There's a strange myth that children with autism are less emotional than other children I'm not quite sure where that myth comes from, but the truth seems to be that many people on the autism spectrum are MORE emotional, more sensitive, and more prone to tears.
Sometimes, children are responding to intense sensory overloads. Sometimes they misinterpret words and body language and react with great passion. Sometimes they correctly interpret others and feel the pain of being different. Whatever the reasons, autistic children can respond to small things with tremendous intensity.
What's the best way to help a child with autism to handle their emotions? In this article, Drs. Robert Naseef and Cindy Ariel offer support and suggestions to parents.
Do you have a very emotional child on the autism spectrum? What's helped your child to manage and understand his feelings?
It’s hard to understand why people still think that autistic children are emotionless or compassionless? In my experience, the very opposite is true.
Thanks for the post. Cheers
The reason why people with autism are said to be less emotional than other people is that their emotions tend to be more about themselves, their own feelings and their like or dislike of a particular situation. In general, they are far less responsive to other people’s emotions and feelings. This is part of what we call emotion. My son, when he was younger, had meltdowns when he was frustrated, but he seemed to have only two moods — very frustrated and very happy. And he didn’t tune into other people’s feelings. There is a big difference with being sensitive to your own internal state, and being in touch with others. This is the biggest problem facing many people with autism. I’m happy to say my son has improved a great deal in this area. But my friend’s son, with high-functioning autism, just turned 21, still has meltdowns, but doesn’t understand how to consider the needs and feelings of others.
My 11 year old son has intense meltdowns. He can be OK one minute and physcially attacking us the next.
He is fairly well in touch with our emotions because he uses them to torment us with.
Very hard to live with at times.
The American Institute of Stress and The Centers For Disease Control have both reported that up to 90% of all illnesses are due to stress. For many years I experienced several life threatening chronic illnesses. I found the Institute of HeartMath and discovered that all of these illnesses were due to stress and anxiety I had been experiencing in my life.
I have a 15 year old son that is autistic and he is very emotional. But I had seen a movie called “Molly” and there is a part in this movie that explains the view of emotion from an autistic person. It is the best part of the movie. If any of you haven’t seen it check it out. If any of you have seen it wouldn’t you agree with autism, our children show us the full emotion of happiness, anger, sadness,excitment, etc…Where we (typical ones) tend to be more reserved because we are afraid of what people will think? With Autism, who cares what people think, this is who they are. A part of me thinks why can we be like them more towards the happiness and exitement. Why can’t we just let it all go?
I think the myth has something to do with limited facial expressiveness being part of the diagnostic criteria. My son’s facial expressions are mostly happy or mad, but he seems to be learning to give his other emotions an appropriate face — they don’t come naturally but rather look a little like theatre acting.
I have an 8 yrd old son with autism. People yell at me in the store if he has a major meltdown. I just hand them a document that explains autism. If they cannot read the document then they too have a disablity….Just saying