Book recommendations for DS with ASD please?

[nellieellie]

My DS is going through an ASD assessment at 12 yrs old. He has clear ASD traits, although not all of them, which is why he has not yet been diagnosed. I am desperately unhappy about the fact that we seem to be constantly on his case all the time - trying to motivate him re homework, constantly chasing him to get him to get ready for bed/school/meal, nagging him to eat properly, telling him off for ignoring us or not doing as he’s asked. We always try to be patient and use 5 min warnings, visual checklists, prompts, but I need more ideas for strategies. Does anyone know of any good books on ASD aimed at a parent that may help?

The NAS is a good source of information:

www.autism.org.uk/

I would ask if he can do his homework at school.We always had problems with homework. It was explained to me that autistic children live their lives in boxes so they see home things as belonging to home and school things belonging to school. To get round this our son was allowed to do his homework at school at lunch time with support available if he needed it.

Another thing we were told was always say his name first, then he knows you are talking to him.

We used to be very specific in our instructions and start telling DS an hour or so earlier that it would be time to put his things away and get ready for bed at say, 9 o'clock. I also used to set the cooker timer and say "when the beeper goes it is 9 o'clock and you have to get ready for bed." It was a bit tedious but it did work.

Sometimes we assume they have understood what we have said when they haven't. I got into the habit of repeating /simplifying instructions as my son doesn't always understand what is asked of him as he has processing difficulties and can't cope with too much information at a time.

I also used to ask him to repeat back to me what I had just said/asked. If he couldn't do it I knew he hadn't understood and I had to find another way saying it.