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Guide

Children with OCD have intrusive thoughts and worries that make them extremely anxious, and they develop rituals they feel compelled to perform to keep those anxieties at bay. This guide explains the often confusing behaviors that can be associated with OCD, and the treatments most effective for helping kids who develop it.

Children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have intrusive thoughts and worries that make them extremely anxious, and they develop rituals they feel compelled to perform to keep those anxieties at bay. This guide explains the often confusing behaviors that can be associated with OCD in children, and the effective treatments for helping kids who develop it.

Children who have OCD struggle with either obsessions or compulsions or both. Obsessions are unwanted and intrusive thoughts, images or impulses. Obsessions make kids feel upset and anxious. Compulsions are actions or rituals kids are driven to perform to get rid of anxiety.

To understand how OCD works, think about a mosquito bite. When you get bitten by a mosquito, it itches, so to make it feel better you scratch. While you scratch the bite it feels great, but as soon as you stop scratching, the itching gets worse. That's how OCD plays out. When a child with OCD feels anxious he'll do something to fix it temporarily, but that ritual makes it worse over time.

Kinds of obsessions and compulsions

OCD obsessions fall into a variety of categories, including the below list.

Contamination: Kids with this obsession are sometimes called "germophobes." These are the kids who worry about other people sneezing and coughing, touching things that might be dirty, checking expiration dates or getting sick. This is the most common obsession in children.

Magical thinking: This is a kind of superstition, like "step on a crack, break your mother's back." For example, kids might worry that their thoughts can cause someone to get hurt, or get sick. A child might think, "Unless my things are lined up in a certain way, mom will get in a car accident."

Scrupulosity: This is when kids have obsessive worries about offending God or being blasphemous in some way.

Aggressive obsessions: Kids may be plagued by a lot of different kinds of thoughts about bad things they could do. "What if I hurt someone? What if I stab someone? What if I kill someone?"

The "just right" feeling: Some kids feel they need to keep doing something until they get the "right feeling," though they may not know why it feels right. So they might think: "I'll line these things up until it just kind of feels right, and then I'll stop."

Compulsions can be things that kids actively do - like line up objects or wash hands - or things done mentally, like counting in their head. A compulsion could also be an avoidance of something, like a child who avoids touching knives, even flimsy plastic ones, because she's afraid of hurting someone. Because compulsions are things that parents might notice, it is common for parents to be more aware of them than obsessions.

Kinds of OCD compulsions include (but are not limited to):

Cleaning compulsions, including excessive or ritualized washing and cleaning

Checking compulsions, including checking locks, checking to make sure a mistake wasn't made and checking to make sure things are safe

Repeating rituals, including rereading, rewriting and repeating actions like going in and out of a doorway

Counting compulsions, including counting certain objects, numbers and words

Arranging compulsions, including ordering things so that they are symmetrical, even or line up in a specific pattern

Saving compulsions, including hoarding and difficulty throwing things away

Superstitious behaviors, including touching things to prevent something bad from happening or avoiding certain things

Rituals involving other persons, including asking a person the same question repeatedly, or asking a parent to perform a particular mealtime ritual

OCD often first develops around ages six to nine. The disorder can manifest as early as five. Young children experience the disorder differently than adolescents and adults do. A young child may not recognize that his thoughts and fears are exaggerated or unrealistic, and he may not be fully aware of why he is compelled to perform a ritual; he just knows that it gives him a "just right" feeling, at least momentarily. Over time, in the 9-12 range, it evolves into magical thinking and becomes more superstitious in nature.

In either case, a child with OCD will respond to his anxiety in a way that is very rigid and rule-bound and interferes with normal functioning. Parents might notice signs such as:

Repeated hand washing, locking and relocking doors or touching things in a certain order

Extreme or exaggerated fears of contamination, family members being hurt or harmed or doing harm themselves

Use of magical thinking, such as, "If I touch everything in the room, Mom won't be killed in a car accident"

Repeatedly seeking assurances about the future

Intolerance for certain words or sounds

Repeatedly confessing "bad thoughts" such as thoughts that are mean (thinking a family friend is ugly), thoughts that are sexual (imagining a classmate naked) or violent (thinking about killing someone)

How OCD can go undetected

Signs of OCD might not always be obvious. Compulsions can be very subtle, so parents and other caregivers might not notice when a child is doing them, or they might not understand that a particular behavior is a compulsion. Other signs might be invisible to parents, like when a child compulsively counts to a certain number in her head.

As children get older and realize that some of their fears are nonsensical, or their behaviors unusual, they might also go to greater efforts to conceal their OCD symptoms from parents, teachers and friends. Children with OCD can sometimes manage to suppress their symptoms in certain situations, like at school, only to explode at home because of the tremendous effort.

OCD can also be mistaken for a different disorder. Many children with OCD are distracted by their obsessions and compulsions, and it can interfere with their ability to pay attention in school. A teacher might notice a child having difficulty focusing and assume she has ADHD, since her OCD isn't apparent. It could also be mistaken for an anxiety disorder. And it can be overlooked when a child with OCD also develops depression, which kids with OCD are at risk for, especially without treatment.
What Does OCD Look Like in the Classroom?

Cognitive behavioral therapy

The first step in treatment is helping children understand how OCD works. It often helps to put OCD in a context that children can understand. For example, a clinician might explain that OCD functions like a bully. If a bully asks for your lunch money and you give in because you're afraid, then the bully will be happy and go away. But the next day the bully will come back for more, because he knows you are afraid. The more you give in to a bully the more he will ask for. OCD functions the same way. The goal of treatment is to help a child learn how to stand up to his bully.

The gold-standard treatment for OCD is a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention, or ERP. ERP works by helping children face the things that trigger their anxiety in structured, incremental steps, and in a safe environment. This allows children to experience anxiety and distress without resorting to compulsions, with the support of the therapist. Through facing their triggers children learn to tolerate their anxiety and, over time, they discover that their anxiety has actually decreased.

For example, a child with fears about germs and contamination would create a "fear hierarchy" with his therapist. They would work together to identify all of the contamination situations he fears, rate them on a scale of 0-10, and then tackle them one at a time until his fear subsides. The child would start with a low-level trigger, such as touching clean towels, and build to more difficult triggers, such as holding something from the trash.

Because children often have symptoms that are specific to settings outside the clinical office, at home or in restaurants, for instance, it is important for treatment to move outside the office as needed. Your clinician should provide ERP in real world locations where your child experiences anxiety, and make sure that caregivers know how to reinforce ERP skills outside of treatment, too.

For most cases of mild to moderate OCD, treatment once a week for 12-15 weeks is usually enough to get strong results.

Working with parents

Parents spend the most time with their children, so it is essential for family to be involved in treatment. You should expect your child's clinician to work closely with you, explaining how treatment works and giving you and your child homework to practice the skills your child is learning in therapy.

Because children often come to parents looking for reassurance or to help with an obsession or compulsion, it is also important for parents to learn the best way to respond to their child without reinforcing her OCD. When a parent gives reassurance, it makes the child feel better in the moment, but that relief is fleeting and can actually reinforce the child's anxiety in the long run. It also doesn't help her learn any coping skills to help herself - only that asking mom or dad will help.

Similarly, if your child has an aversion to a certain word, your family might have learned to avoid saying that word and apologize if someone accidentally uses it. However inadvertent, this also reinforces the OCD because it doesn't give the child a chance to overcome her anxiety. Your child's clinician should work with you on finding ways to respond to requests for reassurance that are supportive without reinforcing OCD symptoms.

Intensive CBT and hospitalization

For children with severe symptoms, weekly or even twice-weekly therapy sessions might not be effective enough. If your child's symptoms are seriously interfering with school performance, family life and friendships, and if typical treatment isn't helping, you may want to consider a treatment program that is more intensive.

Some institutions that specialize in OCD, like the Child Mind Institute, offer intensive treatment programs that allow children to be seen several times a week, compressing treatment and helping children make more gains faster. These programs can have a transformative effect on children struggling with severe OCD, and can many times prevent hospitalization.

An inpatient hospitalization program is another option for children with severe OCD who are not getting the help they need from traditional outpatient treatment. After an inpatient OCD hospitalization, a child may be recommended to participate in an intensive outpatient program to help ease his transition away from being in a clinical environment and to help him maintain the gains he has made.

Medication treatment for OCD

While the primary treatment for OCD is cognitive behavioral therapy, children with more severe cases are often treated with a combination of CBT and medication. A class of antidepressant medication called SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be used to help reduce a child's anxiety, which in turn allows the child to be more responsive to therapy. Medication can be decreased or discontinued as the child learns skills to help her overcome her anxiety on her own.

Sometimes other types of medicines can be prescribed to control excessive irritability or anger that may be complicating treatment.
Kids and OCD: The Parents' Role in Treatment Intensive Treatment for OCD and Anxiety

It is not uncommon for children with OCD to struggle with more than one disorder. Depression, eating disorders and panic disorder can frequently occur alongside OCD. If your child is diagnosed with multiple mental health disorders, it is important for him to receive specialized treatment for each disorder. Cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD, for example, will help a child with his OCD but will not help with his depression.

Care should be taken during diagnosis to determine if a child only has obsessive-compulsive disorder, or if the child has OCD and another disorder, or perhaps a disorder that is similar to OCD but is actually a separate disorder such as acute-onset OCD or a disorder on the "obsessive-compulsive spectrum."

The obsessive-compulsive spectrum

There is a spectrum of disorders that share some characteristics with OCD and are treated in similar ways. These include:

While these disorders have similar clinical characteristics - and some experts believe that they may have the same underlying neurobiological causes as OCD - they differ from OCD in certain ways and therefore require a specialized treatment.

One distinction worth making is between OCD and two other disorders that involve obsessive thoughts: illness anxiety disorder (a child is obsessed with the idea that she has a serious illness despite not having symptoms) and body dysmorphic disorder (a child obsesses on a minor or imagined flaw in her appearance). The difference is the extent to which a child believes her thoughts. For example, a child with OCD may know her obsessions are irrational and yet have so much anxiety that she feels the need to perform compulsions to reduce the anxiety anyway. A child with illness anxiety disorder or body dysmorphic disorder, however, may believe her thoughts are based in reality. Children with these disorders usually need cognitive therapy and strategies to gain insight into the irrationality of their obsessions before they can begin exposure and response prevention therapy. If they receive ERP before they are cognitively prepared for it, then their anxiety may actually worsen over time.

Hoarding, skin picking, trichotillomania and tic disorders including Tourette's can be treated by exposure and response prevention and other behavioral strategies.

Many times children will experience OCD symptoms at school. If this is the case for your child, it will be helpful to get his school on board with treatment. Often the first step is helping teachers and administrators at the school understand OCD. Educating the school is particularly important because many behaviors associated with OCD can be mistaken for something else, like oppositional behavior, learning problems or another disorder. For example, a child's OCD symptoms might make him distracted, which could look like ADHD, or make him take a very long time on tasks and tests, which could look like a learning problem. An emotional outburst might be caused by another student triggering his OCD. When teachers understand what a child's particular challenges are - and that he's not just being difficult - they will be better able to help him.

You child's clinician should be able to give specific advice on the best way to work with the school, including explaining your child's OCD triggers, setting up a plan for how the teacher can help your child if he feels his symptoms coming on, and minimizing any behavioral problems or challenges. Clinicians sometimes will go into the school to help train teachers on how to support a student with OCD.

Your child's clinician may also be able to suggest strategies to help your child focus on learning, such as preferential seating and private testing rooms to minimize distraction, or extended time on tests and papers and use of a laptop to minimize negative consequences from perfectionism.
Teachers Guide to OCD in the Classroom

This guide was last reviewed or updated on March 6, 2023.

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Children with OCD have intrusive thoughts and worries that make them extremely anxious, and they develop rituals they feel compelled to perform to keep those anxieties at bay. This guide explains the often confusing behaviors that can be associated with OCD, and the treatments most effective for helping kids who develop it.

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What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that it impacts how a child develops. Autism begins in utero, although children with ASD might not be diagnosed until they are preschool- or even school-aged (or older), when signs of the disorder become more apparent.

Children with ASD have a combination of two kinds of behaviors: deficits in communication and social skills, and the presence of restricted or repetitive behaviors. It's called a spectrum because individuals with the disorder may have a wide range of symptoms, cognitive abilities, language skills and behaviors.
Criteria for autism spectrum disorder
Signs of a deficit in communication and social skills may include, but are not limited to, a combination of the following:

In younger kids (under 3 years)

Failure to respond to their own name

Disinterest in giving, sharing or showing objects of interest

Aversion to displays of affection

Preference for solitary play

In older children

Difficulty carrying on a reciprocal or back-and-forth conversation

Lack of eye contact

Difficulty using and reading body language in others

Difficulty recognizing others' emotions, responding appropriately to different social situations and understanding social relationships

Aversion to displays of affection

Preference for solitary play

Children with restricted or repetitive behaviors perform repetitive actions and rituals and can become fixated on minute details to the point of distraction. In addition, they may:

Become upset by minor changes in daily routine

Line, sort or organize toys or objects instead of playing with them

Show a consuming interest in a specific topic or object

Have unusual sensory sensitivities

To meet the criteria for ASD, a child's symptoms in these two areas must be present in early childhood, though they may not become fully clear until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities. Alternatively, they may be clear early on and then masked later by learned strategies.
These symptoms must also cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, academic or other important areas of functioning.

In addition to the two required criteria to meet the diagnosis, children with autism spectrum disorder often have sensory issues and varying cognitive and verbal abilities.

Sensory problems: Many children with autism are unusually sensitive to sounds, lights, textures or smells. They may be overwhelmed by too much sensory input, avoiding, fleeing or melting down over things like bright lights, loud noises or commotion. Alternatively, they may seek more sensory input, which they may try to get by bumping into things and excessively touching and smelling things.

Verbal ability: Some children with autism don't talk at all. Others talk in a stilted tone, or in an exaggerated "sing-song" or high-pitched voice. Highly verbal children with autism may monopolize conversations while showing little capacity for reciprocity or understanding what the other person wants or feels.

Autistic children may also repeat certain phrases without appearing to understand their significance, or possess what experts call "non-functional knowledge"- information they can recite, but not use to solve problems or carry on a conversation.

Children on the spectrum can also have medical problems and other mental health disorders, including anxiety, ADHD and depression, with symptoms that can be confused with autism.

Terminology: "Autistic," "With Autism" and "Asperger's"

People use different language when talking about autism. Some prefer to say "a child with autism" because it emphasizes the child's identity outside of their diagnosis. This is commonly called "person-first" language and is often recommended as a respectful way to talk about disabilities and other health issues.

However, other people, including many autism activists, prefer to use the term "autistic."

This is known as "identity-first" language. Autistic self-advocates assert that being autistic is in fact part of who they are - just like other labels like Catholic, African-American, gifted, and so on. They argue that saying "with autism" implies that autism is a negative thing that has happened to a person, rather than an integral part of their identity.

In this guide we use both "autistic" and "with autism" to acknowledge the diversity of people's opinions.

Some people also refer to their child having "Asperger's disorder." That diagnosis is technically outdated, because in 2013 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) combined Asperger's disorder into autism spectrum disorder. However, many people do continue to use the term Asperger's to describe autistic children who are typically without language or intellectual impairment.

How Is Autism Diagnosed?

The diversity of autism spectrum disorder can make it difficult to correctly diagnose. Sometimes children with ASD are mistakenly diagnosed with a different disorder, like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), or they are told that nothing is wrong. Other times kids are diagnosed with autism when they actually aren't on the spectrum.

First Steps: There are a variety of screeners that pediatricians or other practitioners might employ as a first step to learning if a child might have autism, before beginning a formal evaluation. Some are questionnaires that parents fill out and others are assessments done by clinicians.

If a screener indicates that a child may have autism spectrum disorder, the child should receive a comprehensive evaluation with someone trained in diagnosing autism. This evaluation should include assessment of a child's behaviors in different settings and within the context of their overall development, and it should incorporate both clinician observation and parent/caregiver interviews. Evaluations will often include autism-symptom specific measures such as:

The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, or the ADOS-2. This is a test with different modules to accommodate a range of children. The purpose of the ADOS is to evaluate the social skills and repetitive behaviors the child displays during the test.

The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, or the ADI-R. This is a parent interview that gathers information about both current and past behaviors related to autism.

Evaluations should also include information about other areas of a child's functioning across contexts. Assessing a child's cognitive, motor, language and adaptive functioning can provide information on the most appropriate treatments and the impact their symptoms are having on their overall functioning. This includes using measures like:

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Third Edition (VABS-3). This is a parent interview that provides information about a child's day-to-day functioning in areas of communication, socialization and daily living skills.

Differential Ability Scales, Second Edition (DAS-II) or Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). These can be used to evaluate cognitive, language and motor functioning.

Even with these tools it is important to be working with a mental health professional who has experience diagnosing people on the autism spectrum.
Read more about diagnosis here.

Why Autism Diagnoses Are Often Delayed

For children on the autism spectrum, the earlier they receive specialized support, the better outcome they are likely to have. Such early intervention can start in toddlerhood. But children sometimes miss out on that crucial intervention for a variety of reasons.

In many cases kids initially receive a diagnosis of speech-language impairments, ADHD or sensory issues, and it's not until the social and academic challenges of school increase- around the age of 5 or 6 - that the child receives an autism diagnosis.

It's not that these other diagnoses are necessarily wrong. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of children on the autism spectrum do also have ADHD, and sensory challenges are so common in kids with autism they are considered a symptom of the disorder.

But all too often, once a diagnosis is reached, parents and clinicians stop looking carefully at symptoms that would also indicate an autism diagnosis, which would change the treatment significantly.

While these children are getting treatment for ADHD or sensory issues, they're missing out on therapy that can have a much more important impact on their lives.
Read more about delayed diagnosis here. Why girls with autism are often overlooked
Boys are diagnosed with autism at more than four times the rate of girls. The disorder is more common in boys, but because girls often don't fit the stereotyped image of someone with autism, many girls go undiagnosed and suffer as a result. Some reasons for the missed diagnosis include:

Girls' symptoms are often less obvious. Unlike boys with autism, who may express frustration by being disruptive or aggressive, girls are trained to be cooperative, so they're not as likely to be referred for an evaluation.

While boys on the spectrum may be intensely focused on things like trains or computer games, girls often have special interests that seem typical for girls their age, like Disney movies or animals, so they don't stand out.

Good at imitating what they see around them, girls tend to have better eye contact or social interaction than autistic boys. So even though they're struggling with social communication and relationships, they're more likely to "pass" as neurotypical until as late as middle school.

Girls struggling with undiagnosed autism often develop depression, anxietyor poor self-esteem, and clinicians may not look beyond these symptoms.

Read more about how girls are undiagnosed here.

How to Talk to Family and Friends About Your Child's Diagnosis

If your child has been newly diagnosed with autism, one thing that can be a challenge is telling your parents and extended family. Autism is something that more and more people are aware of, but there's still a lot of misinformation. The problems your child is having may not be visible to everyone in your family. But you need the people you are close to as allies in helping your child, so getting them on your team is important.

Focus on behaviors Using behaviors others might have noticed - such as lack of eye contact, frequent meltdowns or inability to connect with other kids - is one way to start explaining what autism is, and why your child was diagnosed.
Explain autism basics Don't overwhelm them with information but make sure to tell them that:

Your child has difficulty with social skills.

Part of autism means your child has restricted or repetitive behaviors and interests.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability.

It is lifelong.

We know it starts in utero.

We know it is not produced by vaccines.

It's not caused by bad parenting.

Explain that autism is a spectrum of behaviors, and every autistic person is different

Explain that having a diagnosis also means that your family is eligible for therapies and services, which can be transformative.

Read more about talking with family and friends here.

Medical Causes for Autism-Related Behaviors

It's not unusual for medical problems to be overlooked in kids with autism, especially those who are nonverbal. When evaluating your child's behaviors, it's crucial to consider that some may actually be reactions to pain or discomfort from treatable medical or dental conditions that may have gone unrecognized. Kids with ASD may not be able identify or articulate the source of the pain or discomfort they are experiencing effectively.

Here are some commonly misinterpreted behaviors that may have medical causes:

Gulping or grimacing

Tapping the chest or stomach

Pressing on the abdomen

Refusing to sleep

Repetitive motions

Self-injury like head-banging or hitting yourself

Meltdowns

Aggression

If you notice any of these behaviors in your child, visiting your physician is a good idea to identify or rule out different medical problems, including:

Painful acid reflux

Constipation

Allergies

Eczema

Tonsillitis

Menstrual cramps

Ear infections

Urinary tract infections

Bone fractures

Read more about possible medical causes here.

Sensory issues are often first recognized during the toddler years, when parents notice that a child has an unusual aversion to noise, light, shoes that are deemed too tight and clothes that are irritating. They may also notice clumsiness and trouble climbing stairs, and difficulty with fine motor skills like wielding a pencil and fastening buttons. More baffling - and alarming - to parents are children who exhibit extreme behaviors, such as:

Screaming if their faces get wet

Throwing tantrums when you try to get them dressed

Having an unusually high or low pain threshold

Crashing into walls and even people

Putting inedible things, including rocks and paint, into their mouths

These and other atypical behaviors may reflect sensory issues - difficulty integrating information from the senses. Children with sensory issues may be overwhelmed by too much sensory input (i.e., hyper-sensitivity), or receive too little (i.e., hypo-sensitivity), which causes them to bump into and rub against things, in order to feel more. Sensory problems are now considered a symptom of autism because the majority of children and adults on the spectrum also have sensory issues.

When the brain struggles to deal with sensory input like sound, light and smell, kids can become overwhelmed and may have a tendency to flee to a more calming environment, become aggressive, or experience a severe meltdown.

In the majority of cases, sensory issues become significantly milder and less interfering as kids get older. Skills learned in occupational therapy and environmental accommodations can help limit the impact of sensory issues as kids get older.
Read more about sensory issues here.

Rigid Eating Habits in Children on the Spectrum

Children on the autism spectrum are often very picky eaters. When mealtime issues arise, your first stop should be a pediatric gastroenterologist who has experience with kids on the spectrum, to make sure there are no medical issues. Other sources of mealtime problems include:

Sensory issues: Autistic kids often express a strong preference for foods that feel a certain way in their mouths. Some prefer soft or creamy foods like yogurt, soup or ice cream; others need the stimulation that crunchy foods like Cheetos or - if a parent is lucky, carrots - provide. In either case, that can put significant limitations on the different foods kids are willing to eat.

Underdeveloped oral motor musculature: Kids who eat almost exclusively soft foods may actually lack the muscle development that it takes to chew foods like steak or hamburger. Parents who don't know this is the cause of their child's distress will respond by allowing them to forgo the foods that would strengthen those muscles, so it becomes a vicious cycle.

Time and behavior at the table: Lots of parents experience the frustration of trying to get their children to sit at the table long enough to finish a meal. But with autistic kids the challenge can be magnified. And there is also the issue of safety. Unsafe behaviors might include throwing utensils or repeatedly getting up and running from the table.

For children and families who are struggling with an autistic child's rigid eating habits, consulting a feeding specialist -this could be a child psychologist, speech-language pathologist or occupational therapist - can be helpful.
Read more about autism and picky eating here.

Wandering in Children on the Spectrum

The tendency of children on the spectrum to wander off impulsively is a huge safety issue. Wandering off without warning - also known as elopement or bolting - can have tragic results, as children attracted to water have drowned. The behavior is in part attributed to an impaired sense of danger, which might inhibit a neurotypical child from leaving caregivers. Other explanations for bolting range from goal-directed (heading to a favorite place, pursuing something of interest) to escaping a stressor (an anxious situation or uncomfortable sensory stimuli).

In a survey, more than 800 parents reported that roughly 50 percent of children between the ages of 4 and 10 with an ASD wander at some point, four times more than their unaffected siblings. The behavior peaks at 4, but almost 30 percent of kids with an ASD between the ages of 7 and 10 are still eloping, eight times more than their unaffected brothers and sisters.

The Autism Wandering Awareness Alerts Response and Education (AWAARE) Collaboration site has advice for families about making the home safe and other measures to guard against wandering.
Read more about autism and wandering here.

Repetitive movements associated with autism are sometimes called stimming. The word stim is short for self-stimulation. It means repetitive movements that don't appear to be purposeful, including hand flapping, rocking, blinking, pacing and repeating noises or words.

Among the criteria for an ASD diagnosis is "stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects or speech." Some children engage in these repetitive movements to either block or increase sensory input, or as a means of alleviating distress. Children on the spectrum may stim both when they're excited and when they're frustrated or angry.

But these movements are only problematic if they interfere with a child's functioning, including social interaction, daily activities and learning. Families worried about them are encouraged not to try to eradicate or draw undue attention to them, but instead to help children build communication skills and activities that may reduce time spent stimming.
Read more about autism and repetitive motions here.

Autism-Related Problems With Transitions

Transitions are particularly challenging for kids with autism, and their reactions can be extreme. They may feel the need for sameness and routine is a way of adapting to a world that can be overwhelming and confusing. Deviation from the routine can feel very uncomfortable, even distressing, and they may refuse to transition, or engage in disruptive behavior such as having a tantrum.

Maintaining structured routines may help children with autism, especially for everyday transitions that are challenging, like bedtime or school mornings. It may also be helpful to provide children visual schedules of their routines as well as provide warnings (countdowns to the next activity) before upcoming transitions. It's important to note that these general strategies, while helpful, may not be sufficient for all children with autism.

Rewarding kids when they handle a transition particularly well can also be an effective strategy. A reward could be as simple as labeled praise (for example, saying, "I really like how you stopped playing on the iPad when I told you it was time to get dressed. Good job!" Children can also be motivated by rewards like stickers or points that work up to bigger rewards, like more screen time or a favorite food. Access to a child's special interests can also be a reward.
Read more about transitions here.

Applied Behavior Analysis: Types of ABA: Read more about ABA here. The Verbal Behavior Approach (VB):
Facing Your Fears (FYF):
Occupational Therapy:

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that it impacts how a child develops. Autism begins in utero, although children with ASD might not be diagnosed until they are preschool- or even school-aged (or older), when signs of the disorder become more apparent.

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Guides

Quick Guide to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a mental health condition that is often diagnosed in children. ADHD can make it very hard for children to focus on their schoolwork or other tasks, pay attention and sit still. Children with ADHD have a harder time controlling themselves than other children their age, which can lead to challenges at school and at home.

ADHD includes two separate kinds of behaviors:

Inattentive behaviors, in which a child has trouble paying attention

Impulsive behaviors, in which a child has too much energy and has trouble controlling their impulses

Some with ADHD only show inattentive behaviors and some only show impulsive behaviors, but most have a combination of both.

What are the symptoms of ADHD?

The first signs of ADHD are often hyperactive or impulsive behaviors. They usually show up in children between three and six years old. Hyperactive or impulsive behaviors include:

Having a lot of energy and struggling to sit still

Fidgeting all the time

Often running around and climbing on things

Constantly talking or interrupting others

Being very impatient

The other symptoms of ADHD are inattentive behaviors. These usually show up once the child starts school. Inattentive behaviors include:

Being easily distracted

Making careless mistakes

Having a hard time following instructions

Often forgetting or losing things

Having trouble staying organized

Appearing not to listen when someone speaks to them

Avoiding things that involve a lot of thinking or effort

Seeming unaware of what's going on around them

Boys are diagnosed with ADHD about twice as much as girls. Girls may show different symptoms.

A child can be diagnosed with ADHD if:

They show several inattentive or impulsive behaviors before the age of 12

Their behavior challenges go beyond what's normal for their age

They show symptoms over a long period of time

They struggle with their behavior in different places, such as at home and at school

Their behavior gets in the way of their schoolwork or social life

To make a diagnosis, a mental health professional will talk to parents, teachers, and other adults in the child's life. They will also meet the child. The child will receive several tests. This will help the mental health professional decide if the child has ADHD or another disorder with similar symptoms.

ADHD is usually treated with a combination of behavioral therapy and medication.

Therapy

There are several types of therapy that can help children with ADHD:

Parent-child interaction therapy: Therapy for the parent and the child together. The parent learns how to encourage good behavior.

Parent training: The parent learns skills to address the child's symptoms.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): The therapist teaches the child to control their behaviors. They discuss how the child's thoughts and feelings are connected to their behavior and practice ways to improve self-control. This works best with older children.

Social skills training: The therapist helps the child learn how to act around other children.

Family therapy: Parents and siblings learn how to handle the stress of living with a child who has ADHD.

Therapists can also work closely with a child's teachers.

Medication

Children with ADHD are often prescribed what's called a stimulant. This medication will help them be calm, focus and control their impulses. The two most common medications are methylphenidate and dextroamphetamine, which go by brand names like Ritalin and Adderall.

These medications can have serious side effects, such as headaches, not feeling hungry, or trouble sleeping. If children have these side effects, they may be prescribed non-stimulant medication instead.

For many children, symptoms of ADHD will decrease or disappear once they're young adults. Some adults still struggle with symptoms of ADHD, especially inattention and impulse control.

Children with ADHD are often diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, anxiety or depression. Some children may also be diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. ADHD treatments are most effective when any other mental health conditions are also treated at the same time.

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Quick Guide to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - Child Mind Institute

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Lo sentimos, la página que usted busca no se ha podido encontrar. Puede intentar su búsqueda de nuevo o visitar la lista de temas populares. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a mental health condition that is often diagnosed in children.