Building a Safe Environment

Most people can get a sense of whether an environment they enter is safe or potentially dangerous. It has been proposed that this occurs through what has been termed neuroception, a neural process used to identify environmental risk. External and internal sensory information is processed and evaluated, without needing conscious awareness, for indicators of whether the environment is safe or dangerous (Porges, 2009).

It has been proposed that people with autism may have a different sense of neuroception, which may mean they are more likely to detect danger unnecessarily in their environment (Porges, 2004). If this is the case, it is therefore important to build an environment where people with autism feel safe and comfortable and where they are made aware of what will be happening.  

To listen to Kari Dunn Buron discuss the importance of building a safe environment: click here.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108032/

Simple adjustments can make the environment more predictable for children with autism and this can have the effect of lowering their anxiety levels. In a secondary school setting, for example, simply requiring all teachers to record learning aims on the whiteboard in a universal format can increase the predictability of classes throughout the school day. Making elements of the environment more predictable is likely to benefit the whole class, not solely children with autism.

To listen to Dr Patsy Daly discuss the importance of making simple environmental adjustments please click here.