Advice about ASD behaviours please

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I'm more of a lurker than a poster but I really need some info about ASD behaviours.

My ds almost 4 years was diagnosed with ASD and verbal dyspraxia in Feb this year. We have always felt that the VD was more of an issue as ds is virtually non verbal, he only has 4 words, but he does sign brilliantly and can communicate well.

I have just completed the parental part of his statement and I am part way through the evil DLA form

Anyway having to think about and write down about his behaviours has made me realise how difficult his behaviour has become. For example he regularly hits me or the radiator or worryingly windows. I ask/tell him to stop, or try distracting him. Sometimes it is obviously done in temper or frustration, but he will do it when he is calm and happy or usually if he is excited about something (Thomas having a particularly spectacular crash into Percy for example )
He appears to have very little control and will usually sign sorry straight away. I really don't know how to deal with this behaviour.
Also he has recently started to put his fingers in his ears if something is too loud or if he thinks it is going to become too loud. So he has his fingers in his ears a lot.
But what prompted me to write this post was, this morning I put on the "wrong" Thomas episode on the telly and he had a tantrum, which is not new but he started to hit himself over the head, which he has never done before.

I just feel that his behaviours/traits are escalating and its really scaring me.

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

My ASD boy has had very similar self-injurial or aggressive behaviours over the years. We use ABA techniques, which basically boil down to the following:

If you think the behaviour is attention-seeking, try and ignore it. This is sometimes v difficult, esp. when my boy went through a phrase of banging his head on the concrete! But I notice, that if I airily exited the room, saying in a mild tone "well if you're going to bang your head, I'm off", he would quickly stop, as I listened outside the door. This told me it was for attention, as it stopped the minute I stopped giving it the "oxygen of attention".

However, if he is doing something simply out of temper, then sometimes it worked better for me to get extremely stern with him and say "don't you DARE do that" in my angriest tone, with angriest face. This sort of shocked him out of the tantrum spiral, and he would then come over and say "ki me" or "kiss me" so that I would get a happy face back on again.

The other ABA technique is to ensure that the unwanted behaviour gets a bad result (naughty step, time out in bedroom or whatever works, or taking a fave toy off him) and that good behaviours get a good result (praise, sweets, whatever works).

It is sometimes a case of trial and error. Sometimes, a temper has arisen because he's stubbed his toe or something, and just doesn't know how to process the pain (a bit like someone kicking the door when they've just stubbed their toe on it, as if it's the door's fault). It's just lashing out. In this case, a cuddle and a "rub rub" of the hurty bit helps.

This is probably all a bit rambling, but hope there is something in here that helps.