What they don't know can fill volumes
A recent article aims to highlight key emotional challenges faced by autistic children and teens, yet provides an incomplete picture that risks misinforming parents. Whilst covering important concepts like emotional recognition difficulties and outbursts from rigid thinking or sensory issues, the article fails to address the common comorbidity of alexithymia in autism. This omission problematically skews understanding of behaviours in autism and appropriate support strategies.
Alexithymia, characterised by struggles identifying, describing, and sourcing emotions, frequently co-occurs in autism. When combined with hyper-empathy also common in autistic populations, intense “emotional overload” can occur from absorbing others’ feelings without the ability to process or communicate one’s own. The result is emotional dysregulation and meltdowns. Yet with proper understanding of alexithymia’s role, such behaviours can be better accommodated through environmental adaptations easing sensory / social demands.
Self-awareness and self-regulation of emotions are paramount for autistic individuals with alexithymia and hyper-empathy. Building skills in these areas alongside tailored home and classroom ecologies facilitating security and calmness is vital. Such nuances are lost when alexithymia goes unaddressed, hence this article review aiming to spotlight that gap and provide complete, accurate information to parents and educators.
Intentional Self-Regulation
Caring for an autistic person experiencing emotional regulation challenges can undoubtedly provoke feelings of stress and frustration for partners, parents, teachers, and caregivers. However, it is vital that we as adults model effective self-regulation strategies ourselves first and foremost. The Self-Regulation Strategy Development model outlines an incremental approach we can apply: initially focusing on self-monitoring of feelings and triggers, then progressing to self-control via techniques like mindfulness or self-talk to manage reactions. Only once able to self-regulate should we aim to impart emotional skills coaching to guide others. Creating a safe, calm environment also relies on us building self-awareness, planting our feet first before supporting others. Remember, our meltdowns often reflect the energy we absorb from those unregulated people we encounter throughout the day.
As we build inner stability through conscious self-monitoring and management of our own reactions, we establish the foundation to construct outer support systems for an autistic person’s growth. Specifically, deliberately engineering accommodating environments to ease sensory, social, and cognitive demands. Understanding alexithymia’s role alongside autism brings nuanced insight on behaviours and adapting surroundings appropriately. Given that children and teens spend the majority of their day at school, the classroom ecology proves critical in this regard - configuring spaces promoting serenity through mindful color palettes, lighting, acoustic regulation, and layout organisation attuned to student needs. Such purposeful structural modifications enable self-driven self-soothing and focus. They demonstrate in tangible form that difference is embraced rather than corrected. Home environments benefit equally from such neurodivergent-conscious design. When our inner weather is calm, we can thoughtfully harness that clarity to shape the storms swirling around autistic loved ones. We cultivate the conditions allowing their own inner skies to clear.
Therapy is not always fit for purpose
Whilst techniques like social stories and sensory tools hold promise for building emotional skills, the article overlooks challenges autistic gestalt processors (aka non-verbal - like me) face in therapy itself. Modern therapy generally ignores the way in which we process information - perceiving situations as interconnected wholes rather than discrete parts. We grasp meaning from contextual interrelations. Yet, we often lack the appropriate “scripts” that facilitate typical back-and-forth dialog. This complicates therapy's verbal question and answer norms. Without accommodations allowing intermittent pauses to internally synthesize bigger picture significance, we often struggle articulating in-the-moment responses. Our reflections only fully form once leaving the emotionally stimulating setting. Resultantly, therapy often centres around surface behaviours rather than our wider inner ecosystem so desperately needing to be heard. Rethinking protocols to embrace, not pathologise, divergent processing styles allows our authentic voices to guide our own emotional growth. The integrity of difference must not get lost in pursuit of regulation.
Final thoughts
Whilst containing certain valuable strategies, the non-autistic author of this article inherently presents an incomplete “outsider” view. Lacking lived experience of being autistic and raising an autistic child, inevitable gaps permeate the guidance offered. Most concerningly, no mention of co-occurring alexithymia which profoundly impacts behaviour and necessary support. This glaring omission potentially misdirects parents down less effective paths.
Equally, the insistence on conformity and regulation fails to validate autistic individuals’ authentic ways of being. Difference is still implied as deficiency. Such framing stems from neurotypical-centric mindsets limiting diversity. If autistic people wrote guidance for autistic people (here I am), diversity would undoubtedly take center stage over enforcing rigid normality standards.
If we truly wish to help autistic children flourish, we must uplift autistic adults’ voices to lead such discussions. As both advocates and parents in their own right, we hold invaluable insights to dispel myths and shape accurate understanding. Going forward, publications around autism must actively seek out contributions from those living this reality daily. Only by embracing leadership from the inside will we gain wisdom to nurture untapped potential rather than narrowly contain square pegs in round societal holes.