Of course to the normal person the act of self harm can be mysterious why would anyone want to cause themselves pain and harm. However with autistic children the act of self harm is very common. There is a lot of different reasons as to why children with autism would want to cause self harm. There are of course many things that you can do to stop this harmful practice.
A big reason that autistic children resort to self harm is because they are not able to communicate with others in the same way as other children can and it can annoy them that we do not always understand what they are saying. So in order to release some of the pain that they are experiencing they will resort to practices of banging their head to try and get the attention of others, usually doing things that can't be expressed in words. self harm is a way to get a persons attention. The frustration that an autistic child experiences goes arm in arm with them wanting some kind of attention. By causing self harm, they will get some kind of attention from someone, and of course that person will work to try and understanding what the child wants.
The link of frustration and attention is something that has been studied for a long time. Studies that have been carried out show that the self harm that a person carries out relieves come of the stress that a person could be experiencing. The pain that is experienced can help the autistic child to temporarily forget the pain that they are experiencing in their lives. Of course this pain is addictive and if done enough the pain associated with self harm is not felt anymore.
Some professionals and doctors say that the best way to overcome a Child's problem of self harm is to ignore the practice. However this is very hard for a parent to do. Drugs and communication therapy are another method by which the frustration of an autistic child can be relieved. The drugs that help release endorphins in to the system that replicate what the body naturally produces from causing self harm, and so help to reduce the behaviour of self harm. There are also natural supplements that are said to work, such as vitamin B6 and calcium that are said to help greatly.
For the close family members a good solution would be to take communication classes so that they can learn how to communicate with their autistic child more effectively. Communication with an autistic child is a completely different endeavour and not something that is easily done as we are used to communicating with body and words. It will take some time but it will be worth it. One of these solutions will help to overcome the problem that the autistic child is experiencing.
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