Autism and Halloween

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

In light of the week that’s in it, I’m going to discuss how Halloween festivities can impact those on the autistic spectrum 🙂

Halloween is designed to be a scary time all around, but if you’re on the spectrum, Halloween can be even more unsettling than you might think. From a sensory perspective, Halloween can be difficult to navigate with the noise from explosive pyrotechnics, the bright lights, open flames, itchy costumes and the unpredictability with potential jump scares and strangers in costume waiting around every corner. On another level, masked faces can also pose a problem given how autists struggle on a normal basis to read social cues and facial expressions.

But just because Halloween can be challenging for an autist, doesn’t mean that it still can’t be fun. Here are some of my top tips for navigating the scary season:

Plan your costume ahead of time– some costumes are made from quite cheap materials which can be quite irritating to an autists sensitive skin, so it’s always best to get your costume ready in advance/get them to wear it round the house to make sure that they will be comfortable in their outfit. Try incorporating specialist interests into the costume as this will help your child feel more at ease as they navigate Halloween festivities. Pro tip– have a backup option with something comfy that you know your child will be happy to wear in case something goes wrong.

Do makeup trial runs– Halloween makeup can be quite irritating and sometimes smelly, so it’s a good idea to do a trial run, particularly if you’re planning anything with liquid latex (you would not believe the smell- I covered half my face in the stuff for a Phantom of the Opera look one year and the smell was so bad it burned my eyes all night!)

Discuss costume options with friends in advance: Children with autism may be scared or may not recognize a friend in makeup/wearing a mask. If they are heading out with a group of friends, have a chat ahead of time so that they will be prepared for the choice of costume and won’t find the change so unsettling.

Get an autism awareness card– for nonverbal autists that are unable to say “Trick or Treat”, you can get some fun Halloween cards that will explain this to show when you knock on a door, which can help make the night a little easier. Check out this this one below for example:

Halloween Autism Awareness Cards - Autism Dog Services

Use sensory aids such as earplugs and sunglasses: These can help to take the edge off the loud noises and bright lights. If you’re feeling self conscious, why not try and incorporate them into your Halloween costume- Halloween is the one night of the year where you can look like an oddball and no one can judge you for it 😉

Head out early– if your child is uncomfortable in the dark, or you want to reduce the chances of them getting overwhelmed by the amount of people out and about, take your child out for early Trick or Treating. Alternatively, you could organize some indoor activities or a mini Halloween party with familiar friends to put your child at ease.

Halloween may be scary for an autist, but it doesn’t mean that you still can’t have fun 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a wonderful Halloween! 🙂

Aoife

October 30, 2020 1

Autism and Fear

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

In light of this spooktacular week, I’ve decided to take a closer look at fear and autism.

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All of the Halloween themed memes floating around on social media this week have put me in mind of how strange some of my childhood fears were in comparison to those of my peers (in fact it’s estimated that as many as 41% of autists tend to have more unusual/irrational fears).

For starters, I was PETRIFIED of comedian Charlie Chaplin! 😛 Absolutely TERRIFIED- he haunted my nightmares for years and I was convinced if I lingered in a dark room for too long that he would come out from the shadows to grab me! In addition to this, I was also irrationally afraid of chemicals and overhead power-lines (so afraid in fact I was convinced just touching the wooden pole would kill you- it was an innocent time before I learned about science and insulators vs conductors!🤓).

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Fear has often been a dominant emotion in my life, fear of what people might think of me, fear of saying the wrong things, fear of losing my cool and melting down in public etc. According to world famous autist Temple Grandin, “the principal emotion experienced by autistic people is fear.”

But is there any scientific reason for this fear? Might autists be biologically predisposed to being more fearful?

When we experience a fearful situation, a biological fear response is triggered in the amygdala of the brain. Activity in this region when exposed to fearful stimuli triggers fear based changes in body functions such as sweating, shortness of breath, fight or flight, paralysis etc.

As discussed in numerous previous posts, changes/dysfunction in the amygdala are regularly attributed to autistic symptoms. So therefore it stands to reason that perhaps these changes in the amygdala may also influence/exacerbate the fear response in autists compared with their neurotypical peers.

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Other studies have also suggested that there is a muted fear response in autists which may explain the lack of perception concerning safety/danger often seen in young autists.

So there we have it, hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings! 😀

Have a great weekend! 🙂

Aoife

November 2, 2018 0

Autism on Screen- Cube

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Today I’m going to talk to you about the portrayal of autism in the 1997 Canadian sci-fi horror film ‘Cube‘ (not the fun TV show! 😛 ).

Cube The Movie Poster Art.jpg

I came across this (apparently) cult film last year when I was researching films featuring autism for a college assignment and decided to check it out.

The film focuses on a group of strangers who wake up in (surprise surprise) a giant cube comprised of a series of interconnecting rooms, each rigged with booby traps with the potential to kill the occupants of the cube. For example, there is a room that upon triggering a motion sensor will cause a wire grille to close in on the unwitting victim and slice them to pieces…

It’s a pretty grim film…

In order to leave, the group must work together to figure out how to escape their deadly prison and crack the puzzle that is the cube.

This film was definitely not my cup of tea (if I were a tea drinker! 😛 ), but hey if you’re into the sci-fi horror genre then check out the trailer and see what you think!

But what has this film got to do with autism?

Well, wouldn’t you know it, the invisible puppeteers who control the cube hand selected their prisoners so that they could combine their skills to navigate the maze, and who did they select? None other than an autistic savant…!

Why?!

This character is key to the prisoners escape as his mathematical skills enable them to calculate how the cube moves so that they can navigate their way to the exit in relative safety…or so they thought!

Buuut I won’t spoil it for you in case you want to see it! 🙂

Sooo aside from yet another stereotypical mathematical savant, how is this films portrayal of autism?

The actor is actually pretty good showing lack of eye contact, stimming and repetitive movements, colour sensitivity etc.; however, once again I felt as though I was watching the same stereotypical character I’ve seen in dozens of films before.

Autism is a spectrum, each character we see on screen should be unique; but I guess Hollywood has yet to get the memo!

These scriptwriters seem to be stuck in a repetitive cube of their own! 😛 😉