Re: negative behavior, etc

July 10, 2002

I have a daughter with autism who had behavioral concerns until we placed her on

medication, and even with that, sometimes she still has tantrums, but they are

nothing compared to the ones she had before. Be very careful about ignoring the

behavior. With individuals who head-bang on walls, floors, etc, to me, ignoring

the behavior is asking for trouble. I try to stop the behavior early before it

has escalated to the head-banging point and we use time-out with . It

took a long while and I have the dents in my walls to prove it, but now I can

sometimes just give her a look or use a certain tone, and she backs down. If

the behavior is too out-of-control, we tell her she has to sit on the sofa,

that's her time-out area.

Once, when was having a tantrum, I was tired and just snapped at her.

I said, " OK, go ahead, throw yourself on the floor... " and then I sat back and

let her do it. She threw herself forward and abruptly stopped. She had chipped

her two bottom teeth...at least a fourth of the tops of them was gone. I was

horrified! I cried and cried. Of course this was in the evening, so I couldn't

bring her to the dentist until the next morning. The dentist filed down the

teeth to even the jagged edges and then built up the teeth with resin material

to match the natural color of the teeth. Needless to say it didn't last and we

had it built up at least twice until the dentist said it might be best just to

stop redoing it, as it was basically a cosmetic procedure.

Not only do you risk something similar like this incident happening, but I am

leery of intentionally ignoring behavior that can really harm a child and the

potential for long-term injury increases when a child is consistently

head-banging. If she is doing it for attention, redirect her to something else,

minimize the attention you are giving as much as possible. Whenever I put

in time-out, I lead her to the sofa, tell her to sit down and then

step back. I do not allow her to get up until she is calm. In public we leave

the place we are and go home.

I think a parent has to use his or her own judgement in each situation. You

know when you can ignore behavior, and when it is time to step in. Listen to

that voice inside yourself and not the " experts " .

Vickie

negative behavior, etc

My daughter asked me to post a question she has about my granddaughter.

Jackie is 5 yrs old and recently has shown an increase in self injurious

behavior and negative behavior toward other children and her teachers,

assistants, and the therapist that works with her an hour a day at home.

When this was topic was discussed at family training sessions at her

school last year, it was strongly recommended that the self injurious

behavior be ignored, unless the child was in danger of harming herself,

because they felt it was being done for attention.

She usually hits or punches with clenched fists, herself in the face and

or head, bangs her head on the floor and sometimes on a wall. Today in

her communication book from school, they said she had a rug burn on her

forehead from throwing herself on the carpeted floor because she did not

want to work.

She has also started hitting her home therapist, teacher and assistants

at the school. My daughter does not feel that ignoring these behaviors

is helping.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how they have handled this problem?

Thanks in advance.

--

June Guerin-Najdek

mailto:jn516@...

July 11, 2002

Vickie,

I totally agree with you. What we do is time out as well. I put Madelyn on

my bed and if she continues to tantrum, I shut the door and tell her 'you can

get up when you're all done'. If she gets up, I put her back and tell her

again. Sometimes she will tantrum for an hour or more, and while she is on

time out, I just do whatever I have to do around the house. I don't consider

it ignoring however, because I have taken action to physically put her on

time out. I have to say that I have spanked her before in certain

situations, and it has worked sometimes (esp when she is touching something

dangerous or off limits). But to spank her for tantrumming always makes it

worse for her. Anyway, just my .02!!!!

Jayne:)

July 11, 2002

I agree with Vickie in that you should not ignore the behavior unless *YOU*

are sure that it is a good time to ignore it. (mostly it doesn't result in

broken teeth, so sorry about that Vickie, :-( )

When Marilla was little we used to have to cope with huge hysterical fits on

a daily basis -- you know, several times a day basis! But once Marilla

started getting a little bit of language I was able to stop the fit by

asking her, " What do you want? Say, " I want.... " " If Jackie has any verbal

ability see if you can teach her the " I want.... " sentence (I added " please "

to the end of Marilla's; I insist that while people are teaching her phrases

they need to teach her polite ones and adding, " Please " and " thank you " is

easier when learned by rote than when trying to tack it on later!)

With Marilla I accidentally taught the " I want " phrase. I didn't even know

that it was a basic first sentence for autistics until later (I didn't know

she was autistic until later either). I didn't know what I was doing,

either. But she wanted me to light a candle for her to blow out and I told

her to say, " Please " . So she would say " Please " before I would light the

candle. Then, in the same sitting because she was still interested, I got

her to say, " Fire, please " before I would light the candle and let her blow

it out. Then I made her say, " Want Fire, please " and I would start with

" what do you want? " as the prompt each time. Finally I made her say " I want

Fire, please. " and she did it consistently and we played light the candle

and blow it out straight through " mom should be making dinner-time " :-)

Before every lighting I would say, " What do you want? " and then I would

either prompt her or wait her out and she would say her sentence.

I thought that was pretty darn cool. But then she magically started using

that " stock phrase " for other things. She would tell me when she was hungry,

" I want crackers, please " or thirsty or any number of other things. I was

able to teach her teacher how to calm Marilla down with that phrase that

made her think of what it was she wanted and why she was hysterical. We

have many fewer fits than we used to since Marilla has been better able to

communicate. She still cannot express her every desire, but enough of them

to keep the fits at bay.

As a result of this experience I developed the theory that these fits are

mostly frustration at wanting something and being unable to express what

that something is. I have found it to be a useful theory when dealing with

the fits of Marilla (and her autistic brother Sherman). First thing I do

when a fit is pending (or already in progress) is try to figure out what in

the world that kid is screaming *about*.

Yeah, I think the kid is doing it for attention.... but not the way the

*experts* at your school suggest. When a normal 2 year old falls down and

starts crying every five minutes (assuming hunger, thirst, sleep and potty

needs are met) she may be trying to get her mom to pay more attention to

her. But I don't think that autistic kids think that way. My experience is

that Marilla would much rather I left her alone to do her own thing. I

think these fits are more a cry of frustration than a cry for attention. It

has got to be terrifying, and aggravating, to be unable to communicate with

the people around you!

Now, one more thing. I will have to mention my autistic BOY, but perhaps

this list will forgive me. :-) Sherman is a big head-banger. He is usually

careful not to hurt himself, but when he gets frustrated (and his language

skills are seriously below Marilla's), he will start to get high-pitched and

squealy, then he will start whacking things and people with his head. His

problem was not as serious as your grand-daughter's, but it is still pretty

serious. It still gets in the way of normal life.

Well, one thing I did was get him into private Occupational Therapy for a

while about a year ago (we had to quit as it got too expensive) and during

that time his head-banging decreased significantly. His teacher and I both

noticed that the head-banging had all but disappeared. It re-appeared soon

after OT had to be stopped. But some of the stuff that they did with Sherman

was a lot of swinging, close contact, rubbing, twirling.... a lot of

physical contact in a controlled setting. And the reason it was so expensive

was because we had both an OT and a speech therapist working with him at the

same time. So the OT would run him around and make him do silly physical

things while the ST would chase after him trying to get him to verbalize!

Well, I don't write very often, but when I do I just go on and on and on and

on!!! So sorry. I hope that some of all that information was a little

useful and will help out a bit. I know I could have said all this with far

fewer words, but.... I cannot seem to remember that before I get on a roll!

:-)

Before I go I want to repeat how much I agree with your daughter that

ignoring the behavior is not working and she should trust her instincts. We

moms are the ones who live with these kids all day every day and have to

figure out what is going on and what the child needs. We are the ones who

know a good idea (meaning, one that will work on our own kid) when we hear

one and a stinky idea when we hear one, too. Tell your daughter to trust

her instincts. As my sister in law loved to tell me when mine were little,

" Nobody knows that baby better than you do. You hear what they have to say,

but you don't do anything that you don't feel right about. "

Okay. Well, good luck and keep us posted.

Smiles!

wife to

mom to:

na, 14, NT; Marilla, 9, Autistic; Sherman, almost 8, Autistic; Greilyn,

2.5, NT