8 Steps to Easier Transitions for Autistic Young People

One issue that parents sometimes raise with us is the matter of their son or daughter making the transition from one Sunday school class or youth group stage to another. Unless you work regularly with autistic young people, you may not understand the extent of the difficulty this transition causes them. If it happens at the same time as they are changing school class or moving up from primary to secondary school or school to Further Education college (usually at the start of the autumn term), the amount of change in their life may breach by a very long way their capacity to cope with it.

The distress which this can cause them may be invisible to the church leaders, as most of it will take place at home out of their sight. It can include sleep disturbance, nightmares, self-harm, meltdowns, and other disturbed behaviours indicative of distress. Above all it can cause a deep, long-lasting psychological wound that continues to colour their experience of the world for many years to come. It’s not uncommon for parents to be dealing at home with a deeply traumatised young person for two to three years while the church remains blissfully unaware of the distress its systems and procedures have caused. So here are a few suggestions of ways to ease the transition for the young people concerned.

1. Be flexible. If your young people normally go up to the next stage at the start of the autumn term, consider choosing some other time of year for the autistic youngster – perhaps after Easter, when they’ve had a bit of time to adjust to their new class at school, but long enough to get settled in before the summer break.

2. Listen. The best people to advise you are the young person and his/her parents. However much you know about autism, you are not an expert in this particular person. Take seriously what they tell you. If they say, “He won’t sleep for a year if you take this approach” or “She will self-harm so badly that she may end up in hospital if you do it that way” don’t be tempted to think they’re exaggerating or making an undue fuss. They really are just telling it like it is.

3. Prepare very well in advance. Autistic youngsters cope best with change when there is long, careful preparation beforehand. At least a year beforehand, start talking to them about how people of their age move to the next class or stage, and the time will come for them to do this. Reassure them that their familiar friends will be doing the same. It might be wise to avoid phrases like “move up” or “go up” to the next class, as children who use language literally may take this to mean that the class is in a higher place, and be confused when it turns out to be on the same floor. Autistic people can find it difficult to visualise or imagine something they haven’t yet experienced, and this can give rise to anxiety about what to expect. Taking them to visit the new venue and familiarise themselves with it can help with this. Some children may want you to pretend or role-play the change, and some may want this many times over as the change approaches. Follow this link for a great resource, designed for schools, which you could adapt to your church situation and work through with the young person:

4. Use visual means to prepare for the change. Social Stories can be a very useful way of doing this – for an example follow this link to Lynn McCann’s material. This story could easily be adapted to fit with the church youth group or Sunday school environment. Give the child or young person a written programme with accompanying pictures so they can anticipate what will happen in the meeting and how long each item will take.

5. Make the transition gradual. Allow the child to take it at his/her own pace. For some youngsters that might mean only going to the new group once a month for the first year. Others may adapt more quickly than this. Every child is an individual and you will have to take it at their own pace. Don’t try to rush them because the young person and their family will pay the price. Some youngsters may not be ready to make the transition at the same age as their peers, and may need to stay with the younger group for 2-3 years. For others it will be important to be treated as the age they are and stay with their peers. This is another area where you will have to be guided by the young person and their family and be willing to be flexible rather than just imposing your normal “rules”. You may find it useful to have a conversation with the young person’s school teacher so as to develop an approach which is consistent with theirs.

6. Prepare the new group or class. Prepare the environment of the new class or group to ensure that it doesn’t cause undue distress or sensory overload to the autistic young person. Try to have a room that is uncluttered, with ambient lighting, neither too hot nor too cold and with comfortable seating. Lots of artwork on the walls can be confusing and overwhelming for autistic young people. But the other young people may want posters or their own artwork on the walls. One church we know of got round this by having strings along the walls on which items could be pegged. When young people wanted to display items such as their own work, these could be pegged to the strings, but they could be taken down temporarily if they caused sensory overload to anyone in the group.

7. Listen again! You may think you’ve ticked all the right boxes and everything should go smoothly. But young people change (one 9 year old we know of suddenly changed from loving water to having a massive phobia of it). So if the young person seems unsettled or unhappy, or the family come to you and tell you something isn’t working, be prepared to listen, take their concerns seriously and be flexible.

8. Don’t blame the young person. Remember that an autistic person having a meltdown that seems loud, wild or out of control isn’t misbehaving. Telling them off or trying to make them stop it will increase their overload and make the situation worse. Studies have been done tracking the brain activity of autistic people in mid-meltdown. What they revealed is almost identical to the brain activity of epileptic people in mid-seizure. In other words, this is not something the person is doing, but something which is happening to them. They can no more pull themselves together and stop it than a person having a seizure could do. So be patient and understanding. Teach the other young people to be accepting and non-judgemental of their autistic friend, and model these attitudes so that they learn them from you.