Weighted Vests for Autistic Kids

Children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly face sensory sensitivities. Some children with autism are hypersensitive, meaning they become overwhelmed at things such as loud sounds or bright lights, while others are hyposensitive, meaning they experience not as much input from certain sensory stimuli.

These sensory sensitivities can cause children on the autism spectrum to become easily overwhelmed, and feel stressed and anxious. When this happens, they may exhibit self-stimulatory behaviors to try to calm themselves down or even exhibit potentially harmful behaviors.

Parents, caregivers, family members and other people who support children with autism can help them manage these feelings of stress and anxiety in different ways. Sensory toys and activities have proven to be very beneficial, as have things such as a weighted vest.

Below, we’ll discuss what weighted vests for autistic kids are as well as how they provide comfort and support.

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What Are Weighted Vests?

Weighted vests are simply garments that children can wear that can hold weight. While they can come in many forms, they are typically shirts that have internal pockets sewn onto them for weights to be put in.

These weights are usually only about a quarter or half pound, but they provide great benefits to children who wear them. The effect of the weights provides deep pressure on the child’s joints and muscles, which gives them what’s known as proprioceptive input.

In essence, the weighted vest acts as a hug that your child can constantly feel. Just like a hug does, the weighted vest will send the brain certain signals, which can then help the person wearing it feel more focused, calm and less anxious.

How Do Weighted Vests Benefit Children with Autism?

It’s important to note that weighted vests are just one of many tools that can be used to support children with ASD. They should not be viewed as an all-encompassing solution to a problem, but rather something that can be used to help them in their journey.

In addition to reducing anxiety and helping children feel more calm, the light pressure that weighted vests apply helps children improve their attention and be more focused. This can aid, then, in aiding children with autism as they attempt to learn new skills or modify certain behaviors.

Children on the autism spectrum often have trouble focusing and being attentive, and a major contributing factor to that is they can feel overwhelmed, stressed and/or anxious in certain situations or with certain sensory stimuli.

By helping to remove some of that anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed, weighted vests enable children with ASD to learn new skills, modify behaviors and hone fine motor skills.

How Should Weighted Vests Be Used for Children with Autism?

Since each individual child with autism is unique, people who support them need to understand that weighted vests won’t work the same for everyone. They provide immense benefits for some children, while providing little to no benefit to others.

That’s why they are seen as tools that support personnel can potentially use to help children with ASD, rather than definitive solutions.

It’s always a good idea to try having children with ASD wear a weighted vest to see if it provides them benefits. When doing so, you need to keep their safety, comfort and well-being in mind.

The weighted vests should be only about 10% of the child’s body weight, at most. If the child is 50 pounds, the vest shouldn’t weigh any more than five pounds, then. This is actually the same standard weight that is used for children when wearing backpacks.

There aren’t any standard rules for how often weighted vests should be worn, or when they should be worn. Instead, parents can work directly with their child’s therapy team to come up with a schedule for when they can wear it.

Developing this schedule will help the child become comfortable with wearing the vest — which itself might be a challenge for some children at first — and then realize the potential benefits from it over the long run.

Again, the details of the wearing schedule will depend on the individual child. Some children may only wear the weighted vests for one hour, while others might benefit from wearing it for large portions of their day.

Blue Gems ABA Uses Many Tools to Support Children with Autism

Weighted vests are just one of the many tools that professionals can use to help support children with autism. Whether they will benefit your child, and how long they should be worn to provide the most benefit, really depends on their individual preferences and reaction to the vests.

At Blue Gems ABA, we use weighted vests as just one tool for how we support children with ASD, through the administration of ABA therapy. Every treatment plan that we design is crafted specifically for each individual patient, targeting the challenges and needs of that patient as well as their unique strengths and preferences.

To learn more, please contact us today.