Why it’s important for autistic children to learn about bodies and personal boundaries

Learning about bodies and body parts:

  • helps autistic children understand and feel comfortable with their own bodies
  • gives children language to communicate clearly about their bodies
  • helps children understand that their bodies belong to them
  • lays the foundation for children’s understanding of personal boundaries.

Personal boundaries are the limits and rules about how:

  • your child should behave around other people
  • other people should behave around your child.

Personal boundaries include limits and rules about who can touch your child’s body.

Personal boundaries are important for your child’s personal safety because they help your child recognise inappropriate, unsafe or unwanted behaviour, including unsafe touch.

How to help your autistic child learn about bodies and body parts

When autistic children learn about all parts of their bodies, it can make it easier to learn about their genitals.

Teaching tips

  • Use everyday moments. For example, you can introduce the names of body parts while your child is having a bath or you’re helping your child get dressed.
  • Look at a book. You can use the pictures to help your child learn the names for the parts of the body.
  • Sing songs. Songs like ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’ are a fun way for children to learn body parts.
  • Use dolls with realistic body parts. You can name the body parts when you’re playing with your child.
  • Colour a picture. Your child might enjoy colouring pictures or doing drawings of different body parts while you label them together.
  • Use visual supports and social stories.

Tips for learning about genitals

  • Introduce the names for genitals at the same time as other body parts. Your child will learn that these are body parts too, just like toes and arms.
  • Use formal terms like ‘vulva’ or ‘penis’ when you’re talking about genitals.
  • Introduce informal names for body parts too – for example, ‘boobs’ for breasts. Your child might hear these words at school or other places.

How to help your autistic child understand different bodies

It’s important for autistic children to learn about how boy bodies and girl bodies are different and how bodies change as you grow up. This helps them get ready for puberty.

Teaching tips

  • Look at pictures in books. When you look at the pictures, you can show your child the differences between boys and girls.
  • Talk about the differences between child bodies and adult bodies. To see how people change from children to adults, your child could look at pictures of you at different ages.
  • Talk about your child’s own body. For example, ‘When you get older, you’ll grow hair on your face like Daddy’. This can help your child imagine how the changes will apply to them.

Autistic children and teenagers might need time to understand that their bodies will change in puberty. You can help your child get used to the idea by talking and preparing early.

How to help your autistic child learn about public and private body parts

When your autistic child understands the difference between public and private parts of their body, it’ll be easier for them to know what’s OK to do in private but not in public.

This is an important aspect of putting personal boundaries into action for your child.

Teaching tips

  • Use bath time to talk about when it’s OK to be naked and when you need to wear clothes. For example, ‘It’s OK to be naked in the bath or shower’, or ‘I have to wear clothes when I come out of my room’. You could also use dolls or pictures to help.
  • Make a list with your child of when it’s OK to be naked in front of other people or when it’s OK to see other people naked – for example, when your child is getting changed for swimming. This might be a written list or pictures of places like the changing room.
  • Talk about what’s OK to do in public and what you should do in private. For example, ‘When I go to the toilet, I should shut the door’.
  • Try a visual schedule. For example, you might have pictures of your child walking into the toilet, closing the door, using the toilet, washing their hands, and finally opening the door again and leaving. Keep the schedule in a place that’s easy for your child to see.

How to help your autistic child understand ‘safe touch’, ‘unsafe touch’ and ‘unwanted touch’

‘Safe touch’, ‘unsafe touch’ and ‘unwanted touch’ can be useful ways to help your autistic child understand who can touch their body, where and when. This is a practical and important part of understanding personal boundaries and protecting personal safety.

Touch can be safe, unsafe or unwanted depending on the situation.

What is safe touch?

You can explain safe touch to your child by saying, ‘It’s when there’s physical contact between 2 people, and both people say it’s OK for it to happen’.

For example:

  • A classmate gives your child a hug.
  • A doctor checks your child’s body with you in the room.
  • You wash your child in the bath.
  • Your child hugs their grandmother.

What is unsafe touch?

You can explain unsafe touch by saying, ‘Your body belongs to you. No-one can touch or see any part of your body without a good reason’.

For example:

  • Another person touches a child’s genitals, without good reasons or without a parent.
  • Another person wants help having a bath or going to the toilet.

What is unwanted touch?

You can explain unwanted touch by saying, ‘It’s when there’s physical contact that you don’t like or that makes you feel overwhelmed’.

An example of unwanted touch might be a hug from a relative.

It’s good to teach your child about unwanted touch so they can learn polite ways to say no. These might include saying ‘No thank you’ or holding their hand up for a high five instead.

How to help your autistic child recognise the difference between safe, unsafe and unwanted touch

Many autistic children find it hard to notice what their body is feeling – for example, when they feel hungry or need to use the toilet. This can also make it harder for them to recognise when touch feels wrong or uncomfortable.

Helping your child recognise the difference between different types of touch starts with teaching them to pay attention to feelings in their body.

Tips to help your autistic child recognise different types of touch

  • Regularly check in on your child’s body feelings. For example, ‘How does your tummy feel right now? Does anything hurt?’
  • Use pictures or body maps to help your child point to where they feel things in their body.
  • Explain body feelings that tell your child they’re comfortable or safe. These might be steady breathing, a heartbeat that’s steady, or relaxed shoulders.
  • Explain body feelings that tell your child they’re uncomfortable or unsafe. These might be a fluttery or a sick feeling in the stomach, a racing heart or goosebumps.
  • Use visual supports. You could use a picture of a hug from a friend with a green tick, a picture of a hug from a stranger with a red cross, and photographs of appropriate behaviour and touching.

Let your child know it’s always OK to tell you if a touch has bothered them, even if it happened a while ago and they felt fine at the time. You could practise phrases they can use to tell you – for example, ‘I didn’t like it when ...’.

How to explain bodies and boundaries to non-speaking autistic children

If your autistic child is non-speaking or uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), the same ideas apply, but the tools will look different.

Tips

  • Make sure your child’s AAC device or communication system includes vocabulary for body parts and feelings, plus words like ‘stop’, ‘I don’t like that’ and ‘help’. If these words aren’t there, ask your child’s speech pathologist to add them.
  • Use a visual support like a choice board with options like ‘hug’ and ‘high five’ to help your child respond to check-ins about touch and comfort.
  • Practise using ‘stop’ or ‘no’ during play so your child knows what to say and how to say it.
  • Let carers, teachers and support workers know how your child communicates discomfort, and make sure they’re actively watching for it.

A speech pathologist can help you build the right vocabulary and systems to suit your child’s communication preferences.

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