The Social Battery

We often use the social battery concept when working with autistic people (although it can be helpful even if someone is not autistic). This can be used to help to understand someone's needs 'proactively' to 'get ahead' of supporting them by understanding triggers.

If we pretend our minds and bodies work like a battery, we can use this to think about what things help us to feel ok, calm and settled and what things make our energy low, lead to difficult feelings or exhaust us. This can be quite extreme for people if their battery drains too often and can lead to them being 'burnt out'.

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For autistic people, navigating day to day life can include an accumulation of things that 'drain their battery' (e.g., a noisy and busy place or lots of sensory input, an exam, a confusing interaction with someone, feeling misunderstood). Understanding what things are that drain somebody can help us to:

1. Plan things in to have the chance to recharge someone's battery

2. Learn what ways to stop someone's battery draining so much in the first place

3. Help others in their life to understand and support them in a way that is tailored to their individual needs

Some common things that can drain an autistic person's battery are below. These will be different for different people but these happen for many people. For a child, this might occur without people realising throughout their school day or maybe in a work day for an adult, for example:

It can be hard to know what the triggers are for someone's battery being drained. Some examples are above. Another way to work this out is to 'track back' when you/your child became distressed, exhausted or had a 'meltdown' or seemed to 'shut down'. Try to think what was happening that led up to it, what was in the environment, what were the sounds, smells etc, what were they wearing, who was there etc. You could keep a diary and ask others to to look for patterns. Once we know the 'battery drainers', it is easier to come up with a helpful 'battery charging' list. You could also look back at days that seemed to be easier for them and see what was helpful on those days if you aren't able to work it out or your child isn't able to say.

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Some ideas of helpful 'battery charging' activities to help someone recuperate and feel at their best are below. As mentioned, the more these can be in place throughout a week, the less drained someone will be. However, it isn't always possible. It may be that you can pick one from the list each day that helps or you may pick specific ones at specific times.

As well as the options above, some ways to come us with 'battery charging' activities are to come up with a list of what helps on days you/your child feels ok, talk with your child about it if you are a parent if they are able to, or use sensory ideas. For example, you could think of positive things they enjoy related to how things feel, how things smell, how things taste, sounds etc and come up with a 'toolkit' or sensory box as a starting point. Adaptations to their environment are often also really important. Sometimes they can be quite simple things like the chance for 5 minutes of movement, the chance to be in a quieter place or not speak for 30 minutes while they settle in somewhere etc.