Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter

Through the years we have been implementing different accommodations that we use for our autistic daughter. I have complied a list of the ones we use daily to make her life a little easier. Maybe they can work for you or your child too!

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Visual Schedule and Activity Board.

This is something that we use daily so that she can see what is going to happen throughout the day, including during the school day. She can also choose the order of how the day will go which gives her control back which makes transitions much easier. I have a download for this to make things much easier for customization.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Clothing Choice Boards

These are an important daily accommodation for us. She can often have a hard time verbalizing what she wants when it comes to clothes, so the ability to see what she has to wear as well as what is not available (or dirty) makes daily dressing a lot easier. I update these pretty regularly so that she can see what all of her clothing options are. We found that this is a way to help with her anxiety over getting dressed in the morning.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Portable Fan

I saw an autistic creator on Instagram, A-Typical Aaron, post about this, and I thought it was brilliant. My daughter often overheats and that can be a trigger for a meltdown for her, so this fan is the perfect solution for that. It has three fan settings and three light settings. I think having one of these available would be huge for SO many people!

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Hands Free Shoes

Shoes with no laces make it a lot easier for her to get out the door when we're leaving. These Kiziks are our new favorites! They're incredibly comfortable, so much so that both my husband and I have our own pairs now. Sitting down to tie shoes can really disrupt the flow of getting out the door so these have been a game changer for us.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Noise Canceling Headphones

We keep pairs of these throughout the house that are easily accessible for her. She can use them whenever she needs to for anything that could be overstimulating. With a baby brother, these were even more crucial for us.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Favorite Lovey

This can look different for everyone, but her comfort animal is named Conejo (Spanish for rabbit) and it goes everywhere with us. It goes to school with her in her backpack, it goes on trips with us, she sleeps with it. It is very important for me to always know where Conejo is.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Tablet and Headphones

These always leave the house with us because they are crucial for her to decompress outside of her safe spaces. They also are the only way we can get her to sit and actually eat anything when out and about.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Timers

We always give her multiple timers and multiple notifications when there's going to be a change or a transition just so she has a heads up. We try to remind her consistently what her time is and stick to that.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Twinkle Lights

We have these on her house bed because these give her a little bit more light along with her night lights that we put in her bed at night. She loves having all of the pretty lights to fall asleep to.

Accommodations We Use for Our Autistic Daughter | Fidget Bags

We have a fidget bag in every single bag that leaves our house including her backpack. Each bag has things like poppets, stretchy bands, little sketch pads, and a bunch of other stuff we rotate to keep her entertained incase her tablet and headphones are not something she wants. These are also super useful in the car or anywhere else that helps her with waiting and transitioning between activities.

These accommodations help her to feel comfortable in her own environment which leads her to be a more healthy, happy and well rounded little person. Hopefully you can use this list as a jumping off point in finding resources that help you as well! You can shop all of the items I talked about below.