Everything here comes from real time spent in real homes and classrooms with autistic children. No jargon, no lectures, just strategies that work.
Show, don’t just tell
When you want your child to do something, show them. Don’t just say it, do it alongside them, or model it first.
Seeing what you mean is often far clearer than hearing it. A demonstration removes the guesswork.
Fewer words, clearer message
Long sentences can bury the instruction that matters. Strip it back to the key words.
Instead of “can you put that rubbish in the bin now,” try “put in the bin.” Or just “bin.” The shorter version gets heard.
Get down on their level and play
If your child is pushing a train along the track, push it with them. If they’re spinning, spin. If they’re building, build.
Joining in with what they already love is the easiest way into their world, because you’re not asking for their attention, you’re already inside it. While you play, narrate. “Jumping, jumping.” “Here comes the train, choo choo.” Language lands best when it’s tied to something they’re already doing.
Use visuals to show what’s coming next
A photo, an object, a picture — small things that tell a child where they’re going before they get there.
About to change a nappy? Hand them the nappy first. It tells them what’s about to happen before you say a word. Heading to the park? Show them a photo of the park before you leave. The picture does the explaining your words might not.
Stay consistent
Routines and boundaries only work if they hold. If jumping on the bed isn’t allowed today, it can’t be fine tomorrow.
Inconsistency isn’t just confusing, for a lot of autistic children, it’s genuinely distressing. Predictability is kindness here.
Pay attention to sensory needs
Autistic children experience the world through their senses very differently to how you might. Some are hypersensitive, picking up everything, all at once, overwhelmingly. Others are hyposensitive, barely registering input that would stop most of us in our tracks.
Look around the room the way they might be experiencing it: the lights, the noise, the smells, the hum of a fridge, a scratchy label, the texture of food. None of it is trivial to them. Reducing what’s competing for their attention can make a real difference to how well they’re able to concentrate, or simply cope.
Let food be pressure-free
Introduce new foods, but don’t push if your child really resists. Textures, smells and tastes that seem ordinary to us can be genuinely uncomfortable for them, and food can carry a lot of anxiety as a result.
Give them room to explore food away from the table and away from expectation. Cooked pasta, dry cereal, flour – messy play at a non-mealtime lets them investigate on their own terms, with nothing riding on whether they eat it.
Try Intensive Interaction
Intensive Interaction is a way of building early communication and connection with autistic children and those with complex needs, and it starts by letting the child lead.
They might say a word, make a sound, move in a certain way. You respond by joining in, echoing, copying, following their lead rather than your own. It becomes something close to a conversation, held entirely at their level. It’s simple, and it works. We’ve built some of our strongest relationships with children this way. You can find more in this video from Intensive Interaction founder Dave Hewett.
Behaviour can be communication
When a child’s behaviour is telling you something’s wrong, it’s worth pausing to ask what. Sometimes you’ll know straightaway. Sometimes you won’t, and that’s alright too.
It could be sensory overload. It could be confusion about an object or activity, a toy removed without warning, or one they can see but can’t have. It could be a bid for connection, or an attempt to avoid something. It could be pain, anxiety, or something rooted further back, in trauma.
Once you have a sense of the reason, you can plan around it. If the sight of the iPad sets off a ‘meltdown’, keep it out of view until it’s iPad time. If a child seeks your attention by jumping on you mid-task, build that attention into the routine before the task starts i.e. a minute of hand-holding and jumping, then on to the cooking. Predictable access to what they want, offered on your terms rather than theirs, tends to ease the pressure on both of you.
Help them find calm
When a child is dysregulated — properly upset, properly overwhelmed — nothing else matters until they’ve found their way back to calm.
Your own calm does more here than any words. Stay steady, even if you don’t feel it inside. Say less than you think you need to.
Over time, you’ll likely find what helps — a song, a particular blanket, a specific comfort object. Keep a note of what came before the difficult moments too. Patterns tend to reveal themselves, given time and attention.
You know your child better than any page ever could. Take what’s useful here, leave what isn’t and reach out if we can be of any help.
