Kim Singleton
About twenty years ago, I worked as an autism consultant in a large school district. This was during the era of time-out rooms, before schools widely discussed the harms of isolation and well before sensory rooms became common. A special education teacher brought a seven-year-old boy to the time-out room, and I met them there. … Read more
Most schools hold a fire drill during the first month of the year. Administrators plan it. They know the date and the time. In theory, nobody else does, because part of the point is to practice what to do when an alarm is unexpected. That is often not how it goes. The administration wants the … Read more
When we talk about supporting autistic learners with change, we often focus on preparing them for what will happen next. Catching change starts somewhere slightly different. Years ago, I developed and ran a summer day camp for autistic campers, along with their siblings and friends. At the time, I did not have a word for … Read more
“He Does That All the Time at Home” What I Heard for Forty Years and Did Not Challenge It comes early in the meeting, usually while the present levels are being reviewed and someone is reading aloud a list of what the child does not yet do. A parent says it. Sometimes it is a … Read more
Over the years, I have heard parents, teachers, and therapists say: “We tried AAC, but she just threw it.”“I show him which picture to choose, but he pushes my hand away.”“He has the AAC device, but he says the same thing over and over and over.” These moments can be deeply discouraging. Families may have … Read more
A teacher sits down on Sunday night to plan for an autistic student who has been struggling. She already understands that behavior is communication. She knows regulation comes before reasoning. She has moved away from reward charts and consequences and is trying to build support around safety, relationship, and autonomy. Then she opens her laptop … Read more
A child returns to the same three songs. Talks about trains through every conversation. Memorizes television episodes, studies maps, focuses on video games, sorts figures, or watches the same short video again and again. Adults often notice the repetition first. We may worry that the interest is taking up too much space. We may try … Read more
Early in my career, I used to stand in front of rooms full of parents—though, in those rooms, they were usually mothers—and tell them that autism affected about 1 in 10,000 children. I believed it. It was the number I had been given, and I repeated it with the confidence of someone who thought she … Read more
You have probably noticed this. Your child is melting down, shutting down, running, screaming, pacing, or completely frozen. You want to help. You start talking, redirecting, offering choices, explaining, trying to make it better. And sometimes, the more urgently you try to help, the harder the moment becomes. That does not mean you are doing … Read more
You’re tired. Not the tired that sleep fixes. The tired that comes from bracing for the next hard moment. From trying to keep everyone safe. From wondering whether today will be the day your child throws something, hits, runs, crashes into you, chews through another shirt, or falls apart over something that seemed small from … Read more