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A Guide on How to Get an Autistic Child’s Haircut
Toddler Getting His First Haircut

Table of Contents

The feeling of hot water on your head, the sound of buzzing clippers, or the unpredictability of a loud hairdryer blasting into your ears—if you have a child who’s been newly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or a teen with ASD symptoms, getting a haircut, can feel like an extremely stressful and trying event. Sensory sensitivities and heightened anxiety levels can quickly make this routine self-care task overwhelming.

That’s where Heartlinks can help. With the right strategies and planning, including tips for preparing for your child’s visit, incorporating ABA therapy techniques, and recruiting help, parents and caregivers can provide an enjoyable experience.

So before you abandon the idea of getting a haircut for your kid with autism completely, read on to learn how it can become a positive and manageable experience.

Why Are Haircuts Challenging for Autistic Kids?

With autism being a spectrum disorder, there are many reasons why your child or teen may have difficulty visiting the barber or hairstylist, including the following. 

1. Sensory Sensitivities

It is estimated that over 90% of children with autism have sensory sensitivities. Simply put, autistic children and teens often exhibit a sensory processing disorder, a condition that leads to abnormal reactions, perceptions, and recognition of sensory information entering their nervous system. 

If your child is hyper-reactive to sounds like hair dryers, this can result in sensory overload, which your child may express through aggressive behaviors, such as lashing out at the stylist or engaging in harmful behavior that may injure them.

On the other hand, if your child often exhibits sensory-seeking behaviors, such as hand-flapping, scratching, or spinning, they may display these actions or find different ways to meet their sensory needs while sitting for a haircut.

2. Difficulty Communicating

Whether your autistic son or daughter is non-verbal or is high-functioning and can freely express themselves, visiting a salon or barber shop can be an unfamiliar experience, making communication stressful. Children with autism may have difficulty expressing discomfort, leading to behavioral changes like repetitive body movements when they encounter it. 

If your child is actively enrolled in speech therapy, alert their therapist to the upcoming appointment, allowing them to work and prepare for the experience. 

3. A Change in Routine

A haircut, particularly in a busy salon or barber shop, can disrupt a busy schedule and an autistic child’s much-loved routine. That’s why it’s key to announce the appointment well before the event and help your child prepare for the upcoming change. 

Preparing for The Haircut

Whether you avoided getting your autistic child’s hair cut due to previous traumas or you would rather try and do it yourself at home, preparation for an event like this is key. The following preparation tips can be used regardless of whether you choose a commercial barber or stylist or cut your child’s hair yourself.

Remember, for children or teens with autism regression or disintegrative disorder, the following preparatory steps will need to be adjusted based on their current developmental stage. 

1. Visual Preparation

As with any new activity, you’ll want to prepare your child or teen before the event. It’s usually easiest to do this with pictures and videos. Try showing your autistic child a video of someone of the same gender and relative age getting their hair cut. Take the time to explain what is happening in the video and that you’ll soon be doing the same thing with them.

ABA in-home therapy can be invaluable in preparing your child or teen for this experience. Therapists can work on desensitization techniques to build familiarity with the haircut process. Additionally, ABA parent training can equip caregivers with the strategies to reinforce the desirable behaviors and manage the challenges during the appointment. 

Another great way to visually prepare your child is by using social stories. This visual tool is fantastic for preparing autistic kids for an upcoming change or an event. Using simple language and coordinated pictures, social stories can help your child understand and anticipate the haircut and the barber shop or salon experience.

2. Auditory Preparation

After the visual preparation, try introducing the sounds often heard at a barber shop or beauty salon. Using your phone or tablet, play the sounds of buzzing hair clippers or scissors snipping. If your child becomes accustomed to the sound, you can pretend to buzz or cut your child’s hair.  For children with low-functioning autism, who may have heightened sensory sensitivities or communication challenges, this type of preparation can reduce a child’s anxiety by making these otherwise foreign sounds more familiar. If your child engages in stimming behaviors such as rocking during the preparation period, it’s to their benefit as a self-soothing tool to help them process the experience. You can also let your child pretend to shave or cut your hair so they view this activity as more like playing rather than a chore. 

3. Make Accommodations

Call your child’s barber shop or salon and ask what accommodations they can make. It’s one thing for a business to say they’re ASD-friendly, but it’s quite another if they can’t make adjustments to the appointment if your kid is sensitive to bright lights or strong smells.

For example, if your child is sensitive to loud noises, will they allow them to wear noise-canceling headphones during the visit? Can they bring those with them if your son or daughter is often comforted by a weighted blanket, a stuffy, or a fidget spinner to help with self-soothing

4. Ask for The Therapist’s Help

If your child is actively undergoing ABA therapy, which is considered the gold standard of autism treatment, there are many different techniques their therapist can use to make the haircut an enjoyable experience. Whether they’re using ABA techniques such as errorless learning, discrete trial training, modeling, or tacting, individually or combined, they can be profoundly impactful in helping your child attend a haircut appointment with ease.

Remember that your child’s ABA therapist can identify activities and reinforcements that make the teaching process as interesting as possible, regardless of the technique used. Be mindful of potential extinction outbursts, which are temporary increases in challenging behaviors when introducing new routines. 

5. Schedule The Right Time

Schedule your child’s haircut when they’re most likely to feel comfortable. If your child tends to become overstimulated when surrounded by noise and people, often leading to tantrums or difficulty with emotional regulation, booking an appointment in the morning before the rush might be the best choice. Conversely, an afternoon appointment might work better if your child isn’t a morning person and is usually most alert after lunch. 

Also, be aware of autistic burnout, which is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress or overstimulation, and adjust expectations or routines as needed to support your child.

Trust your understanding of your child’s needs and preferences when choosing the best time for a haircut. 

Let Heartlinks Help You and Your Child!

Whether your autistic child or teen has had a traumatic experience with a haircut in the past or you’ve avoided taking them there, fearing an outburst, it’s time to shift that perspective.

Regular haircuts are an essential part of self-care, similar to preparing for a visit to the dentist’s office. Autism therapy can navigate these challenges with continuously evolving ABA therapy techniques. Early intervention is crucial. The sooner your toddler, child, or teen is diagnosed, the faster they can begin ABA therapy or other supportive interventions, such as occupational therapy, to address situations like haircuts. With the right tools and preparation, you’ll find that a visit for a haircut won’t be nearly as stressful as you imagined.

Contact us today to learn more about our ABA services in Georgia, New Jersey, Indiana, and North Carolina.

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