When I was teaching elementary school students with autism I would spend the entire month of October preparing the students for our school’s Halloween Trick-or-Treat Parade.  We would simulate trick-or-treating by going room to room in our costumes and collecting candy.  Parents were encouraged to participate and we made the day a big adventure.  For some of the families it was the only way they could share the Halloween festivities with their child with autism as community outings for them were often difficult.

Some of my students were enthusiastic about a particular character from a movie or T.V. show and already dressed up as this character at every available opportunity.  For these students the dress-up part we needed to practice was how to wear the costume for the party but take it off for the rest of the day.  Or, how to practice dressing up without props that were not allowed at school.  On the other end of the spectrum I had students who did not understand the dress-up requirements of Halloween and were hyper sensitive to wearing clothing that they were not accustomed to or would agitate their tactile issues.  Giving lots of opportunities for the children to play with a variety of costume articles including, capes, gloves, hats, glasses, masks, and other props was an important approach to learn if the hyper sensitive child would tolerate any costume options.

Beyond the costume requirement, there is the beloved fun way to request candy to be learned.  This practice was easy and entertaining.  It only took a bag of small piece candy and lots of practice.  So as not to overload the students with too much sugar, I would have the children practice saying, or communicating through an alternative communication device, that requisite phrase “Trick-or-Treat,” for only 1 tiny piece of candy.  This way we could practice multiple times in a row without overloading on sweets.  The kids always loved this practice and excitedly learned to say Trick-or-Treat.  Next, we would practice putting the two things together during a regular group activity.  I would add a practice session where the students would be given a choice of 1 costume prop, and would take turns walking around to the staff in the group, say Trick-or-Treat, receive their 1 small piece of candy, then move on to the next staff.  Again, this activity was a big hit with the students.

So, every year I thought I had appropriately prepared the students for the upcoming the Halloween parade. We had figured out what costumes each child could wear, taught them all to communicate, “Trick-or-Treat, and accept a piece of candy for their efforts.   But for the first few years of my career I always had several students who exhibited behavioral meltdowns in the first room visited along our parade route.  Why was this activity constantly so difficult?  Why couldn’t the children just follow directions?  I had put so much effort into teaching the necessary skills only to have the activity ruined by crying children.

What I eventually figured out was that while I had provided the students the skills needed to complete a Trick-or-Treating event, I had not prepared them for the Instructions of the activity.  You see during practice in class the children always received their one piece of candy and, of course, were allowed to eat it immediately.  Now, during the Parade, they were asked to leave the candy in the trick-or-treat bag and keep moving to the next room.  We had changed the instructions for the activity and just expected the students to go with the flow based on our verbal directions.  When not explicitly provided the Rules of an activity children with autism will infer them by the consistent and predictable routines experienced.  By changing the routine of eating the candy immediately, the staff broke the Rules as understood by the child.

After coming to this realization, I made a point to add the Structure and Instruction of the activity to my practice sessions.  As we got closer to the actual event I would have the students practice carrying a container, leaving the candy in the container, and delaying indulgence to a later time (snack or lunch).  Further when it was time to eat some candy the children were given the opportunity to pick a certain number of candy pieces to eat while putting the rest away for later.  This preparatory activity was more difficult than those allowing immediate gratification but it was far more effective in actually preparing the children for experiencing “trick-or-treating,” and the aftermath of bags full of enticing candy.  The following years proved to be far more fun and less stressful for the entire class.

 

Happy Halloween!