Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Autism Hacks #15

Our awesome family dental office was stellar with G at his teeth cleaning appointment. Though G doesn't have the huge fear of dentists that many ASD spectrum kiddos do, I worried about his anxiety and sensory issues. 

No worries...The clinician talked softly, explained everything ahead of time and again as she worked on him. She introduced the tools, explained them, gave him jobs of holding items and doing his own suction. She gave him cool sunglasses to shade his eyes from the bright lights. Brilliant! I'll always bring some along. 

Before she began work on G, the clinician set him to practice on me for 5 minutes after she saw us scripting. I was impressed at his gentle curiosity. In reality, he spent 1 minute in my mouth, the rest adjusting my chair and exploring - eyes only - cool stuff - of course!. 

G's involvement and empowerment made his visit a success. Possibly too ambitious? G must have processed the idea of dentistry as a career...always planning, assessing. On the way home he announced,

"I want to be a dentist because they don't have 'homework' like Dad does."

Insightful little fella. I wonder how long my 9 year old has been researching career options. I'm with G on the no "working from home" plan.

But...I'm certain it's quite stressful working on mouths all day as a Dentist! :)

Thank you for calming and inspiring, Dr. R. Your understanding office has our back, our mouths, and our heart. 

1 comment:

  1. According to the article,G's doctor seems a sensible man who was very well aware of talen-t to handle autistic child. Well,I am glad that overall you had a nice dentistry trip.

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