy and her family have dedicated their lives to the mission of The Behavior Exchange and continue to grow, learn, cultivate, challenge, support, and create better models for success. To that end, she is committed to her own leadership development and actively participates in advanced training, mentoring, and deep self-exploration on how to live out her purpose to love and support her family and help others reach their full potential. She takes her position very seriously and tries to serve as a channel for what the universe wants to come to fruition.

She also loves travel, gardening, being creative, MUSIC!, tennis, yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, being in nature, adventures, and more than anything, spending time with her husband Walter and their two beautiful children, River and Sierra.