Sensory or Behavioral Meltdown?

There has to be two forms of an autistic meltdown. Sensory meltdown and behavioral meltdown. I'm not positive of this. This is just my concerns from what I witness with my son.

A sensory meltdown occurs when the nervous system goes into a sensory over-load. This involves the sense of touch, smell, taste, sound and vision. When an over stimulating environment causes the mind to scramble and not process the information fast enough.

A behavioral meltdown happens when the autistic child doesn't get to do something and can't get a hold of themselves till they get it done with. No matter how small the situation.

Tonight my dad was on the phone and he hung it up without my son saying hello and goodbye to who was on the other end. This upset him to a point of a tantrum that wouldn't end. It is one of his routines to say "hello and goodbye" to the other person on the phone. Thus, the behavioral meltdown in my view.

I put it off and tried to let him cry himself out and calm down without my help. I thought it would only last a few minutes but it lasted a long time. Usually I try to rub his back or give him a tight hug for sensory stimulation but tonight he wouldn't let me near him. Maybe being tired and a nap cut short triggered this?

Going on to 40 minutes he wasn't getting any better emotionally. I had to do something about this. He was making himself sick he was crying so much. All because he didn't say "hello" on the phone.

It came to the point where I called my parents home phone from my cell phone. The phone rang and he finally got to say hello and goodbye to me on the other line. Now the tears turned into sniffles and sighs of relief. All it took was for me to call and have him answer.

It makes me sick thinking that it will be like this until he has more therapy. He needs to understand that some things he cannot do. He needs to not get so upset over the smallest things. I know I could have prevented the prolonged tantrum by calling earlier. I should have. I wanted to see if he could end it on his own but it wasn't happening. How do I redirect his attention to not focus on the phone? Nothing was changing his mind.

Sometimes a parent feels lost what way they can do or should have done earlier to prevent a situation like this.  The best way to handle a meltdown, is to prevent it from happening.  You just don't know what will trigger it off.