Turns out the nice man helping in Nicky's Sunday school class has a background in design and psychology. We started talking and he told me, that in his experience our kids respond differently to color than neuro-typicals. Specifically he's found that kids with ASD are calmed by solid primary colors like blue, red and yellow unlike neuro-typicals who are calmed by the softer tones.
I never thought about it, but I know this is true from Nicky. He loves what I call the kindergarten class primary shades of solid red, blue and yellow. He favorite blanket is the blue and his favorite pillow is superman with the red, blue and a touch of yellow. He's been going into my closet for years getting red cloths and asking me to put them on. He's always wanting to put on my red ski jacket and he loves his red shirts. He even comments when he see's someone wearing red!
Wow...I wonder if I put on red lipstick, would he watch my mouth and maybe listen closer to my words? I'll try it and let you know.
Any of you notice this?
My son with autism has a definite preference for primary colors. My daughter with autism loves yellow, but she has a very negative reaction to red.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting. Nicky only wanted to wear red this weekend. I'm sure in the years to come someone will explain this to us.
ReplyDeleteMatthew's favorite color for a long time was orange (now it's blue). He keeps asking me to paint his room red, and we're in the process of shopping for a couch.. he would like a yellow one. :P
ReplyDeleteColin prefers RED. Whenever given a choice, he chooses red clothes, backpacks, bedding, etc. He also love to tie-dye and to wear it so we have some hippie variety.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about that before but my son does the same thing. He seems drawn to blue and red which we call his "spiderman colors" (he loves spiderman). and when he plays with blocks he always goes for all the blue ones first and then the red ones once he has used up all the blue ones and we let him pick out his own sheets/bedspread and he picked solid blue sheets and a red comforter....
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