Non verbal DS with ASD, terrible tantrums and early waking, help!

[laumiere]

Our DS has made a lot of progress this year, attending a mainstream Reception and coming forward with his social awareness. However he's still not speaking at 5 (he can say cuddle) and is starting to show obsessive behaviour (turning pages of magazines etc) and having tantrums where he shrieks and chews hie clothes. We are struggling to find a way to best manage these and coupled with his sudden liking for being awake at 4am is causing us some problems!

Any suggestions welcome.

Do you know what causes the tantrums? Is it when you stop him doing something he's enjoying to get ready to go out, or go to bed or have a meal? Would a visual countdown help? Eg like a sandtimer, or an electronic visual timer to show how much time is left.

How does he communicate with you at the moment? Do you use PECS? Do you use a visual timetable? Something like now and next?

There's a lot of knowledge about ABA on this board, someone will come along soon, I expect.

He used to use PECs but wont since he started school because he hates standing out. Mostly he gets upset because we had to take something away (hevlikes reading my cookery books but then tears them).

The ABA rulels are that if a behaviour is for attention (ie a kids screams because wants own way, or wants choc) you hold them safe with a firm handgrip, then give them no attention (no eye contact, no words, nothing) till they are quiet again. Then you carry on with lots of jolly activities, so sthey see that only the good behaviour gets a good outcome. You have to do it every time for the message to get through, and it can be a hard slog, but very much worth it in the end I believe that if a behaviour is aggressive for aggression's sake, it needs to be punished with, say, immediate removal of a toy or putting in room. I am v pleased someone gave me this advice when my boy was young, as he is now too hefty for me to control and any aggression would be a real problem. Your boy sounds very like my autistic boy at that age, so you might want to read the two articles I wrote on my mumsnet blog about how finding ABA was a godsend, even if I had to fight the establishment to get it.

I knew someone would be along! Sickof, can you link your blogs?

I wish I knew how to do that linking thing where it just goes here. But I don't!

It's under sickofsocalledexperts on mumsnet blogs or AutismumandABA on wordpress.

autismandabamum.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/how-my-autistic-boy-learned-to-talk-via-aba/

here is the link to my two articles, which tell how it was for me with ABA. not sure if you can just click it or copy it into the website address bit