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When it comes to the autistic spectrum, everything can be heightened, especially fear. As a mom who has observed for years, my best guess is that fear is connected to the sensory bombardment that comes with what is feared. My son Peter, 10, is still battling his fear of thunderstorms, which spiraled out of control this stormy summer. He says the thunder is too loud. The lightning makes his brain surge. Now he is facing this fear while trying to cope with fifth grade.
It did not take long before his teacher was contacting me about Peters distraction level. I had filled her in a bit about Peters new level of fear before the email but was hoping the classroom environment might serve as a distraction from the weather. Sometimes, Peter treats each of his environments differently and has his fear in only one location. We were not that lucky this time.
Peters educational team (teacher, speech therapist and social worker) jumped into action. He and his speech teacher wrote a book about Peter and the weather. The ending has Peter realizing the weather always changes, but he can handle the change. His teacher put the last page of the story on all of the windows in the classroom so that when Peter checks on the weather, he is reminded of the story. He also reads the whole story when he needs to truly calm down.
As we all brainstormed, we thought maybe Peter should give a weather report as part of his morning meeting. It took a bit of cajoling (and the promise that he did not have to wear a suit) to convince Peter that it was a good idea. On Monday, he used a graphic from a weather app on the iPhone on his classrooms SmartBoard. By midweek, he was calmer in school and asked for a better weather app because he wanted a more detailed graphic. By Friday, Peter was using a pointer to do his weather report and had added a radar map. Piece by piece he is eliminating fear with knowledge and maybe learning something for the future at the same time.
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