COOPER CITY, Fla. – A recent study found that genes can influence autistic people’s reactivity to sights, sounds and other sensory cues, especially in young children.
As the mother of a child with autism, Kathy Rodriguez knows new settings can be challenging.
“He was in his typical O.T. therapy--physical therapy but I wanted to see what I could do as a parent,” Rodriguez said.
She combined her personal experience with her professional background in retail floor-set displays to first help her son and then other kids on the spectrum with ‘Safe Space Staging for Kids’.
Currently, I have the medical exam set up, the dental set up and the hair dressing set up. The reason I have those three is because those three are the most triggering ones,” Rodriguez said.
Instead of parents brining their child to a specific location, Rodriguez takes her sets to individual homes, therapy centers and indoor playgrounds like Explorico in Cooper City, Florida.
There’s a key reason why she designed it this way.
“The child needs to know it is not real because if we had our own center and the child comes to us they don’t know if where they’re going it make believe or real they see someone dressed like this they think that must be a dentist it’s in a building, but if we’re doing it at their home and it’s their mom that then removes a layer of them being scared,” Rodriguez said.
And the work doesn’t end when she packs up her sets and leaves.
Parents need to continue to practice and role play with their child.
“So, when the staging is not in their home anymore the parent is still part of the teeth service or brushing the hair be really involved with the child,” Rodriguez said.
According to the latest figures from the C.D.C., approximately 1 in 36 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, and boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed than girls.