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Telling if Your Child With Autism is Sick

sher202020's picture
Submitted by sher202020 on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 12:47

Can you figure out if your kid on the spectrum is sick?  Not always.....

Back when my son was 5, or 6, I figured he had probably hit the age when he would start throwing up in the toilet and not on the floor.  ...or in bed....or on the couch....or wherever he happened to be.  I was waiting for him to tell me verbally that he was feeling nauseous.  I thought I would hear some kind of expression of malaise.  "My head hurts."

"My stomach hurts."

"I feel dizzy."

I thought he would tell me something.  It didn't occur to me that he didn't know how.

And it certainly didn't occur to me that he would need to be taught how.

So we started talking about it.   Where is your stomach?  Point to it.  Where is your head...touch your head.

Here are some words that can tell about how you feel:  yucky, hurts, bad, feel sick. 

Here are some pictures of people who feel sick.

I thought I had it all covered.  Until the day he told me, with a thoughtful expression, "Mom, my stomach feels bubbly and sugary".

Wow, what a cute expression.  That sounds so poetic.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Wait a minute.  Could that possibly mean.....?

 

 

Yep.  He threw up.

 

Comments

3
seebert's picture
Submitted by seebert on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 13:18

Cute.  But I would suggest- that perhaps even for nomal kids, 5 or 6 is too early developmentally for this.  I know my experience is marred by my own high functioning autism, but I didn't understand my body well enough to know this until 8 or 9, and my non-autistic, but still special needs son, is still throwing up in his bed from time to time at age 8.

Even adults don't get the clue sometimes until it's too late.  So I wouldn't worry too much about this- but tell him the next time his tummy feels bubbly and sugary to run for the toilet.

Wayward Son's picture
Submitted by Wayward Son on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 18:34

This is an issue with my eldest son Perrin even at age 13.  Social interaction of any kind is hard for each of us with autism, and for each of us it is different.   For Perrin, most of the time he just goes running for the toilet if he gets some type of internal warning.  We have also found him sleeping on the cool wood floor in his room before we know something is up because he will look and act the same right up to the point of sleeping, or throwing up.  He likes the coolness, and when he gets break time at school it is on the floor so we have to really watch him when he is home sick during the day and make sure he stays in bed because he attributes rest during the day to the floor.  He will let us know that “I feel sick”, but that could be anything from his head hurting to having all the symptoms of the flue.  And he has also mentally attached saying “I feel sick” to getting to stay home from school, so we have to filter through that as well.  All in all, he is not that much different from any other kid, just very limited in the ability to tell his parents exactly how he feels.  We get to the details of what he feels through asking simple questions, and hope he is not just repeating our words back at us. 

seebert's picture
Submitted by seebert on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 18:46

From my own autism experience, so YMMV- cool helps with the pain I get from being overstimulated.  When I have a migraine, it's a dark silent room and an icepack that helps me recover.