Routines and transitions are a big part of our lives. When my alarm goes off in the morning, I jump right out of bed and head directly to the coffeemaker. And while my coffee is brewing, I make my bed and then brush my teeth. Always in that order. By then, my coffee is ready. I slow down and take my time with this before I get dressed.
Others I know have entirely different morning routines. They may press the snooze button once or twice before they get up. They may turn on the TV, or heaven forbid, skip the coffee entirely.
We all have our own routines – and whether we realize it or not, we depend on them to provide structure for our lives. Even something so simple as how we get going in the morning.
But for people with autism, routines are even more important, from morning to night. As a direct support professional who works with this population, I can tell you firsthand that if a routine is thrown off – or the transition between routines veers off course – it can dramatically impact their entire day.
So, in my line of work, we are very focused on routines – building them, maintaining them and transitioning between them.
Here’s one example of what I mean. We have a gentleman with autism who joined us a few months ago. He was doing wonderfully during the day, but we noticed transitions at the end of the day were very hard for him. He wanted extra time to say goodbye to everybody.
So, we developed a system with staff to take him around the building to say goodbye to his peers and staff. He will come to get me at two in the afternoon and let me know it’s time for the walk. Sometimes he will go to other staff if he cannot find me, but as a person with autism, routine is very important to him. He knows I am the staff member he usually does goodbyes with.
This transition has worked remarkably well, making it so much easier for him to move from the end of our time together before going home.
In a sense, the transition has simply become a new routine.
In some cases, a transition may not be helping a person with autism move from one routine to the next but replacing or modifying a routine in a way that works better for them. That, too, is a transition.
For example, several years ago, we had a young woman who was struggling at our day program. The group setting was just not working for her. There’s always a lot of action and movement on our team, and for her it was difficult because she liked order. She would sometimes, for example, get very distressed if the dishes were not cleaned up right after lunch.
We decided to try transitioning her from the group setting out into the community. We thought being able to minimize all the stimulation would be really helpful for her to grow.
It did.
She became more communicative with us and interacted enthusiastically with community members. And once that happened, she was even able to make brief visits to her peers back in the group setting without the behaviors we saw before.
In a similar case, we had another gentleman with autism who didn’t fare well in our group setting’s loud and busy environment. For him, the adjustment we made to his routine was much simpler. We found that just getting him out of the room away from the chaos – even just within the building, or taking a walk outside around the building, or sitting in our sensory garden – helped him to have better days.
In his case, he just needed to know there was an escape route. If he wanted to leave the room, he would come up and tap my or another colleague’s shoulder. It took him a while to trust us, but now he knows if he feels overwhelmed, he can come to us and get the space he needs.
In the end, knowing how to build and maintain healthy routines, effectively transition between them and modifying them to best serve the people we support is a big part of my job as a direct support professional.
And while we work on routines and transitions for the people we serve, I would be remiss if I did not point out that our entire profession is also in transition. For the first time in a long while, we are seeing pay raises. Through recruitment campaigns like #MoreThanWork, we are seeing an increase in staffing and improved professional development. And while we are so thankful to volunteers and members of the community whose support is invaluable, we can do so much more when we are appropriately staffed.
These positive developments benefit us, and more importantly, benefit the people we serve. I can only hope such developments are not a one-time thing – and that they instead become routine.
Jeanette Lorica is a direct support manager for The Arc of Rensselaer County at Brunswick Center Services DayHab. She supervises a team of direct support professionals helping people with disabilities gain life skills and interact within the community.
The Arc of Rensselaer County advances the rights, safety, and inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by providing vital support and advocating for policies that ensure access to the opportunities everyone deserves. To learn more, visit https://renarc.org/.
