Birth Control for Teenagers with Autism

Are you a parent of a teenager with Autism, and having to consider giving your child access to birth control? Give your child birth control, but also educate him or her about the responsibility of becoming sexually active.

Birth control for autistic teens is highly advisable for a number of reasons, but relationship education is absolutely essential. Whilst an autistic teenager is physically maturing at the same rate as his or her chronologically aged peers, he or she is not socially or emotionally developed to the same maturity level until a later chronological age, and never fully adept at communication and socialization due to the permanency of these deficits. The frontal lobe of a human is not developed until he or she is an adult. Research and studies indicate that all teenagers’ brains are still developing until adulthood. 

If that fact is considered, and if you add the social and emotional impairments that are associated with a diagnosis of autism – then a parent or guardian has a responsibility to protect that child from getting into a situation that will cause adverse effects in that teen’s (with a diagnosis of Autism) young life – the negative potential effects of becoming sexually involved with somebody and not understanding the necessity of birth control to prevent unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Learning Life Skills for Young People with Autism

A youth with Autism should be given the best possible start in life – he or she has already struggled through childhood, and schooling, and during the teenage years faces all of the struggles of the changes to their bodies during puberty. Change is difficult enough to face for a person with Autism, who finds that a predictable schedule and permanency of routines helps that person with Autism maintain a reasonable quality of life.

While a teenager is still developing, he or she is still developing his or her independence and skills of self determination. These skills take time to develop and practice. School and socialisation, maybe taking up a part time job, having to think about what college to apply for, and the changes due to puberty are enough for any young person to have to deal with. For a person with Autism, stability and some constancy of routine during a period of such change is essential.

Relationships for People with Autism and Their Significant Others

As well as learning the regular school curriculum, high school students with Autism are also having to learn the social curriculum. Developing relationships with others takes time to learn, and practice. A lot of teenagers learn to develop relationships with significant others during these years. A lot of these partnerships are short term, some may be a little longer. For a person with Autism, the break up of this relationship may cause significant upset.

Relationships between people with Autism and typically developing people can be fraught with difficulty, as the typically developing person may end up having to compensate for the person with Autism’s lack of natural relating skills. Consequently the relationship may be extremely strained and will come to an end. For the person with Autism who has become attached to the other person, and having to face the end of that partnership – the loss could be potentially very distressing. The person with Autism may have come to rely heavily on the other person to help him or her get through and navigate the perils of daily existence as a person with Autism.

It takes a lot of maturity to be able to handle the consequences of sex. Sex is good, and is a wonderful thing, but it is something that needs to be fully comprehended before somebody decides to become sexually involved with another person.

Relationship Education is Essential for People with Autism

Before becoming sexually involved with another person, a person with Autism needs to first learn about how to act in a relationship. Being in a relationships involves both parties giving, a relationship should not be one sided.

Before a successful sexual relationship can be initiated, each party has to give to one another outside of the bedroom. Dr Kevin Leman has written a book entitled Sex Begins in the Kitchen, to illustrate how important it is for each member of a couple to be considerate of each other before initiating a sexual relationship.

A teenager with Autism needs to be respected in this situation – the provision of birth control is a delicate subject, and needs to be handled responsibly. A teen with Autism needs to be educated about how to handle relationships, and why birth control is a necessity, until he or she decides that they want to become permanently involved in a monogamous relationship with a person and to maybe have children.

An Informed Decision When Not to Use Birth Control

Children should be welcome into the world. Parents with Autism can be loving responsible and caring parents, and also loving and considerate partners to their significant others. If a person with Autism decides with his or her partner to bring a child into the world, then it should be a decision that is thoroughly considered, and definitely not before he or she is mature enough to handle the responsibility.

The other aspect of sex education, and educating about birth control, and also relationships education, is that it teaches safety and respect for both the person with Autism, and his or her sexual partner. Using birth control and understanding why it is necessary is essential to preserve a person’s body against unwanted sexually transmitted diseases.

Don’t Let a Teenager with Autism Contribute to the S.T.I. Statistics

The statistics for sexually transmitted infections worldwide are truly hideous. If a teenager with Autism can be properly prepared, with education, understanding and wait until he or she has matured to the extent (typically not the teenage years but at least until early adulthood) where he or she can make an informed and independent decision to have sexual intercourse without protection from S.T.I.s and unplanned pregnancy – then he or she needn’t be a contribution to those statistics.

Give a Youth with Autism a Good Start in Life

Protect a teenager with Autism, and allow that individual to mature into a healthy, independent, informed and educated person who can make wise decisions about his or her sexual relationships. It will help that person make it through to adulthood without permanent reminders that he or she was not truly ready to have unprotected intercourse.