Is instant gratification part of ASD

[Ineedalife]

Dd3[8] has always struggled with having to wait for things, but at the moment she is really bad.

I know she is stressed about moving school although she is still saying she wants to move.

We were out for a walk and a picnic on Tuesday with my cousin and she realised it was past 12 oclock[lunchtime].
She started saying that she needed her lunch but we hadn't reached the place where we were going to have our picnic.

She went on and on, I couldn't distract her, she got louder and louder.

I attempted to use a verbal social story[ as I didn't have a pen and paper]. I kept saying to her that nothing was going to happen to her and that it is ok to have lunch a bit later in the holidays etc. None of that worked.

We eventually reached the picnic area after only about 10 mins and she dived on the picnic and ate her lunch.
As soon as she had finished she was absolutly fine and went off to play.

I repeated what I had said to her about nothing happening to her even though she had to wait but it was almost as if she had forgotten about the fuss.

She repeated the whole performance again yesterday when we were leaving the park and I didn't have drink for her, this time it was in front of her friend but she didn't seem to know or care that the friend was there.

I find this really hard to deal with because she gets soo loud, she is a good girl really but this behaviour makes her seem like a spoiled brat.

Also because she is soo big [she is as big as a 10 year old] people are less tolerant of her.

Should she be beginning to understand the concept of waiting or am I expecting too much.

Sorry this is soo long.

I meant to say that we metioned this behaviour to the mental health nurse at CAMHS and he made notes and said he could see it was an issue for us, but because he is only gathering evidence for the pyschiatrists he did not pass judgement on why she does this or what we can do to help.

DS2 is like this, as soon as he has a bee in his bonnet he needs to act on it. I find using "first" and "then" works sometimes, depending on what it is.

He is only 5, but the size of a 7 year old, so again, he gets the odd looks as people expect him to act older.

I'm no expert, however I would say yes.

It's part of the emotional delay bit I believe. When young children are given a sweet but told if they leave it alone they will get more, they eat the sweet.. Thus don't get more at the end. As they develope they will leave the sweet for the reward of more later.

( some clever bunny on here will be able to tell you whatthose studies were ).

So I guess it's just where ASD children are a bit delayed in that area.. DS is an instant person still at 12 years old. Yet he is very bright, so you'd think he wouldn't be.. Iyswim.

If he wants something, or has pocket money it has to be done NOW or spent straight away, even though he knows that if he waits he could buy the thing he really wants in two weeks time. And then he has a major stress that he doesn't have enough to buy the thing he wants because he didn't save.

Same with going out, picnics, shopping etc etc.

What has helped is to show him on paper ( visual structure)
and I now take out with me a note pad and pen.
So shopping, my shops first, then other shops or lunch then his shopping time. Etc.. Or whatever is going on.
It looks a bit odd to other people when I'm standing in public with ds crossing off what's been done and seeing what is next, particularly as he's two inches taller than I am.. But it really does work for is as a strategy :)

Yes funnily enough I remember Dd1 having money for her birthday and having to go out on the day to spend it,

There are lots of similarities between Dd1 and Dd3 and sometimes I find I have forgtten things [there is 14 years between them].

Since I have been coming on here I have introduced load of strategies which have really helped her, so much so that I sometimes feel like giving up the fight for a Dx.

Then I remember why we started the process, to get her the recognition and support that she needs, especially for secondary school.

She is also very bright Carrot and I think that makes it all the more surprising when she finds a seemingly simple concept soo difficult.

Thanx for your ideas 5 and carrot, I will try them next time we go out.

Any more ideas will be gratefully recieved.

Waiting is and always has been an issue for DS2. And he's so bloody inconsistent. I'm sure it depends on his mood. Sometimes he finds waiting impossible, other times he's fine. The only advice I can give that has worked for us is to try to think in advance what might be an issue and discuss the problem before it happens, or use a visual timetable with areas of approximate timing.

Eg "We are meeting some friends at about 11, they may be late, then we'll go to the park. Remember, they may be late, it doesn't matter if they are, we will still be going to the park."

Most times I've prepared him he's been fine. Trouble is, I then get complacent and don't bother preparing him for a while and we might get another meltdown. It's really hard to do anything spontaneously, and the best laid plans don't always work out. He's much better these days (11) but still surprises me with a strop!

Thanx ellen, I do try to pre-empt[sp] possible issues for her and sometimes I get it right.

I think I am just a bit exhausted at the moment with all the school stuff, and she is more sensitive so I think everything is an issue for us.

I must try harder.

Waiting is an issue for ds1 as well, whether it be waiting for my attention, for his favourite programme to start or spending his birthday or christmas money.

It was his birthday last week and he was given quite a bit of money. All he has wanted to do since the moment he was given it, is spend in in the flipping Nintendo DSi shop.

The thing is, we are off to Legoland for a weekend in a couple of weeks time - in lieu of the boys having birthday parties this year. I know when we get there he will want to buy things in the Lego shops, so I have told him he needs to hold some of his money back so he has enough left to get something he really wants. No dice. The thing is, I know that there's going to be trouble, as ds2 is the exact opposite and tends to save any money he's given. He still has last year's birthday money, christmas money, saved up pocket/reward money and its his birthday on Monday as well. He is going to have plenty to spend on whatever his heart desires and ds1 will almost definitely kick off big style when he can't do the same. Doesn't matter what I say to him, he simply cannot bear having the money available and not spending it.

Fortunately, we have recently implemented a rule that he can only go on the DSi shop once a month and only with his dad (we have the password). He spent ten pounds today and won't be able to go back on again until after our trip, so he should at least have some money left to spend.

Actually, now I come to think of it, we were umming and ahhing about getting the SN exit pass when we go, but this thread has reminded me that there's no way he's going to stand in a queue for an hour to get on a ride, so we will need the exit pass after all.

We have the same problem with lunch times in the holidays as well. He expects his lunch at home at the same time he gets it at school, but the all of the rest of us want to wait for dh to come home an hour later. Now I could make his an hour earlier and give it to him, but in actual fact, I make him wait. I get a constant ear-bashing about how starving he is and how its well past lunch time so I should go and make his lunch etc etc, but he is not going to starve and I think its an important lesson for him to learn. This stance from me is however, relatively new.

I was watching a Temple Grandin lecture last weekend and in it she said that the most important thing we can teach our children is manners, including waiting and taking turns. She believes that a lot of children with ASD 'get away' with rude behaviour because we feel that they can't take on board 'normal' rules, but she disagrees that this is the case. She was basically taught manners, social-rules, turn-taking etc ABA style and still believes today that this has been the single most important part of her education and was responsible for her being able to fully integrate into society. It really made me stop and think. I think sometimes we are too accommodating of ds1, probably because we want to avoid a scene. Working on an ABA-ish principle though - and don't take this the wrong way - but also thinking back to my dog training studies - fundamentally we have to make doing the right thing, more rewarding than doing the wrong one, preferably making our response to their negative or bad reaction completely non-rewarding. If we do this enough times, eventually - in theory - they should start to opt for the more rewarding behaviour.

Now I am still trying to get my head around how to put this into practice properly with ds1, but its definitely food for thought and something I want to pursue. Ds1 is a lovely boy, with a good heart, but he comes across as so demanding and rude and that's what puts other people's backs up. If I can help him learn how not to do that, he's going to find life a whole lot easier and more pleasant.

Moose .. We are currently giving 5 mins of xbox time for a reward.
Small enough to do a lot of rewards and not have him on tbe thingall day... And it's sort of teaching him to save up ( although not transfered to money yet). He writes 5 mins down on the White board and I write what it was for.

So it might it might be something like, using an inclusive question or receptive speech, or his excersises, or recognising how he or someone else feels and acts approiprately etc etc etc.

I am determined to make his life easier for him by insisting he's not rude, has manners and works hard.

We did try 1-1 time with me or DH but the xbox is his currency at the moment ;)

My dd 4.1 years (possible ASD) is like this, I thought that it was only her that did this, but guess now reading others on this post that it is a sign of ASD re emotional delay.

I agree about teaching basic manners Dd3 has always struggled with these.

I always insit on please and thankyou and have recently been working on getting her to say hello and goodbye to people we are visiting or who are visiting us.

It makes you laugh doesn't it, how they think they are going to starve just because lunch is 10 minutes later than normal. Dd3 will sometimes not eat breakfast until 10 in the holidays but she still wants her lunch at 12.

Do the rewards not need to be instant though Carrot? That's what's confusing me. If I was clicker training a dog, I would be giving an instant reward and lots of them. If I am understanding ABA right (and I could well have got it completely wrong) - the same thing would apply, instant reward as a strong reinforcer of the desired behaviour.

He is 'earning' money this holiday by writing out a chosen times table five times a day. He gets a sticker for each time he's written it out and when he's collected twenty five stickers he can have a pound. We have managed three days so far and I am apprehensive because reward schemes like sticker charts/marbles in a jar etc have never worked in the past. I do think that its only working so far this time because he knows he already has plenty of money, so isn't desperate for it and there's still plenty of time for it to go horribly wrong.

Actually, now I come to think of it, there's a second reward, in that if he writes them his five times in a day he's allowed on the Woodlands Junior times tables games on my laptop for half an hour. The penny's only just dropped as to which is the greater reinforcer for him. Doh!

Ineed :) yup!

Ineed, that's just like ds. Breakfast can be anytime - he can have had it as late as 10.30, but lunch is 12.00 precisely regardless or there's hell to pay.

Ds was brilliant with pleases and thank yous right up until he went to school full time - same with table manners. Everyone used to comment how how beautiful his manners were from a really young age. As soon as he started mixing with lots of other children at school, the whole lot went out the window and we had to start from scratch. He's still nowhere near as good with any of them now at the age of 9, compared to when he was 3. I suppose it does at least prove that he is able to learn from his peers - shame he only seems to learn the bad stuff though.

Moose .. Yes to instant.. But for ds the instant bit is writing it down on the board.. Or in my note book when we are out... It's all those little 5s that's the instant bit.. :) the by product ( the clever bit) .. Is that you can't do anything worth while with 5 mins on the xbox... You have to save them up .

But he does NEED to write it down instantly!

Ah, now that makes sense. In dog training you do have to sometimes have to delay the reward in order for them to continue the behaviour (eg long sit or down stay). Its the click that marks the end of the behaviour. For your ds, the click is physically writing the 5s down. In his case the marker is also the reward, as the 5 represents 5 minutes earned/won and obviously for your ds, knowing he's won that 5 minutes is enough of a reward.

In that case, for it to work effectively, he would need to be rewarded (get to write his 5) every time he gets something right, absolutely consistently. So if it were me and ds, I'd probably choose one behaviour to work on at a time. Once he was consistently doing the right thing, I would need to put him on an intermittent reward schedule, rewarding only the best of the best reactions or behaviours for whatever we are trying to reinforce, but throwing in a jackpot reward (maybe a bonus 5 minutes on top of the 5 he's already earned) for extra specially good examples. This is because intermittent reinforcement is actually stronger than consistent reward once a behaviour pattern has been learned. (Think one arm bandit, if it gave out 5p every time you played it regardless, it wouldn't be half as addictive as if you had to try harder to get it to give you 5p and then every now and again it gave you 10 or 15.)

This is just the first site that came to hand - but they probably explain it better than my CFS addled brain can at the moment.

Am I going along the right lines - or am I waay off the mark with this?

The Marshmallow Test

Thanks Starlight - that video is painful to watch - poor kids.

I think so moose, we all work for reward and if that needs breaking down into small chunks that can be managed that fine.

:o @ the clip star... That's the one!

Thanx Star, I have seen a similar thing on one of those development type programmes.

I don't think there is anyway Dd3 would wait for the person to come back. I also think she would go bonkers at being left and told to wait. I think she would just eat it and come out of the room.

Robert Winston did it on 'Child of our Time'. It was one of those developmental milestones that many of the children failed!

Our DS2 is the same age as the children on that programme. We always watch it for that reason, and it has become quite bittersweet as DS2 got further and further off NT.

BTW it was that programme that got us on to omega fish oils.