Danger: Storm ahead
One of my friends is a youth worker and mentor in a local special provision school and she asked me to discuss the topic of meltdowns and shutdowns. They are almost buzzwords within autism and the autistic community. What are these phenomena? Both of them describe an occurance where the individual is overloaded with information and stimuli with differing reactions to the overload. A meltdown is a loss of behavioural control to an overwhelming situation1, as described by NAS. I think this is one of the briefer descriptions of this phenomena I have found, hence why I reference NAS as this is clear and to the point. Ways in which meltdowns can manifest themselves may include: anger or violence exhibited in a verbal or physical manner, crying, shaking and ‘refusal’ to comply. This list is not exhaustive I add, these are merely from experiences I have had. These are different to tantrums, which are goal based. A shutdown is pretty much what it is describing: shutting down. This is a retrac…