to think a child with ASD can't just 'get over' sensory difficulties?

[AlmondAmy]

DD is 3 and is being assessed for ASD. She HATES the wind. She flaps, covers her ears, screams, cries and often falls over. She can't bear the feel of ear defenders but wearing a hat that covers her ears helps a little. However, the sight of things blowing in the wind (I.e. Trees, rubbish etc) also triggers upset so it's incredibly difficult for her to be outside at all if it's even slightly windy. The only way she can vaguely cope is to be carried, held tight with her face buried in my shoulder.

Obviously I haven't gone around shouting about her being under assessment but even those who know (future nursery school teacher, portage worker, health visitor and GP) have all said she'll just have to just get over it. Aibu to think it's really not that simple? Or am I being overprotective?

She won't just get over it, but she/you will have to find ways of working around it so that she can do everyday things. It's incredibly hard. My worst sensory issue is suncream. It makes me want to peel my own skin off. Unfortunately I'm cursed with very fair skin. So I have to find a workaround or I'd have to stay indoors for most of the year.

I think they could phrase it more sensitively and saying that suggests she'll have no help to deal with the issue when I'm sure you'll support her.
my ds is 13 now and what I have found is that most things like this eventually peak (ds was averse to rain at a similar age) and then fade away, unfortunately they're always replaced by something else!

Yanbu-the best advice we got was that the sensory stuff would change as our child grew as would his difficulties. That has been the case so we only target sensory difficulties where they really have to be sorted, for example, hair cutting which despite mammoth efforts is still a sensory hell for poor ds.

Like hedgehog says, you will find ways round. You will decide what you can avoid - for instance my ds hated certain toys. No problem he had others. He still hates me using the hoover - so it mostly gets done when he is at school. He had a lot of sensory issues due to disability but he does not have asd. In time he has got over most of them -,I will never forget his settling in day at school where I told the teacher how much he hated playdoh and his reaction (he used to be sick if he got sensory overload) . Guess what he decided to play with!!

You've just reminded me of when Ds was 3 and had an aversion to plane noise and lawn mowers. We spent that summer with him hitting the decks and shaking with terror every bloody time we went to the park..twas a long summer!

YANBU.

Sensory processing difficulties are not a choice. Things hurt, or overstimulate. DS1 can have a lovely calm day, then go out in an icy wind and become wild and unresponsive. Under those conditions, he'll walk blindly through the dogshit, because his defenses have gone up.

Can you 100% actually quote the future nursery school teacher, portage worker, health visitor and GP as actually saying "She'll just have to get over it"?

Or did they say she (and you) will need to find a way to deal with it?

I can actually relate slightly to your bairn OP I can't stand the wind either.

I have this old Mckenzie coat.. The kind where the arms unzip and it has a huge hood where you can unzip fully so it lies like wings over the shoulders. You can zip it all the way up past the chin so you're sort of looking through a tunnel and not feel the wind at all on the head or face and you only see straight ahead.

I don't even know if you can still get them but something like that might help with this.

My son is 10 and has ASD and sensory issues. He hasn't gotten over it, but he has learned some coping mechanisms. At the age of three I certainly wouldn't have expected him to get over it.

Sensory issues don't just go away - I'm 39 and still have them although coping gets easier.

If they actually used those exact words, I'd be seriously worried about our caring profession, and certainly looking for a new nursery. If they said that you'd need to develop strategies to cope, then they are NBU, not least because it will be exhausting for your dd to deal with.

'Yanbu-the best advice we got was that the sensory stuff would change as our child grew as would his difficulties.'

My two are adults now, the sensory issues have changed over the years. Some have decreased, some they have developed strategies and coping methods for.
For both of them, recognising a specific issue as valid, that it was a problem for them and working with them on how to live with it, how to accommodate it was key. DS was lucky that his secondary school was very willing to build in reasonable adjustments, to help him manage the stress as it arose.
DD internalised everything and often worked out her own strategy so that sometimes I learnt she had a problem with something years afterwards.
I agree with Worra, check what they are actually saying because my first response to 'Get over it' would be 'WTF are you completely clueless?'

Ds 8 uses a sn buggy mainly because of sensory issues when we are out and about. As he gets older he is using it less but we always have to have it there. I think as children get older with the right support (ds coping everywhere has got much better since he started ss) they do learn to manage and self regulate better.

my ds1 is now 14 and seriously most children learn coping mechanisms to deal with a lot of sensory issues. I have a lot of sensory stuff too, They dont go away but when you are able to process what they are, it makes it easier to live with

Ds has sensory difficulties as a educational need on his statement which shows it isn't just a case of getting over it.

A lot of learning to accept them will relate to having a reason or purpose that makes tolerating the distress of the experience worth being willing to approach.

I worked with a child, for example, who found the noise of crowds unbearable, but who had a specific interest that was his passion, so he worked incredibly hard to be able to tolerate going to a convention where he could get specific items he was collecting. In preparing for this and coming up with strategies, he reduced his experience of distress in other areas.

Like everyone, once theres a sensitivity to a certain experience, you can't just magic that away and a huge amount of compassion and empathy for the person suffering is best. However, if you just go with avoiding the distress, over time life becomes very small and opportunities for all sorts of meaningful experiences decrease. So even though it is awfully hard, it has to be approached again and again, and avoiding it will usually make it worse.

Oh.. And obviously some things will not cost as much to control or avoid, so they can be left be. And when you are tired or hungry or angry or stressed, more compassion might be needed.

Sensory issues can develop and change and yes children will, to whatever extent they are capable, develop coping strategies.

Ds1 has Aspergers and at 3 was unable to tolerate sudden loud noises. Lawnmowers, hand dryers in public loos, hoovers, hair dryers - all major issues. Gradually he learned to deal with them and none of them seem to bother him much at all now (age 10). Whether he has developed his own coping strategies or simply become desensitised to them as he's grown older is hard to say.

agree with Diet DS2 hated hand dryers and couldn't abide the feel of fizzy drinks in his mouth when younger now at 10 he's much less bothered by both of these things and will occasionally even have a sip of coca cola