1Nov

Special needs kids may need extra help on Halloween

By Tomasz Stasiuk, November 1st, 2008 | Personal Stories | 3 Comments

Having a happy Halloween may be especially difficult if you have a special needs child. K. Sayford-Wilson writes about the problems her child has.

Our youngest child has sensory integration problems with developmental delays and also a speech disorder called developmental apraxia. These challenges limit her ability to process information, so the way in which she understands information is different from the way other children would understand information. Telling a typical child that a scary, angry-looking skeleton half-buried in the ground is only plastic might work. Telling a special needs child with sensory integration problems and a speech disorder that it is plastic and will not hurt her – may not make any sense to her. The child may not be able to handle the sensory overload and may just run away (ours did).

…

On Halloween, we avoided all houses with any scary decorations or music – and avoided all people in scary costumes. When our child started whining about “go home,” we honored her request.

If you are thinking of putting up a scary display, please remember that your scary Halloween display can be extra scary for young kids or children with special needs.

I do not want to tell anyone not to have a fun Halloween, including having a scary Halloween. There are ways to balance family friendly and scary.

Several of my neighbors handle this by having a “haunted” garage or back yard. Younger children can trick-or-treat at the front door while older kids can opt-in for the scarier sights and sounds.

Halloween “tricky” for Phila mom with special needs child.

Tomasz Stasiuk is the founding attorney of the Stasiuk Firm - a law firm devoted to exclusively handling Social Security disability cases in Colorado. Contingent fees available.

http://www.patrickxfce.vox.com Patrick

Halloween was a bit of a challenge for our son Josh who has PDD-NOS(an Autism Spectrum Disorder). The school cafeteria was extra noisy that day and the guys who man it were using the microphone to make scary noises. Most of the kids loved it, but Josh did not and he had a bad day the rest of that day.

Most of the time, though, he is fine at school. He had an awesome day yesterday(see post at http://www.fightinggale.vox.com)

Thanx

Patrick in Tennessee
kari

Totally agree with your post, I know my apraxia child is scared of masks that just her other siblings put on and they all laugh about how scared the 4 yr old apraxia child is but to me I feel she needs not be scared i try to put away masks and decor that scares her and she is scared of other costumes as well, she also most days will scream at the top of her lungs she doesnt want me touching her hair, gets me up at least 3x a night for a drink, has temper tantrums throws things, doesnt want other kids to sit in chairs pulls them out and screams throws something if they dont do it. I try to explain to her but she cannot talk that well so again all frustration and stress for us parents with the apraxia now i have a slp that after 2x seeing my daughter states she doesnt have it i didnt sit threw a 4 hour dr appt with a speciality clinic that diagnosed her having this as well as some types of autism with fits and rages and not doing motor stuff correctly for a slp to tell me she doesnt have this disorder she now is starting to sign like moves hand to mouth for drink, this is hard for us parents as im sure you know also.
kari

Totally agree with your post, I know my apraxia child is scared of masks that just her other siblings put on and they all laugh about how scared the 4 yr old apraxia child is but to me I feel she needs not be scared i try to put away masks and decor that scares her and she is scared of other costumes as well, she also most days will scream at the top of her lungs she doesnt want me touching her hair, gets me up at least 3x a night for a drink, has temper tantrums throws things, doesnt want other kids to sit in chairs pulls them out and screams throws something if they dont do it. I try to explain to her but she cannot talk that well so again all frustration and stress for us parents with the apraxia now i have a slp that after 2x seeing my daughter states she doesnt have it i didnt sit threw a 4 hour dr appt with a speciality clinic that diagnosed her having this as well as some types of autism with fits and rages and not doing motor stuff correctly for a slp to tell me she doesnt have this disorder she now is starting to sign like moves hand to mouth for drink, this is hard for us parents as im sure you know also.