Tips for Adapting Your Home for the Autistic Child

Today, I have Anne Scroggs as a guest writer on my blog. I was gathering information for an article and was introduced to Anne. She agreed to take over and write this article for me. Anne has some great insights into adapting your home for your autistic child. Thank you Anne for being a guest on my blog today.


Tips for Adapting Your Home for the Autistic Child
By Anne Scroggs

“Your son is autistic.”

When I first heard those words in 1991 autism was not the epidemic that it is today. It was a relatively rare diagnosis and little was known about how to care for autistic children or prepare your home for the adjustments that were going to be needed.

As my son, Mitchell, grew older it soon became clear that we would need to take some immediate steps to not only improve the safety of our home but also adapt it to become an environment that would help us facilitate learning and easier transitions for our son. Here are some of the practical steps we implemented to adapt our home:

1. Remember “safety first” – Depending on the age of your child, you may have already implemented this first step but make sure you have thoroughly safety-proofed your home. For many autistic children, especially ones like my son who love to escape the house on their own to explore, this may mean installing much more intensive door and window locking systems than are used by the average child-proofing parent. Also, since many autistic children tend to obsess over certain food items, electronics, or glass items it is important to lock places like pantry doors and television or dining room cabinets as well. Before you focus on ways to facilitate interaction or communication with your child, determining the best ways to keep them safe has to be priority #1.


2. A picture is worth a thousand words – As a second step, I recommend familiarizing your child with their home environment by identifying items in your house with pictorial format accompanied by the written word. Many children with autism have both delayed receptive and expressive language skills. This means that your child may not understand what is being said to them nor do they use meaningful language to communicate to others. Unlike typically developing children who pick up the meaning of words by inference or by asking questions, autistic children need to be taught what everything is through visual aides and repetition. Making picture/word association cards is a great way to begin to teach your child language skills that will help them communicate their needs around the house.

To make pictures of things in your child’s world, take digital photos of anything that interests your child as well as other household items that are used by your child every day. This would also include food items that your child eats or is offered for meals and snacks. In addition to photos, you can cut out specific products from color ads in advertisements in grocery store flyers and toy store ads. If using an ad, remember to have the typed word included with the image.

It is also helpful to take photos of your child participating in activities such as eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks around the house. Other home activities to photograph include taking a bath, brushing teeth, sleeping in bed, getting dressed, putting on shoes, putting on a coat, playing with a favorite toy, etc. Photos or Web photos of places that you take your child are great to have as well. I recommend reducing photo sizes to 2” x 2”, laminating them, and placing Velcro on the back for easy reuse.

Once you have all the pictures in place, you can use them to assemble a schedule book that can help you facilitate transitions or changes with your child throughout the day. For example, the book can show: “First: Get in the car (photo), Then: Grocery Store (photo)”. If your child can understand what is going on and what is expected of him/her, fewer behavioral issues will arise.

3. Create visual separations between rooms and identify a specific space for teaching/learning - As a next step, I recommend clearly separating each room of your house so that there are visual divisions between each room. This can be achieved using gates, doors, paint, or even a little furniture rearrangement. Autistic children often require crisp clear boundaries to interpret the differences between one room and another.
In addition to separating the rooms visually, it is also important to set up a specific location dedicated to learning. A table and two chairs or a picnic table works great. The key is to have a designated ‘work’ space where you and your child can focus on fun learning activities.

4. Use activity bins to teach your autistic child to follow sequential steps - As a final step, it is also important to have all your teaching materials ready and clearly labeled in your work area so you can quickly capitalize on opportunities when your child is ready to learn. Clearly labeled activity bins are a great way to set up a learning environment for your child. Within these bins, create single or two step activities. For example: put the green block in the jar or place two balls in the box.

These are the first steps in teaching your child to perform sequential tasks. Activity bins are a great way to not only organize your teaching tools but also teach autistic children to learn language, learn to follow directions, build attention span, and eventually complete tasks independently.

At my company, Creative Teaching CAP, we expanded on this system of picture and word associations and schedule books I have recommended above to create an entire system of learning tools that teachers throughout the country are now using in their classrooms to improve communicative speech and learning for special-needs children. If you don’t have the time or materials to implement some of the steps above, you can also find many of them on our website: http://www.CreativeTeachingCAP.com.


Anne Scroggs is the CEO and Founder of Creative Teaching CAP (http://www.creativeteachingcap.com), a special education organization dedicated to creating a comprehensive suite of measurable learning tools that are proven to help autistic and special-needs students thrive. She is a long time student of autistic spectrum disorders and an accomplished advocate for special-needs students. Anne formerly held management positions at a number of Fortune 500 companies, including Seafirst Bank, NCR, and Wang Laboratories, and was recognized for her accomplishments in creating efficiencies in banking systems. Anne resides in Sammamish, WA with her husband and two sons.