How can we help children have a positive experience with new routines, activities and hobbies? Let's start by addressing their sensitivities to sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Children on the Spectrum have an increased sensitivity to their environment. Look at this example:

A five-year-old girl with Autism is happily playing with her cars and trucks on her mat, when the teacher gives the warning that it is time to clean up and put the toys away. She brings her toys to the shelf where she previously retrieved them. The teacher then calls the children to sit at the tables while the materials are distributed to complete an art project.

This five-year-old is humming to herself, and slowly rocking in her seat while waiting for the next instruction. The assistants bring the bottles of brightly colored paint and squirt it onto the paper plates. This little girl begins rocking a little harder when she smells and not only sees the gooey paint, but sees that all the children are having smocks placed on them and on her. The other children are impatient and want to dip their hands into the bright red, yellow and blue paint, while our five-year-old prefers to hum, rock and flap her hands.

The assistant comes over and stops the girl from flapping her hands, then places the child's hands gently around the edge of the plate. The little girl smells the paint, pushes the plate around on the table and watches the paint swirl on the plate. The assistant dips her finger into the paint and then dots it repeatedly on a piece of paper. The five-year-old looks on curiously and anxiously as the assistant says, €your turn' while taking her finger and dipping it into the paint. Not only is the experience calming and cooling, it is anxiety reducing. Placing her entire hand in the paint, she swirls it around and around, until the paint is all over the back of her hand. She then dots her paper with her handprint until only a small amount of paint remains on the paper.

How many times have you actually seen a child respond with such amusement and curiosity to touching something that is gooey, wet and sloppy? Each child is different when it comes to experimenting with paint. The experience itself can be a positive sensory exploration or a disaster, depending on how the child is introduced to it. Every child's experience is different and is treated as such by the teacher.

To create a positive experience, a slow introduction that incorporates each sense one at a time or at the same time and repeated frequently will have the best possible outcome.

For example, this five-year-old child is about to taste a strawberry flavored cookie. The teacher will have the child smell and see the box of cookies first, identifying what it is. Then the child will touch the cookie, getting a feeling of its texture. Next the child will be asked to touch their tongue to the cookie or have the cookie touch their lips. Some resistance may incur and if so, the child can continue to hold the cookie in their hand, while the teacher makes observations about the cookie. It may take several times of introducing this food to the child before the food can be placed on the lips.

Foods and activities that stimulate all or most of the five senses can assist a child with learning about their environment and themselves. It takes time, and an inordinate amount of repetition and dedication to achieve this successfully.