NILES, Ohio — For Jacen Meade, 5, every day brings new challenges.

What You Need To Know

  • For children on the autism spectrum, a typical trip to see Santa can be overwhelming

  • The Autism Society of Mahoning Valley hosts a sensory sensitive meet and greet with Santa each year

  • This year, the nonprofit had to make adjustments to keep Santa and the children safe

Jacen has autism and epilepsy, so he has to work extra hard to do things others might take for granted.
"He is in therapy six days a week of some sort. All of his therapy has been a huge help for us. He’s very limited verbally to what he can say, so it has helped a lot with his signs and he has learned some signs he does — a modified sign language he does J-A-S-L. It’s Jascen's American sign language,” explained Jacen's father, Justin Meade.

On Sunday, Jacen had the chance to just enjoy being a 5 year old with his family.

The Autism Society of Mahoning Valley hosted a sensory-sensitive meet and greet with Santa Claus.

“This year, he was kind of excited. We’ve been working with him more with some things in the different therapies, and we will read him the Santa stories and kind of interact more with who Santa is. He was very excited this year. I think you got to see a little bit that he saw Santa.”

This isn’t the first year the Autism Society of Mahoning Valley hosted a special meet and greet with Santa, but it is the first time they’ve had to practice social distancing during the event.

Justin says he's happy they were still able to participate in this event.

“It’s definitely something that’s important to (Jacen), but they joke about it a lot of times in the autism community, but they say Santa could be autistic. They say he lines up his reindeer a certain way. He has a lot of characteristics that a lot of autistic individuals do.”

At the top of the Meade family Christmas list is widespread autism awareness.

Justin says he hopes events like this one will help shed some light on the autism community.

“If he is having a meltdown because he’s over stimulated 'cause someone had a ringtone that hurt his ears, or whatever it is — it can be something that simple. If it’s something like that, just go about your way. Don’t sit there and pull out your phone and record him for a TikTok or whatever because sometimes that happens, and it’s like it’s a joke, but that can be very hurtful for those individuals and their families.”

The Autism Society has chapters throughout the entire state of Ohio. You can find one near you by searching online.