This summer I moved with my son to a new home. We stayed in another house way longer than I should have because I was avoiding the trauma of the change, it took a year for him to settle in. The day we were moving, my car motor blew, forever....so I had to get a junker car and my son was beside himself. He is older now and does tell us things that bother him sometimes. He was very upset that if he sat in the back there would be no temperature number to watch go up and down when the weather changed. God was watching over me and the stress I was having (we had just had him switch schools after months of trauma in his middle school and needing to be home till the new placement was settled...so MANY changes)...Anyway, somehow the car I got happens to have a temp in about the same place! The car didn't work twenty four hours after I bought it, but heck, the temp thing was there! uggg. He struggled terribly with that new car, he didn't want to ride in it etc. It was not fear, it was change.
BUT he does have many many fears and anxieties. He is now sleeping in his own room but in this new house just as in the other he is afraid of bad guys and people shooting through our walls etc. He is afraid of noises constantly.
I worked with a really high functioning little guy who could NOT step in a different class room than the ones he was used to. If class went to another room to watch a presentation or for a party he literally had to put one toe in and we practiced over days (I was a mainstream consultant as part of my Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) job) if we knew ahead of time. He would panic.
Q was so panicked over bees that my mom bought him one of those bug net hats and he wore it everwhere for several years. (thanks mom, lol....but it worked, he thought a bee wouldn't get him at all if he had that hat on). This past year he stopped riding on horses and just does care and helps the little ones when they ride, he suddenly was afraid. He also became afraid of escalators. We morph through different fears over the years.
Anyway, I think for many kids these types of symptoms are there....more or less, That's why it is a spectrum....some have very minor issues others more severe and the very same symptom can vary in degree.Same is true for most disorders such as ADHD, Tourette's, etc....
Not sure if he is more visual but in a similar plan to MWM, I have used both in schools and with my own son for years and years....little two inch cards on a key ring that had the numbers 3,2,1 and stop and go on them. I said the word minutes but really the specific time didn't matter....So I'd show the three and say...three minutes then all done or then we go or whatever depending on the situation. then after some time (if we were in a hurry, maybe thirty seconds, maybe a few minutes....we show the 2 and say 2 minutes then..... then 1 then we show the go or stop card (again depending on what was going on)
I had a ring with common pictures of what we did too, so had a picture of our car, the bus, the school, our house, grandma, the store, a picture for mc Donalds or whatever..... so I could then show the picture of that item. Now, my son is verbal...though he learned to talk later, but he does have auditory and language processing difficulty. He mostly uses verbal language to communicate but those visuals took so much stress out of our lives. IT is their first schedule really.
It is sooo simple to have on a name tag necklace around your neck. on that same necklace I always had a card with the "five point scale" or whatever one we were using at the time. IF you look that up online it is really useful for helping them to learn to regulate their emotions.
For the little ones another great program is "how does your engine run"....it is similar but helps them identify when they need to slow their engine etc.
You have been through a lot. Lucky kid to have a mom who gets it so much
