Doing a class on Autism What are your questions

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

I've taken on a project on autism . Specifically I offered to teach a 1/2 to 1 hour to my fellow Nurses . I've talked to both the DON and nursing educator about this class and both were positive about this. I know the material(granting that much is not known about autism) and am fairly comfortable talking in public.

With that caveat I think a talk will be more effective if I have some understanding of the questions you might have. So bring on your questions.

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Why are you doing it? Is it relevant to the population you are serving? Is it just an informational topic or educational piece? Curious for background

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I work in a psych hospital on a floor with kiddos with autism. What I really didn't understand was that there was such a broad septum. High functioning to very low functioning. Also the difference between autism and MR was kinda murky, made even more confusing that they could have both MR and autism. I would explain that... But if your teaching this to nurses they might already know. I'm an aide in school still.

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I think I would definitely talk about sensory and how bad sensory can make them aggressive. Discuss interventions for warning signs of overstimulation how to deescalate these kinds of situations. Self injurious behaviors. I can probably come up with more.

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Specializes in Geriatric.

Please touch on the benefits of diet therapy over pharmacological therapy. My daughter has autism and once we found her intolerances and removed them we were able to help her manage without the use of medications.

I know quite a lot on autism if you are needing help.

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.

My daughter has a mild form of autism which was diagnosed at age 10 months. She had a lot of intervention through the early childhood program & never needed to be in special ed classes. She's 24 now, is married, has a 2 year old son, just finished her bachelor's degree in psychology, & started classes toward her MBA last week.

As someone else stated, there's a very broad spectrum of severity of autism.

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