An adult may be able to recognise these signs and remove themselves from the situation causing the problem, but a child may not have this understanding or be able to communicate that they are becoming overwhelmed. What can be helpful is that meltdowns are rarely triggered immediately – there tends to be at least a short period of build-up, sometimes referred to as rumbling, as the autistic person begins to become overwhelmed and distressed. If this is a big, sudden change, or a series of smaller but significant changes in quick succession, it could leave the autistic person overwhelmed and trigger a meltdown. If a routine changes, even for a perfectly fair and unavoidable reason, this may cause distress as the autistic person may not have the time and information they need to adapt to the new situation. Many autistic people, including young children, rely on routines to find their way in what seems like a very strange world to them. Meltdowns may also be triggered by changes to routine or surprises. Bright lights could be an issue – some autistic people find a very bright situation physically painful, and this may trigger a meltdown in some. Another autistic person may be hypersensitive to smell, and find the aroma left by the cleaning products used in a certain place overwhelming even if others cannot smell them at all. Their autistic brain may try to comprehend all 20 or 30 conversations they can hear at once, and quickly become overwhelmed by this, possibly triggering a meltdown. For example, some autistic people are unable to filter out many voices all heard at once to focus on just the person speaking to them or on none at all. Many autistic people are hypersensitive in certain ways, and over stimulation in these areas may very well cause a meltdown. The triggers for a meltdown will depend on the person concerned and will generally involve a build up of pressures and stimulation ahead of reaching a point of no return when the meltdown takes place. This is simply an alternative reaction to being overstimulated, and autistic people are not able to choose which response they experience in a given situation. It is also worth knowing that some autistic people may respond to being overwhelmed by appearing to completely shut down and becoming non-responsive rather than by having a meltdown. As we shall discuss later, many autistic people take great precautions to avoid situations where a meltdown may occur. Autistic people report that having a meltdown is a dreadful experience and nobody would ever voluntarily choose to have one. Autistic meltdowns are a response to an overwhelming stimulation or circumstances which the person can no longer cope with – they are not intended in any way to gain any benefit at all. Temper tantrums are a response to being denied something that is wanted and then exhibiting bad behaviour in the conscious or unconscious belief that it will deliver a change in the situation and secure the thing that is wanted. A meltdown is not in any way a temper tantrum, even if the outward appearance may sometimes be similar. It is very important to be clear about what a meltdown is not. Just as all autistic people are different, the ways in which they experience and behave in a meltdown are also all different. This loss of control may show itself physically in terms of what may seem like quite violent actions such as kicking out and arm waving (though usually not consciously directed at anyone or anything in particular), verbally through screaming, shouting, or crying and sobbing, or a combination of the two. While a meltdown may look like this from the outside, what is really happening could not be more different.Ī meltdown happens when an autistic person completely loses control of themselves through an inability to cope with a situation. This is the image many people have of autism, and based on that, think of it as an extension of bad behaviour brought about by inadequate discipline by parents. Other shoppers stand around tutting and agreeing that such poor parenting and failure to prevent temper tantrums is shocking. Picture a small child throwing themselves around on the floor of a supermarket aisle, screaming loudly with their parent or carer apparently unable to do anything about it at all. Meltdowns are one of the most well-known stereotypes of autism.
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