EMOTIONAL
BONDING AND AUTISM
(developed
by Veronique Bure)
Autism being often defined solely as a social and emotional disorder, it is often understated than children with autism are unable to form attachment, or only capable to relate emotionally in a very restricted way to a very small number of people.
In my practice I have repeatedly witnessed children with autism developing meaningful bond with their therapist and most of all I have found that without any emotional bond with the educator the child cannot progress.
When given the opportunity, after having interacted with different therapists and educators over a 3 to 4 weeks period, a child spontaneously indicates a preference for working with a specific adult. This bond enables the child to progress faster. The connection to the preferred adult is steady, and the child never gets confused by a change of clothes or of location in the room.
It seems accurate to state that for a child with autism, the bonding process with other children is impaired and far more complex to achieve. Children with autism seem oblivious of their peers and would most of the time relate to them only through toys manipulation or as a response to an unpleasant noise they would be producing.
The expression of positive emotion toward another person is often hindered by the child’s low capacity for faces recognition and further more by a real inability to translate facial expressions and body language into meaningful communication. Therefore it takes more time for a child with autism to acknowledge the presence of a newly introduced adult in his//her environment and to start relating to that person. The child with autism takes in clues, in order to evaluate a new person in his environment, that are atypical and very personal.
New contact often triggers a deluge of sensorial information (auditory, olfactory,tactile, visual) which overwhelms the child. He is unable to regulate the emotions triggered by the sensory inputs and incapable of displaying an appropriate behavior to express his discomfort. He, most of the time, retrieves in repetitive or self stimulatory behaviors, They seem to help him regulate and adjust even though most of these deportments are socially inappropriate ( hand flapping, rolling of the eyes, pressing hands on ears, jumping, aberrant and or self directed language and utterances are the most frequently seen.)
Like a typical child, a child with autism is always very sensitive to being praise and loves to please the adult. It is very arduous for a child in the spectrum to know how to achieve this. A child with autism requires to be shown, in a very explicit manner, how to express emotions and feelings as well as how to demonstrate affections and aversions.. This can be done by labelling the child’s feelings( or emotions) while he displays them through aberrant behaviors.
The socially inadequate behaviors are an indication of the child’s arousal. They should not be blankly suppressed but slowly modified, and translated into communication tools. They are a good indicator of the child’s motivations and awareness of his environment therefore they are a good starting point to interact with the child.
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