Autism and Haircuts? | Autism PDD

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'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.

[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.

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.

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

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