Ep. 94 How to Help Autistic Children with their Emotions
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What is interoception and why does it matter for autistic children?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP
couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuro-affirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this!
Hello, hello. Welcome to Making the Shift here again with our special guest. He's back. Welcome to the show today. I'm really excited to talk about this topic. This came on the tale of last week's show where I realized a lot of you guys had questions about this and this would make for its own episode. So today we are talking about understanding interoception, which is something that is super important for those of you supporting autistic children or people to understand. And it is also something that is often very overlooked. It's often not something any of us learn about. This is not something we've heard about in school. And it's certainly not something we learn how to help kids with and support them through.
How does interoception connect to emotional awareness and regulation?
So today we're gonna be talking about interoception, why it matters, and specifically the link to interoception and emotional awareness. And then self-regulation. So we're going to talk about it. We're also going to talk about some ways you can start to help support kids who are having trouble with interoception. Okay, so what is interoception to begin with? It is our ability to perceive the signals that are occurring within our own body, right? So it is that internal sense that we have. It is us being able to check in with our body and to know physiologically what is happening within our body. And the reason why this is so important is because there is a direct link between our ability to interpret these signals, well, feel these signals within our body, interpret them, and then be able to connect them to emotions.
Like I said on last week's show, there are things that we do you probably don't even realize because you do them so instantly where you're sitting down and you feel a certain way and you can instantly connect it to a feeling. So you might feel your heart beating really rapidly and you know that's maybe anxiety or you know that's excitement. You might feel that butterfly sensation within your belly, which lets you know that you're feeling nervous. Your chest might be tight, which lets you know that you're stressed. And so often we can feel these physiological states, right? And then we can just assign them meaning, and then we know how we're feeling, which then helps us know what to do about it in order to make ourselves feel better.
But for so many autistic kids, about 50% or more have what's called alexithymia, which is difficulty understanding and describing their emotions. And of course, that can affect kids in different ways, not only for themselves, but interacting with others as well.
Why do many autistic kids experience alexithymia and emotional dysregulation?
And understanding others' perspectives and emotions and, you know, in that way can absolutely affect them as well. So when we have kids who are having trouble recognizing those signals within their bodies, we might see more emotional dysregulation, right? Because they're not seeing the signs that that is coming on, or they might not be able to identify that that's what's happening within their body, more meltdowns or shutdowns. And then what that leads to is trouble with self-advocacy, because if you don't know what that you're feeling a certain way, it's hard for you to ask for what you need in order to make yourself feel better or get away from that environment that is causing that reaction within your body.
So very, very important to understand that the way that we learn our feelings is through the connection that we make in our body. Our body is constantly giving us signals. It's constantly giving us valuable information. And our job is to be able to be aware of it and interpret it. and then be able to make it meaningful, meaning take that and be able to identify, okay, I'm feeling really scared right now. And therefore I need to leave this situation or this person makes me really angry. I need to not engage with this person anymore.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is interoception and why does it matter for autistic children?
0:08–1:18
2
How does interoception connect to emotional awareness and regulation?
1:18–3:24
3
Why do many autistic kids experience alexithymia and emotional dysregulation?
3:24–5:26
4
What simple body‑scan exercises can help kids notice internal signals?
5:26–6:36
5
How can the Autism Level Up Energy Meter be used to teach self‑advocacy?
6:36–8:39
6
What practical self‑regulation strategies work for different energy levels?
8:39–10:10
7
How can parents and educators start these conversations and find more resources?
10:10–11:47
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)