![]() ![]() The analogy is helpful for getting kids to understand the cumulative nature of stress and the need to “deal” with little stressors before they add up to an out of control reaction. If you keep adding more wood, before the fire has dealt with the wood you have already added, pretty soon the fire will get too big and could get out of control. Camp fire – You can make your campfire bigger and bigger by adding small pieces of wood (small stressors).Tigers can be tamed using the right techniques such as providing food and rest. Wild animal – Stress can be like a tiger.This analogy can be helpful in teaching individuals the importance of the restorative “break”. The longer you hold on to the glass of water (stress) the heavier the glass becomes, until you can no longer go on. Glass of water – How hard is it to hold a glass of water for a minute? How hard is it to hold it for an hour? What if you had to hold it for the whole day? We need to put the glass of water (our stress or anxiety) down periodically in order to pick up again and carry on.If you are trying to help your son, daughter or student to understand emotions, you might consider using or adapting one of the following analogies: Over the years, we have seen many talented teachers and parents help the child with ASD to understand and manage emotions using creative analogies. And Tony Attwood’s book, Exploring Feelings: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to Manage Anxiety, uses the analogy of adding “tools” to one’s “toolbox” to cope with feelings. Whitehead uses a volcano analogy to help children learn to deal with anger. Elise Gagnon’s book, Power Cards, describes how to use a child’s special interests to motivate behaviour change, drawing analogies between the behaviour of a favorite character and the behaviour of the child. In their stories, the evil villains are “Unthinkables” that prevent students from thinking of others, while Superflex is the superhero who teaches strategies to think flexibly. ![]() Michelle Garcia Winner and Stephanie Madrigal created the Superflex Program using a super hero / evil villain analogy that would appeal to students aged 7-10. Many programs that have been developed to teach emotional regulation use concrete visual representations of emotional states (e.g., The Incredible 5 Point Scale by Kari Dunn Buron The Stress Thermometer in Jeanette McAfee’s Navigating the Social World) as well as analogies. Clearly, emotions can be one of those “difficult concepts” for students with ASD. Understanding and managing stress or anxiety may be particularly challenging, leading to the dreaded “melt down” or tantrum. Students with ASD frequently have significant difficulty understanding and labelling emotions, and often experience difficulty managing their emotions in an appropriate way. The more the student connects with and understands the “known”, the more likely it is to be helpful when used as an analogy. An effective analogy is one which takes information from something the student knows (understands) and draws attention to the similarity between that information and the new concept. Using Analogies to teach Students with ASD to Manage Stress/AnxietyĮducators often use analogies to help students gain an understanding of difficult concepts. Supporting Minimally Verbal students in the school setting.Introduction to Social Skills Intervention.Supporting Students with ASD in your Classroom.Severe and Moderate Intellectual Disabilities.Introduction to Applied Behaviour Analysis. ![]()
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