Talking to a young person with Autism about a family member being ill

dgrundy

Please does anyone have any advice or resources on how to tell a young person with autism that a member of her family has cancer for the second time.

The first time round, the young person only got told at the end of treatment when everything was ok. Previously, she noticed her family member losing hair and knew this was because of Cancer. She does not understand death but knows cancer is bad.

The family member wants to tell the young person about the cancer this time but tell her in the best way.

Please could you direct me to some information or resources to help me communicate this information to this young person. She also has associated learning difficulties and challenging behaviour. She can communication verbally and understands up to 3 key words when she is calm.

Thanks in advance!

ScopeHelpline

Hi dgrundy,

Thank you for your query.

There is the website called Breaking Bad News (http://www.breakingbadnews.org/) which provides unique and flexible guidelines that can be used by families to ease the process of breaking bad news to people with intellectual disabilities.

Hopefully this is exactly what you were looking for but if you need anything else please let us know.

Kind regards,

Scope helpline