Preparing an autistic child for hospitalization and surgery

Sam had his first visit to the Hospital this week. For most children their first experience of going to the hospital for any reason would be scary, unfamiliar, and a bit overstimulating. Now imagine how it would be for an autistic child whose receptive language skills are severely delayed. Simply talking to them about the upcoming visit or reading a generic book about going to the hospital is not enough. Children with special needs need a multi-faceted approach to preparing them for anything new. Especially something that will be assaulting their multi-sensory system and in the end will be a procedure that produces pain.

I spent quite a few hours searching the world wide web for as many resources as I could find. After 3 hours one day I realized if I was going to find something it was going to be because I created it and blogged about it. Well, then that is what I will do. My hope is that I can save parents like myself the countless hours of searching. After all, don't we all have enough to do already?

I started with a simple step-by-step story of how the visit would go by typing it up in Microsoft Word and then started adding pictures to go with the words. I do not have access to a Boardmaker program with PECS or this process would have been much faster. But, by using copyright-free images from the internet I was able to give Sam pictures of the real-life rooms and places he would be going, which in this case I think was the most important.

The little green fellow is supposed to me the bad tonsil monster
that has been making Sam feel sick.

I included a picture of Sam with his favorite toy, Slither.
The surgeon had told us Sam could bring a comfort item
with him into the operating room.

The real life photos of the operating room, anesthesia mask,
and IV were a HUGE help to Sam

I wish I could say the photo of the IV was so effective that Sam
did not attempt to touch it...he did. Often.

The End!

Here are some pictures for Sam's big day at the hospital. He was a real champ and healed amazingly fast. He was completely off the pain medication 4 days after the surgery and was back in school the following Monday. What a trooper!

Waiting patiently to go into the Operating Room

In the Recovery Room sleeping off all that wonky anesthesia. They put a sock over his hand with the IV so he wouldn't wake up and be afraid when he saw it.

I WANT my Popsicle!

You got that popsicle yet?

Things went much smoother once he got both a popsicle and Daddy's iPhone to watch learning shows on YouTube.

We were on our way back home 4 hours after arriving at the hospital.
WOW! When I was a kid you stayed the night!

Internet resources for creating your own social story:

Hospital Photos for Children
Medical Photos
There are dozens of pages of photos from various Children's Hospitals in the US and abroad. Very good images of operating rooms, inpatient care rooms, playrooms, and children having various tests done (x-ray, MRI, etc.).
To use a photo just right click on the photo with your mouse and choose "Save Image As" then you can place it anywhere on your computer for use in your social story. For beginners I recommend just saving it directly to your desktop since it is the first screen you see when you turn on your computer.

Other social stories for children related to hospital visits:
Visiting a loved one staying in the hospital

A large assortment of social stories for various situations:
Library of social stories
This library is quite extensive but some of the social stories can only be viewed with Power Point, Microsoft Word, or Boardmaker software pre-installed on your computer

Miscellaneous social stories
Great site with scripts for a number of social stories. Just copy, paste, and then add your own pictures.