Potty Training a Non-Verbal Toddler

[Wisterialily]

Hi all,

I'm planning to toilet train my 3 year old child this summer and do not know where to start or what to buy!

He's got a spiky developmental profile, and cognitive understanding is around one years, he uses jargon but no distinguishing words. He wouldn't for example be able to understand a visual aid for a toilet as his learning is very sensory based as opposed to being able to process. He is on the autism assessment list and this is very likely to be a condition he has. He is also tiny for his age so using the actual toilet with a seat probably wouldn't work.

But he can do lots of things! He is starting to pull me and his dad by the hand to things he wants, he is a total praise monkey and responds positively to verbal praise and clapping. He is currently sitting on the potty (but with nappy on), we praise him for that but he has no clue what it does! He does take a long time to learn new things but when he does he masters them!

All the advice I've read seems to involve verbal communication and if not pictures. Both I know he won't be able to understand.

I don't want to push him before he is ready but he is getting uncomfortable in nappies due to the volume of wee. Luckily we have lots of excellent help at nursery and they will follow our lead- but I just have no clue where to start! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

We bought a potty from Amazon that looked like a mini toilet and played an annoying song every time it was used, that seemed the thing that finally got through to my DC. He is verbal but really struggled with the signals for needing the toilet and still has accidents at almost 8.
No idea how to tackle night time as we haven't got that down yet but the singing potty was a good incentive for him to try during the day and I'd recommend it.

Thank you that's a really good idea actually because he is really stimulated by music, I was thinking of having a 'toilet song' to hand for when he needs praise but if it's built in that's even better.

I find he is dry already most nights, but my plan was going to sort the days and deal with nights at a later date. But now I'm thinking that might cause problems for the days.

Hey 👋 my son is 9 he is autistic, non verbal and cognitive delay, we let him toilet train in his own time, i think he was 5 when he would use the toilet, we skipped potty as we didn’t want to teach him to use potty only to reteach him to then use the toilet if that make sense? Lol he still has accidents at school sometimes as he won’t ask to go to the toilet, do try and get some PECS card, we bluetac ours to the fridge for him to use, he doesn’t use them much tbf but they/he uses them religiously at school so would be good to get him familiar with them, i honestly can’t really give much advice as my little boy literally just got up one day and used the toilet and never looked back, but we just kept reminding him the toilet was there, learn his ques when it looks like he needs to go, and try not to push too hard else he might regress and any new place even if he has a nappy on- show him where the toilet is, i still do this with my son when we visit nanny/aunties/uncles etc just to remind him he can go and doesn’t need permission/to ask xx

Thank you for telling me your experiences, it's great to know I'm not alone in this! Funnily enough I was just looking at PECs cards, he does use them at nursery but I'm not sure how effective they are for him, i have found that photographs of images he uses works best, so I will have a go at making some first I think. But linking to sensory he only really uses them to choose something he wants to do rather than use them for non verbal communication to ask for something.

And thank you for your comment about regression, I didn't think about that and besides walking everything else he has achieved, there have been times when he has regressed.

I think I'm going to try but if it doesn't happen then it doesn't happen. I'm finding it really hard to find a musical toilet too! They flush and make that kind of noise, but I think I want one that plays a celebration song.