Self-Advocacy Skills in Autistic Children

Key Points

Anxiety is a normal response to perceived threats and varies with age.
Autistic young people may feel stressed about things their typically developing peers might not find worrying.
Autistic children often experience anxiety due to changes in routine, sensory sensitivities, unfamiliar social situations, and difficulties in understanding emotions.
Signs of anxiety include intense emotions, distressing thoughts, physical symptoms (e.g., headaches, stomach aches), and behavioural changes (e.g., avoidance, meltdowns).
Anxiety can severely affect daily life and is more common in autistic children (40%) than in the general population (10 – 15%).
Anxiety disorders are separate conditions from autism and can be treated.

Introduction

When navigating life, self-advocacy is incredibly important. It empowers individuals by giving them the right to make and express their own life decisions and choices. This involves speaking up for yourself, communicating your thoughts, negotiating, and asserting your interests, rights, needs, and desires—all while making informed decisions and taking responsibility for them.

Teaching self-advocacy skills to children and teenagers not only enhances academic performance and strengthens relationships but also boosts confidence. For people with autism, self-advocacy means expressing their unique challenges, participating in decision-making processes, and advocating for necessary support and accommodations.

Learning self-advocacy isn’t limited to school; it prepares children for adulthood. It empowers them to ask questions in class, resist peer pressure, and later in life, negotiate fair treatment at work or establish boundaries in personal relationships.

These skills are crucial if your child is experiencing bullying, your teenager is facing peer pressure, or your autistic child is dealing with bullying or cyberbullying.

Why is Self-Advocacy Important for Your Autistic Child?

Self-advocacy skills empower autistic children, teenagers, and those with disabilities or additional needs to:

Communicate their needs and priorities effectively to receive appropriate support.
Participate in decisions that impact their daily lives and future. • Build a sense of capability and confidence.
Develop independence.
Succeed academically and professionally.

What Does Self-Advocacy Look Like?

Self-advocacy involves several key components:

Using language that is inclusive, respectful, and person-first.
Knowing what services, modifications, and accommodations are needed and being able to request them.
Understanding whom to ask for assistance and support.
Recognising and expressing one’s strengths, talents, and interests.
Setting personal goals and working towards achieving them.
Having the ability to make choices.

Developing Self-Advocacy

To help children and teenagers learn self-advocacy skills, they need supportive homes, schools, and communities where they can set goals, achieve them, and feel like they belong. Good relationships at home, strong parent-school connections, and close community ties are essential.

By teaching your child to advocate for themselves early on, you’ll prepare them to do it better as they grow up. Here are some tips to help:

Tips to Develop Self-Advocacy Skills

1. Creating a
Supportive
Environment

2. Strengthening
Self-Awarness

3. Making
Decisions and
Choices

4. Setting
Personal Goals

5. Managing
Emotions

6. Problem-Solving

7. Peronal
Boundaries

1. Creating a Supportive Environment

Creating a supportive environment is essential for children with autism to feel secure and confident in expressing themselves. The first step is to build trust and connection with them.

Through active listening and empathy, we can encourage open communication and help them share their thoughts and feelings comfortably. It’s also important to promote a growth mindset, where they learn that making mistakes is part of learning and growing.

2. Strengthening Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is fundamental for developing self-advocacy skills. By helping children identify their strengths, weaknesses, and emotional responses, we empower them to effectively use their strengths and manage challenges. Understanding personal values and goals guides them in making decisions that reflect their aspirations.

Actively engage them by asking about their opinions and preferences to foster self-awareness. For example, ask, “Why do you enjoy helping with cooking in the kitchen?” or “Do you prefer spending time with your friends or reading your favourite books?”

Help them understand their strengths and areas for growth by asking questions like, “What can you do by yourself?” “What things don’t you feel confident doing?” and “What would you like to learn to do?”

3. Decision-making and Making Choices

Decision-making skills are crucial for self-advocacy, as your child’s decisions reflect what’s important to them and what’s worth speaking up for. Start early by involving them in everyday choices and routines. Use simple tools like schedules or choice boards to help them say what they prefer and make good decisions.

Letting children make choices from a young age, such as choosing between tasks, helps them learn to speak up for what they want and understand that they can say no to things that aren’t fair or safe.

4. Setting Personal Goals

Goals reflect what’s important to your child and what’s worth speaking up for. Throughout their life, your child might need to set goals at different stages, such as goals for an Individualised Education Plan (IEP) or learning to travel and manage tasks independently.

Work with your child to create a visual goal ladder that shows the steps towards achieving their goals. Use pictures, symbols, or words. For example, if your child wants to go to school independently, the ladder might include steps like learning to cross the road safely, identifying the correct school bus, knowing how to ask for help if they need it, and understanding what to do if something goes wrong.

5. Managing Emotions

To self-advocate successfully, children need to understand and manage their emotions. This helps them stay calm and polite when speaking up about important matters. You can support your child by teaching them to recognise and handle their feelings. This is especially important for autistic children, who may need extra help in this area.

Encourage your child to learn calming strategies for managing strong emotions, as a calm body and mind lead to better decision-making. A calm body and mind enable clear thinking and better decision-making for self-advocacy.

Developing coping strategies helps children handle stress and anxiety effectively, which is crucial for confident self-advocacy. Practising self-care through relaxing activities also supports emotional balance and overall well-being.

6. Problem-Solving

To help children develop problem-solving skills, guide them through real-life scenarios. For example, if your child argues with a sibling about cleaning their room, discuss what happened and find solutions together. Options might include taking turns or cleaning the room together. Role-playing these situations teaches them to handle conflicts and responsibilities on their own.

Give positive feedback like, “You spoke slowly and clearly – well done,” to build their confidence. Instead of solving the problem for them, solve it with them, allowing them to find their own solutions. Ask questions like:

What is the problem?
What do you know about the problem?
What are three possible solutions?
What could you do to fix it?
Can you think about it and tell me about your solution in 10 minutes?

Start with small steps, like being with them at first, to gradually help them become independent problem-solvers. This encourages critical thinking and confidence in their abilities.

7. Personal Boundaries

Personal boundaries are the limits that help your child feel safe and comfortable. When children understand these boundaries, they can speak up for themselves.

Teach them to say no in simple situations, like if they don’t want a hug from a relative or saying, “That joke isn’t funny,” when needed.

A fun activity to help with this is the circle of friends. It can help your child to understand and protect their personal boundaries.

Self-advocacy isn’t always met with good outcomes. In these situations, talk with your child about what happened and remind them that it’s okay to ask for help. Whether or not it goes well, boost their confidence with kind words. For example, “I really liked how calm you were when you told your sister she’d hurt your feelings.”

Practising Self-Advocacy

Here are examples of everyday practice opportunities for your child to reinforce their self-advocacy skills:

Ordering at a restaurant.
When dining out, encourage your child to order for themselves. They can do this by reading the menu independently, pointing to a picture or choosing from options you read aloud.
You can also use a social story to guide them on how to ask for help from the waiter and confidently place their order. Let them know it’s okay to make specific requests to build their confidence in social settings. For example, you can suggest words for them to use like, “Can I have roti canai, please?” or “Can I have french fries instead of mashed potato, please?”

Asking a teacher for help
If your child doesn’t understand their homework, encourage them to talk to their teacher after class. You can help them plan what to say, such as, “I don’t understand what I need to do for my maths homework. Could you explain it to me, please?”
The next step involves your child taking an active role in developing their individual education plan (IEP) or transition plan. This means discussing how they like to learn, identifying any challenges they face in learning, and exploring what they want to achieve after school. During IEP meetings, make sure everyone talks to your child directly, not about them. This helps your child take an active role in planning their education and future goals.

Navigating tough situations with school friends
Your child may face tough situations at school, like dealing with a friend who repeatedly calls them a name they dislike. Encourage them to calmly express their feelings about it. You can assist by helping them plan what to say, such as, “Please stop calling me that. It hurts my feelings.”
It’s important to teach them about setting boundaries and asserting their right to be treated with respect. Support them in seeking help from trusted adults if necessary and stress the importance of choosing friends who appreciate and respect them.

Telling the doctor about needs or feelings
When you visit the doctor, encourage your child to share any worries or let the doctor know if something doesn’t feel quite right. You can help your child get ready by planning what they want to say ahead of time. It might also be fun to practise talking to the doctor together, so your child feels more confident about speaking up. For example, they could say, “I’m a bit scared of the needle” or “The bandage feels really tight. Could you check it, please?”

Conclusion

It’s never too early or too late to teach your children about self-advocacy. You want them to have the best quality of life, even when you’re not there to help. Teaching your child to make choices, say “no,” find people who can help, and choose activities they enjoy will help achieve this goal. Remember, it takes time and community support for all children to learn self-advocacy, but it is definitely possible.