Autistic child swearing at health care staff

[avenueq]

When distressed. How is this to be seen? Blame the parents? Or accept that it's a special case?

Ds was 12 & got chucked out of his secondary school zzzz (& we had to go to a private Ed psych in the end too). Oddly enough his new school decided to treat him as though he was autistic regardless of any paperwork and he is a valued member of the school.

Dd is 17 & still doesn’t have a diagnoses (you have to prove your child is either suicidal or similar to get a referral in our area). All Dd has is a private Ed psych report commissioned by her school to say there is a strong likelihood of her having an asd.

zzz

I'm in limbo myself with one of my DC. I just don't agree we can diagnose our own children.

I know how hard it is and I believe 'suspected autism' is a way forward in this scenario.

I have also gone private in the past, and will be next year if CAMHS don't offer us an appointment within a time frame.

We don't have the ECHP things, school just adjust and do what the kids need here.

Just to clarify i don't think the practice manager was in any way right in this situation.

Thank you

Sorry you went through this OP.
I would complain

I’ve always wanted to ask this but I don’t know how to so I’m just going to ask and apologise if I offend.

Why does being autistic cause swearing and violent outbursts? I understand that people with SN can struggle to handle situations but why does that result in swearing etc?

Whoever said you cant diagnose your own child, please wind your neck in. My 2 year old is waiting on a final diagnosis but it is blatantly obvious he is quite heavily autistic. Is developmentally 12 months behind and it has all been confirmed by hcp. Have you any idea how long it takes to get an official diagnosis. If it looks like a cow and moos it's a cow is it not.
Op dont ever apoligise for your childs behavior, by apoligising you are allowing people to believe its the child's fault. Some people are so arrogant its untrue. Complain to pals. I would

I’m autistic and I’ve managed despite severe anxiety and behavioural issues surrounding it being in hospital the majority of my life for major surgeries for life limiting conditions to never swear at hospital staff. Screaming crying are fine. There is no need to swear my parents would never have stood for it. There was a time when a trainee dr snapped a needle in my hand while taking blood and all I did was cry. They’d of taken my head off my shoulders and would do the same now if I swore at anyone in a fit of temper. It’s unnecessary and crude.

Why not just Google it Three, instead of showing your ignorance on here.

NameChange believe me when ds does have outbursts I make it clear that I disapprove, but he still can't help himself at times of great distress/anxiety.

Just on the subject of kids with ASD swearing etc, Does anyone mind trying to answer my question? I’ve worked in the same mainstream school for 10 years and have noticed the behaviour of pupils with ASD going downhill in terms of violence and swearing, and I often wonder why.

Is it because previously those ASD pupils displaying more extreme behaviours would have gone to special schools (now extremely hard to get into because of closures and funding) or is it because the general downturn in ALL secondary pupils’ behaviour, NT or not NT?

Posted too soon, sorry.

10 years ago, the ASD pupils all had TAs and their behaviours were low-level anxiety (often manifesting in physical behaviours such as hand flapping etc) and social difficulties. None of them swore but often “lost control” in terms of not sticking to basic rules, or touched other pupils physically and when I reminded them quietly how they needed to behave they ALWAYS apologised.

It is a completely different story now. I can see the kids who have ASD meltdowns but there also seem to be many yet-to-be-diagnosed ASD kids who display extremely poor behaviour (much much much worse than 10 years ago) and it does seem to be more a behavioural issue in that they simply refuse to do what they’re told despite adjustments/time out etc.

It makes it very difficult for a member of staff to distinguish between pupils who are simply choosing to behave badly and those who have a genuine ASD problem.

Unsurprisingly, children with ASD who go through mainstream education without recognition of their difficulties and adequate support can develop mental health problems and behaviour difficulties.

With cuts to childrens services, CAMHS and education, there isn't the support out there for these children. They are seriously struggling, and poor behaviour is the result.

In terms of my own Ds I find that he needs clear boundaries and society isn’t giving those boundaries any more.

I’ve lost count of the times on here and in real life where I’ve been told wind your neck in they hear far worse on the playground if I’ve compldined about sweating in kids books, PG films etc

Asd kids struggle with knowing when something is or isn’t appropriate, they copy behaviour instead. If they hear swearing they can’t differentiate between it’s ok for that adult to say it but not me or for that character in a book but not me.

The other change is school environments. Schools are generally a lot larger, noisier and less structured than they used to be. The ideal classroom for my two would be a black box room (maybe that’s why they both like drama so much) with no distractions and separate desks.

Was she asking him to stop swearing before going into a space with other members of the Public or other children? That is the only circumstance in which I can see it being reasonable. I can understand her asking that.

My son is autistic. The higher his anxiety the more he swears and shouts. I ignore the swearing because in the grand scheme of what we've got going on, it's really not a big deal. He does t see swearing as inappropriate, in his head they are just words.

Curly it's also to do with funding cuts, TA's becoming fewer, there's no one to help keep anxiety low. So what's being seen in schools now is what ALL parents of ASD children have in their home lives. Many kids kept it together in school time because there was greater management in the class with a TA on hand, now there isn't and our kids are struggling and the previously unseen behaviours are coming out. That's my take on it anyway.

Long term can you use things like social stories to help him understand appropriate behaviour to try to minimise the risk of it continuing to happen?

Yes it is part of his condition and yes reasonable adjustments need to be made but for me that would very much fall into the category of behaviour to try to influence if possible simply because long term it could make accessing health care much harder

No this was days later. I raised a query about his care and the practice manager turned it into an attack on me for "allowing" my ds to swear.

Thanks, Whirlygig. Yes, I can totally see that.