Heavy blanket during meltdown?

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I've heard that someone with Asperger's need something to "weigh them down" during a meltdown, like a heavy blanket.
I've also heard that it is better to hold them tight than to leave them alone.

Is this true? Can anyone relate?

PS: My son is four year old with Aspergers. Still trying to figure out how to handle different situations correctly.

The weight can be comforting, and therefore help people get settled down sooner.

It works for some people; for some, it does not.

It is better to hold some people than to let them alone. Your son is very young, you might try it.

I was never one of those people. Even as a small child, I had to be let alone or I'd just get more and more and more distraught.

It's different for everyone. Try things until you find the things that seem to work for your son in particular.

You have to know your child. My son likes pressure and close snuggles, but no way he would want that during a meltdown. He would feel trapped and awful. If he is on the precipice of a meltdown a good snuggle might help, but I would not shove him under a heavy blanket.

In our case, and I think in many cases, feeling "not in control" is one of the issues that creates meltdowns, which is why it would never work for us. If you have child who would perceive it as comforting, that is a whole other thing.

To create a very bad analogy think about tickle games. (mainly bad b/c this would be an excitement thing vs a comfort thing and there are aspects to tickling that are not present in the actual thing we are talking about.) Some kids like them. Some don't. In some contexts, a tickling game can be abusive b/c one person has control and the other does not. Even if you generally like them, you might not like it in all contexts or if there is a power element added to it. Under some circumstances it might cheer you up, but if you are really upset it might be very much unwanted.

If you want to test if the blanket thing may work, try a nice snuggle, first maybe and see how your child handles that. If he doesn't like it, though, I would let up.