Kuya Rey and Gabby at ‘Barberya ni Kap’

At 1 year old, his first haircut was monumental. Gabby sat on a specially designed, car-shaped kiddie barber’s chair and he did not move or fidget while the barber shaved off his baby hair. A few minutes later, he looked so cute with his semi-kalbo haircut.

Two years later, I was a highly-stressed mother who sat on an adult barber’s chair while letting a three-year old crying and fidgety Gabby sit still on my lap. We both wore the same barber’s cape on our necks. The cape was about to be torn because of Gabby’s constant resistance. He looked like he was feeling pain and fear at the same. Maybe the sensation from the shaver gave him pains on both his scalp and his ears. Maybe he was just afraid of the shaver, of the barber and of the barbershop altogether.

The autism diagnosis months later confirmed that Gabby had sensory issues. One of them was his auditory hypersensitivity. Certain sounds such as the hair shaver’s startled him and caused him to cover his ears in fear. When Gabby started attending sped classes, one of the simulation activities was haircutting. The sped teacher acted as the barber. While she was pretending to cut Gabby’s hair, she was also holding a real pair of scissors, and a real hair shaver. They both did that for a few sessions before Gabby and I ventured into a series of adaptation activities of going to a real barbershop which had a real barber who really was an expert in handling neurotypical kids and kids with special needs alike. We had to go to the barbershop daily for a week, then weekly for a month for pretend sessions. Finally, we went on a monthly basis for real sessions.

Earlier this morning, Gabby and I went about with our monthly routine of going to Barberya ni Kap, his ‘suki’ barbershop and letting his hair cut by Kuya Rey, his ‘suki’ barber for more than 2 years now. He greeted Kuya Rey, smiled at him, and told him that he will wait for his turn because Kuya Rey still had a customer. When Kuya Rey called him, he independently climbed up the adult barber’s chair and willingly let Kuya Rey put the barber’s cape on his neck. He told Kuya Rey his usual scripting, “I want semi-kalbo number 2, Kuya”. It meant that Kuya Rey will use the usual blade #2 on the hair shaver. He did not fidget and was not bothered by the sound of the hair shaver, the pair of scissors, the comb and the hair brush. He leisurely watched the show on TV. After a few minutes, he asked for a P50 bill from me and then he paid the cashier. He was done. His barber told me he can already ‘pass’ as a regular kid. I took that as a compliment. All of these actions may have been practiced several times already for the past two years, but they were ‘perfected’ by gradual but constant exposure. Desensitization may be ‘bloody’ at first but it can be rewarding in the end.