Autism and Haircuts?
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Hi! I'm new to this board. I have 4 children, 2 of whom have autism. The two with autism are 6 and 8 years old. We have tried everything to give them haircuts, from going to professionals to cutting their hair ourselves. Nearly everyone ends up in tears. Any suggestions?Have your children participated in a brushing program? Sensory problems with haircuts are likely a tactile sensitivity so the Wilbarger Protocol, which helps desensitize the tactile sensitivity, might help. Combine this with a step by step picture schedule of the haircuts to familiarize the kids with the steps before the haircuts start. We finally got our 4 year old to like haircuts. He used to be terrified. We started out playing with the playdoh haircut guy, then we got a pretend haircut kit. He did haircuts on us and we did it to him. We did a social story and started doing pretend haircut based on the story, first you sit in the chair, then you put on a cape etc. We even went to a salon when it wasn't crowded and when he sat in the chair we gave him a treat. Then, after doing pretend haircut etc for about 4 months he actually likes haircuts. We do take him to a place that specializes in kids, they have movies to watch and balloons for after. Thanks so much, those are both good suggestions. Now, do you have any suggestions about how to get them to go to the dentist?  I do the same thing for both haircuts and dentist appts. I take him to place that is just for kids where he can watch movies and play before the appt. The place I take him for haircuts is called cookie cutters. They have a website www. haircutsarefun.com there might be one in your area since they are a chain. We also do the brushing, but we weren't doing it at his last dentist appt and he did fine. Don't know if it helped with the haircut or not.I'm supposed to get an updated dental for my youngest. I took him to the dentist. It was laughable. I called the school and asked them ... you need a dental update, but this is an autistic child that has had several surgeries inside his mouth, and you expect him to cooperate with a dental hygenist? What should I do if he will not cooperate? That stumped them. She said she didn't know how this kind of situation was handled.
You know, Chase hates his hair cut. usually I try and do it during the summer in his swing. My dh will get the lawn mower out to drown out the sound of the clippers. Now in the winter we decided to try Cookie Cutter Cuts last week and well, it was ok, he wasn't thrilled getting it cut, but immediately after we stopped, he was ok. Now, I am going to try and show pictures of it to him when we go next time. Hopefully it will work.
i havent had savannah's hair cut...so no advice here
[Dentist] For us, it helped when our boy became old enough to understand why dentist visits are important. We have a children's book about the subject. The American Dental Association also has some kids games and cartoons here: http://www.ada.org/public/games/index.asp X-rays are a still a challenge for him at age 8, and the hygienist needs to hold the film in place with her finger since he can't stand to bite down. They also take 4 pictures (upper then lower on each side) instead of two (upper and lower at the same time). Here's an article from the National Autistic Society of the UK about going to the dentist. http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1064&a=7844 It might also help to give your dentist this pamphlet, entitled "Your next patient has autism." www.northshorelij.com/workfiles/autism/YourNextPatient.pdf [Hair cut] We used to feed our boy candy to get him to sit still for a haircut. Now, at age 8, he's okay without, although cutting around the ears and neck, and getting his hair sprayed with water spray are still unpleasant for him. One possible issue for him was personal space. After one haircut around age 4, he declared "It's my hair!" (ie you have no right to do anything to it). I've heard that you shouldn't call it a getting the child's hair cut, which sounds painful, but rather getting the child's hair styled. Here's an article on the subject, again from the British NAS. http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1064&a=6345 Good luck! My son hates getting his haircut too. I bought a kit to do it myself about 4 years ago and have been cutting his hair since. He lets me do it for some reason. I must say I am pretty good at it now. He is always getting comments on how good his haircuts look.  We had this problem bad as well. I used to have to hold Collin hostage on my lap while he was screaming bloody murder and thrashing. He even got his ear cut once. Last time though we found this great kids salon. They had cars for the kids to sit in, let the kids pick a movie and had tv right in front of each child, as well as tons of toys. Collin picked a barbie jeep This last time I took out the buzzers on him though. He deals for about 30 seconds then he is done. I had have my husband hold him so I could finish, otherwise we would have ended up a stripe down the middle of his head. I cut both of my boys hair. We have a standard number 2 on the sides and number 4 on the top. Lots of gel to make it spike. Nicholas will have his hair done by a hairdresser but I can still see him cringing every now and then - he prefers me to do it. Mysh My son, Eric, used to scream like someone was killing him when I would cut his hair with the clippers. I never could get a scissors to his hair for fear of cutting him when he was thrashing around. He has gotten better over the years though- he will be 8 in April. I remember one time, I cut Eric's hair in the bathroom when he was 3. By the end of the 2 hour haircut I had nearly lost my mind. I had to get Eric out of the house and interested in something other than screaming. I left his hair clippings, the clipper and everything all over the floor. My then husband came home and we weren't there- he thought something bad had happened because I left the bathroom that way. He thought we had to go to the ER. (Eric is accident prone so it kinda made sense that he thought that). I think from now on I am going to cut around Eric's ears with scissors while he is sleeping. I am going to let you know how that goes. As for the dentist, we have an awesome one in MN. The first couple of times we went they strapped Eric down in a papoose type of thing and put the lead vest over him. He loves deep pressure and it held him place. Then, the assistant held his legs on her lap and sang the alphabet song over and over to him because I told her he loved letters and numbers. When the dentist came in, he made sure he counted Eric's teeth with Eric to calm him a bit. I found the dentist in an Autism Handbook for MN. I hope they have something like that for you where you are. Good luck overall... MommaNiki |
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, and he was completly occupied because the gas peddle actually made the wheels turn. He was turning his head everywhere watching the wheels but he didnt even notice someone was cutting his hair.