Fear/Anxiety in Autistic Children

I have a little boy aged 5 who was diagnosed with autism last year.  When he is in the company of younger children, toddlers or babies he becomes paralyzed with fear re: their crying.  We thought initially that it was sensory and that it was the noise he did not like but I am not sure this is the case.  He will leave the room and take himself off out of the situation, however when in shopping centres or restaurants it does not seem to annoy him as much as when it is on a one to one basis.  I fear that we are reinforcing this behaviour by allowing him to leave and also dictate which family house we can visit i.e. if there is a baby there he will not go.  Any suggestions/tips would be appreciated.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

It will not be useful for him or the family as a whole to permit his idiosyncracy to drive the family's routine. However, it is possible to be sensitive to his distress and gradually acclimate him to social situations by limiting the amount of people present or the time that you spend in certain situations. He may be overly stressed by situations in which personal closeness is required vs the relatively anonymous social interactions of such places as shopping areas.