Simple is the way to go when severe anxiety takes hold

As we went out today Ellie told me she wanted to go to Gregs cafe and have an iced bun and a hot chocolate. Quickly I made a folder, 'Gregs cafe' and literally just put the sentence order of food she wanted, this meant far less anxiety when communicating to the staff at the bakers. Ellie doesn't like to press the sentence bar yet, she prefers to show it to whomever, but that's fine, we can work on the voice side of things later. 

Repetitive, maybe, worthwhile, definitely, age appropriate....oh yes 😀

Had some friends over today. This meant we had 4 children of differing special needs all together. I had put an art table up, we also had some music to dance to on....this was okay, but bluebell spent the time looking out of the window, it was quite obviously far too overwhelming for her.

I decided to redirect her to her iPad, she came and sat at the table with us, and predictably, pressed the same old, same old, 'I want boyfriend ******'. This caused much hilarity with her friends, this then led to writing boys names down, and a general laugh and chat about boys. Typical teenage behaviour if you ask me 😉

Keeping the set up appropriate for the environment. One size doesn't fit all.....

Bluebell has selective mutism as well as autism. The selective mutism causes extreme anxiety, it's not through choice, it's huge and stops her doing so much. After our slt appointment, the slt said bluebell could use the advanced core set up. Yes, no problem.......at home........but take her out of our environment and she NEEDS basic, complete basic. We have decided to work on asking for a hot chocolate in our regular tea rooms every week. (Poor me eh!!) I'm pleased to say she did it.....we've been twice now, and today she was far less anxious than last time. 

As you can see this set up is extremely easy. It needs to be to help with Bluebells anxiety. Bluebell didn't want to press the 'speak' box, but that's fine, she turned the iPhone around so staff could read the sentence.