Agressive behavior

[Guest guest]

Hi I am a new member. I have worked with adults who have a developmental and or

physical disability for twenty years and youth in schools over ten. One of the

most challenging things with working with students who can't speak and have

Autism and if they have aggressive behavior that gets worse.

We work in a team and everyone appears to have different ideas why things

happen. I have started to track the incidents. We just did a behavior plan but

until we discover the true nature of the behavior this really does not help. The

individual is grade ten and has just stopped wearing socks on his hands because

he would scratch the sides of his mouth over and over and they would not heal.

Last year he started this face picking scratching behavior in the Spring and he

came to school this way. He appeared stressed at first but calmed and show no

anxiety up till now. He would scratch his skin on his face and broke the skin

though the socks and had his fingers wrapped with tissue. He has stopped wearing

the socks only a couple of days. Now he's lunging toward his special ed

assistants pulling their hair, touching or stongly patting hitting at faces,

heads, punching toward glasses, etc. We use a pic exchange system to show him

schedules and first this then that etc. Parents say nothing is going on like

this at home. His care giver that lives with them brings him to school everyday

and picks him up. The student is only able to stay two hours a day. That is even

too long. The other students are all effected by this student right now. The

current situation has made it unsafe for anyone to be around him at school. So

far he has not attacked other students. He can't never be in the halls when

class change because of the noise. I understand hormones can affect some

growing males. I wonder if there is stress from home. There must be emotions he

feels from home that must be effecting him. His parents are living together but

not as a couple and are separating? We had this student coming to class everyday

successfully without major behavior. He will hide his head when he wears a sweat

shirt hoody. He will scream when noises hurt his ears. He appears sensory

sensitive. We go for walks to calm him and give him break choices. I know we

need to teach him to tell us when he needs a break and give him his choice of a

break. Sensory breaks may be added to this. We don't speak to the parents the

teachers do this. Any suggestions? I know swimming and gymnastics for students

who have special needs can help but only when the stress level calms down and

they are more able to get into a car until then what? Deb