Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

Non verbal potty training

5 replies

Skye90 · 03/09/2022 08:43

Our DD is 3 next week and is non verbal/possible ASD yet to be diagnosed. She’s very bright and learns things very fast. She normally takes our hands if she wants something.

Shes been showing signs of being ready for the last few months - taking her nappy off, fiddling with her nappy a lot, inspecting what’s inside it etc. Shes also very interested in the toilet - makes me and her dad go to the toilet and hands us the toilet roll/wants to flush.

We decided to give it a go yesterday. She did pretty well considering no speech ( I thought it would be so much worse) We had a total of 8 accidents (3 of them trickles) and she managed 3 pees and 1 poo in the toilet.

The problem is we were prompting her every time by asking if she needed to go and kept asking her to tell us when she needed. She did run to the bathroom a couple of times but as far as communicating whether she needed to go there was zero of it.

Do you think we should leave it for a little while until she starts talking or keep going? I’m worried about how she’ll do at nursery, they can’t constantly ask her if she needs to go.

Any advice appreciated!!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
FinnsMammy · 04/09/2022 21:26

Hi Skye no advice but I’m following I’m in the same position as my almost 3 year old who’s also non verbal. I was considering taking a picture of the toilet that he could hand to me. There are about to start pecs with him in preschool (he just started last week) so I’m hoping if he understands how pecs work he could use the toilet picture ? Also I was considering changing the toilet seat to baby shark or something he would be interested in that might make him want to use the toilet. I know my son is ready but his understanding isn’t great so I’m not sure if I suns jump in or wait a few months xx

autienotnaughty · 04/09/2022 21:54

Hi my son has asd , we started at 3 but found he only went when prompted. He just didn't seem to recognise the need to go. For a while we did nappy free at home only. Then he started to recognise he needed a wee at the point of needing toilet (took longer with poo.) it was slow, he wore pull up until 4 but I would say he was 5 before he was fully trained in day and 6 at night. He's 7 now and fully recognises when he needs toilet though he still can't hold it to long.

ApplePippa · 04/09/2022 22:14

I managed to toilet train my then non-verbal autistic DS at 3 and a half. It was ten years ago now, so my memory is a little hazy (DS is now 13, and you would never he was non verbal till he was 4).

We did it with pecs, and lots and lots of prompting. For the first week, I took him regularly to the potty and handed him the toilet pecs card each time. He was very resistant to the idea at first, so he was rewarded with a smartie after each trip to the potty. Lots of accidents that first week, but it was all about getting him used to the idea really. After that first week, he got the idea pretty fast and was reliably dry in the day time after about three weeks.

Battybonkers · 04/09/2022 22:15

Hi,
it sounds like you are doing fab!
Sometimes children with ASD can become ‘prompt dependent’ so in the longer term it might be worth using some non verbal prompts that you can fade so that if you think she is becoming dependent on your prompts you can fade them out. E.g gently guide her to the loo holding her hand as well as saying ‘potty time’ then just gently guide without talking, the. Fade that out to touch her shoulder and walking towards the loo etc…
lots of modelling (which it sounds like you’ve done) is great too as she’ll see you and dad going to the loo without having to wait for someone to prompt.
another thought is tht if you are using a visual communication system with her such as PECS or a communication device try incorporating that into the toilet training as well so that you are showing her a way of telling you she wants to go…

autienotnaughty · 05/09/2022 07:21

Oh yes forgot we had a visual toilet/potty routine so he could see what was expected

New posts on this thread. Refresh page