Colds and Autism

Caring for a sick autistc is hard enough. They either act as though a simple cold will kill them or a chopped off arm is nothing. It's one extreme or another, and giving medicine is like trying to catch the sun.

With my daughter she never tells me when she is feeling bad, so unless she has physical signs, (runny nose, cough) I have no idea she is sick. She doesn't even complain of headaches that go with having a fever. For this reason, her colds often go undetected. I have gotten in the habit of checking for a fever during the months that the flu is raging. When I or someone else in my house gets sick, I start keeping a close eye on her and checking for symptoms. It's a little bit more than I have to do with my TD (typically developing) kids, but chalk it up to life with an autistic child.