Ds aggression escalating. What to do?

[nikos]

For the last 6 months ds's anger has been much reduced. He is just turned 4 and has suspected ASD, but is verbal and is attending preschool with 1-1 support.
He's been getting on really well at school, but since going back last week he has shown them aggression for the first time. Today he has been very physically aggressive with siblings and grandma.
He responds to no punishments Ive tried and there is no obvious trigger. Ive run out of ideas and just find the behaviour so hard to be patient with.
Please give me some coping strategies. Why the regression?

[tipsycat]

I think you need to establish if there is a trigger to this behaviour. My DS is aged 7 and was diagnosed with ASD at 4. Is your DS being assessed, and if so, is a diagnosis likely? I did a NAS Early Bird course which is for parents of pre-school age children with ASD. It covered a lot of ASD issues and helped me to cope at a very difficult time, as well as explaining the reasons for some of DS odd behaviour. I would strongly recommend it.

[nikos]

We are going for a dx meeting on Friday. Hes had the ADOS test and weve done the DISCO test.

[nikos]

Anyone got any tips?

[Widemouthfrog]

My DS is 5 with HFA. We have been where you are more times than I can remember.

The agression is trying to tell you something, and there probably is a trigger. You say the behaviour has started since going back to pre-school. Has anything changed there? Staff? Toys? 1:1's perfume?Even the decor! You will need to do some detective work. Do they use a visual timetable with him? It is simple to do but very effective in releiving anxiety.

Punishment doesn't work well for ASD kids. When my DS gets aggressive or has a tantrum all we can do is stay calm and give him a quiet place. We find a weighted blanket helps to calm things down, but you could use anything heavy e.g. wrap him in a heavy winter coat perhaps? We use time out, not as a punishment, but as a place of removal where he can calm down.

Perhaps he needs some space when he gets home from pre-school. It is hard work for him in such a busy social environment, and I know when my DS gets home from school, we have to allow him time on his own. He has a 2 year old brother who he can be very aggressive towards, and we have to try and keep them apart until DS is ready to join in on his terms. Don't fuss, and I find too much talking adds to the stress when he is tired and overloaded. He just cannot process it, and gets angry.

To us, aggression signals overload.

Hope this helps. I'm happy to answer any more questions if I can.

[Aefondkiss]

Nikos you have my sympathy,I wish I could help... for me I just keep trying to change my tactics and distract but it can be hard/impossible sometimes.

my ds recently bruised his support assistant at nursery (he is also 4)... I am worried about this behaviour, he is almost impossible to reason with... when I get to school in the morning I spend ten minutes persuading him to walk to nursery from where he is playing... it has almost got to be a game for him, he LOVES to say No!

I sometimes can't think my way out of these situations, but I do know when ds is going to refuse to do something, just not the best way to deal with it

[TinySocks]

My DS 3.9 years doesn't have ASD, he has a global developmental delay, but he is also showing increasing signs of aggressive behaviour.
It seems to be getting worst. I find it really depressing.

He doesn't sleep well, and what I have noticed is that when he sleeps better his behaviour is also much better. So I am starting to think that it is all connecting to tiredness.

The question is how to get him to sleep the amount of hours he needs. .

I am considering giving him medication to help him.

[magso]

Sorry- much use - ds has always tended to push and hit but it got worse and more unacceptable around 4 too. I kept a diary to see if I could pinpoint triggers such as tireness/hunger/thirst/food sensitivities/times of day. It was helpful to me once I knew that ds for instance needed food and drink on collection from nursery school to um regain his equilibrium!
Is his aggression intended to hurt do you think or simply push/hit the world away or get physical stimulation (hugging too hard/pinching/squashing))? How you deal with it depends a little on why. It may be all of these.
Is he getting enough chances to run off his energy.

[sickofsocalledexperts]

I think aversive therapy is worth a try. When my DC was 3/4, he was quite aggressive and I used to give him a cold shower (which he hates) every SINGLE time he did anything aggressive. It is possible when they are young actually to change instinctive reactions, and it worked as he is no longer in the least bit aggressive and (so far) is coping in mainstream. He is predicted to be 6ft, so I needed to act before he gets bigger than me! Some so-called experts and family members said I was cruel, should use praise, star charts etc etc, but while I would NEVER hit a child, I do think this kind of aversive therapy is worth it for the end result. My child could not have cared less about stars on a chat, and when one expert told me to praise him when he was NOT hitting, I thought that the world has quite clearly gone mad (praise when you are not doing something bad is a complicated enough concept for a "normal" child, let alone a largely non-verbal ASD child!) I also feel that a lot of those who try and give you advice on how to treat your child's aggression a) know very little about what life is actually like with an ASD child and b) will be long gone once the child is 18 years old and twice our height and strength. Is there some similar sanction you could use on your DCs? Something very visual, like turning off computer for a day, or locking toys away or something they will absolutely not want to happen and so may learn to "edit" their own behaviour?

[nikos]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I've spoken with his therapy unit and they have given some helpful solutions that might be useful to others.
Firstly, it really is no use giving consequences to his actions as he is not connecting the 2 things (i.e. time out wasnt working,think sickofs aversion works because it isnt trying to teach something but avert behaviour). This has been enormously freeing for me as he seemed to only remember and be upset that I had done something to him and not realise it was a sanction for what he had done.
So they suggest putting a hand up and saying STOP in a clearly stern voice. Then absolutely no conversation or other talk for 20s (removing ds from situation if necessary). He then only has one word to process instead of a litany of words explaining what he has done.
When he is returned he is told what you WANT him to do e.g Now we play nicely with X.
Hope Ive explained it well, certainly the STOP and no other words is unbelievably making ds stop the hitting and seem to think.

[PeachyAndTheSucklingBas]

we have this; I think elements should be workable on now and its useful for the parents too. Havent started yet as ds1 currently so aggressive we cant begin to do anything but cope, but he will scale it back a bit whenever the triggers calm down.

Sympathies, ds1 is very similar- there is no penalty or reward that motivates ds1 at all, and he is almost 9. Everyone tells me it will calm down but i've seen nough kids like ds1 to know thats unlikely and I think we are here for life however your ds is very young, whereas ds1 has established, svere issues (tried to push ds2 under a car friday [sad[- currently accepting we may need to look at boarding at some point but breaking my heart)

Good luck to you

[monstermansmum]

Hi. No advice sorry but you could try {www.thecbf.org.uk here]

[monstermansmum]

sorry [www.thecbf.org.uk here]

[monstermansmum]

sorry here

[amber32002]

Nikos, what they've suggested makes perfect sense to me. If people try to explain what I've done wrong using long sentences and eye contact and hugs or whatever, it overloads me more than the situation I've just not coped with and makes it worse.

One stop/no command, space to think in, safe space and duvet to wrap myself in, and then I can calm down and think things through.

The trouble is, you probably can't see what we see, or hear what we hear, or feel what we feel, or smell what we smell, or taste things the way we taste them. There are triggers aplenty, and no way to explain them if we're already at the "arrghh - overload!!" stage. Even here, sat at my desk, there's a fluorescent light flickering and I'm feeling totally yuk because of it (engineer's been called out to fix it), and the lining on my new jacket feels like someone's sticking a pincushion into me, and the computer whirring is driving me to distraction.

It took me four decades to work out some things that were overloading me - that's how bad we are at connecting the outside world to our consciousness and our ability to speak about it. It's almost worth getting another ASD person into the environment where he's causing the problem to see if they can spot it and explain it. Local ASD charity might be able to help with that, though it'd be an unusual request (no-one's thought to do this stuff yet!)