Abby (age 11) and I participated in a study regarding Menstrual Hygiene for Girls on the Autism Spectrum. They shared some amazing resources. I keep trying to share them with people and thought I'd organize it into a blog.
Puberty Books for Tweens and Teens to Read
These are books that are appropriate for your tween or teen to read about menstruation and puberty. The only one we've bought is the first one, The Autism Friendly Guide to Periods. It was great. Links should take you to amazon.
The Autism-Friendly Guide to Periods
Celebrate Your Body (and Its Changes, Too!): The Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls
For my older daughter, I also bought these books. Both of my girls read them and I thought they were excellent.
The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls (American Girl Library)
The Care and Keeping of You 2: The Body Book for Older Girls
Resources for Caregivers
When we started the study the first thing they scheduled was an hour long meeting to teach ME about puberty, etc. I was surprised by how much I learned. You can find a pdf of the presentation here.
They also shared so many amazing resources. I haven't looked at them all, but the ones I have used have been really amazing. You can see their full resource sheet here. Here are a couple I thought were really excellent:
List of Free Social Stories about Puberty
Amaze: Animated videos that provide age appropriate videos for tweens and their parents
Menstrual Hygiene
The study focused on menstrual hygiene, particularly the process of using and changing a pad. The researchers actually created a video of the process - customized with a mom that looks like me and a daughter that looks like Abby. I don't have access to the video anymore, but here is the process they had us go through many times. I appreciated the thoroughness of the training - Abby had it down in a time or two, though, and so the amount of practice in the study was really hard for us.
● Make sure you have these items on hand before practicing:
a. Pair of underwear
b. Clean pad
c. Extra pads available in the bathroom (near where the child will change)
● Preparing your child’s underwear:
a. Grab a clean pair of your child’s underwear.
b. Lie the underwear flat on a tabletop.
c. Open a new pad by removing the wrapping and piece of paper on the back of the pad.
d. Throw all the wrapping in the garbage can.
e. Place the sticky side of the pad across the inside underwear lining and press down to secure it in the lining.
● Prompt your child to practice removing and replacing a pad by saying, “_____ (Child’s name), it is time for you to practice changing a pad.”
● Hand your child the underwear you’ve prepared with a pad and say, “______ (Child’s name), put on this pair of underwear, and then change your pad.”
● Wait for your child to return with the underwear and pad on.
● While your child is wearing the pair of underwear, have them practice removing and replacing the pad while you observe. Removing and replacing a pad should look like the following:
1. Walks into the bathroom
2. Shuts the Door
3. Stands near the toilet
4. Pulls pants, underwear, and used pad down below knees
5. Sits bottom on the toilet
6. Removes used pad from underwear
7. Folds pad and wraps it in toilet paper (at least once)
8. Drops the pad in the trash can
9. Wipes vagina with toilet paper
10. Drop toilet paper in the toilet
11. Opens a new pad
12. Removes wrapping from pad
13. Throws wrapping in trash can
14. Lays sticky side of pad lengthwise along underwear and presses it into place
15. Gets off toilet
16. Pulls pants, underwear, and new pad up to hips
17. Flushes toilet
18. Washes hands
● At steps 8 and 13, if your child is likely to cause damage to your plumbing (i.e., throwing pad or wrapping in toilet), it will be necessary for you to provide guidance.
a. First, offer verbal instructions.
■ “_________ (youth’s name), place the pad/wrapping in the garbage can.”
b. If verbal instructions do not lead to the correct action (i.e., throwing pad/wrapping away), you may need to physically demonstrate the correct process while explaining verbally.
● After your child has finished (as demonstrated by saying they’ve finished or seemingly given up, or are not sure about the next steps for completing the activity), praise and thank your child by saying, “______ (Child’s name), thank you for working. I really appreciate you practicing changing a pad.”
Menstrual Tracking
They also provided a period tracker as a resource. You can find it here.
I found this article a few years ago about the importance of period tracking - it's amazing, they did a study of girls in juvenile detention and found a link between menstrual cycle and the time they offended... then taught them to be mindful of that cycle. There are also links to more resources in the article.
