If we assume DS is on the spectrum, how should we be treating him?

[SomewhatSilly]

He's three, and if left to his own devices, would spend hours running around spinning his arm, "being a train", or on the iPad, or recreating favourite Abney and Teal episodes. Nursery are aware and he is awaiting a S&L and paed referral. They've said that none of his behaviours are disruptive.

It's pretty obvious something is going on, although quite what is unclear.

Can anyone give me some basic pointers on how to treat him while we're waiting, please? Should I encourage him not to be a train, or let him get on with it? Should I persevere with offering activities he's not interested in or is it ok to let him choose? Not sure if I'm supposed to be challenging his behaviours or ignoring .

Let him get on with being a train, but when you want him to stop - for eg to go out / have tea etc, bear in mind he might need some time to adjust, so a countdown can be helpful - "in 5 mins you need to stop and put your coat on"; "in 2 mins....in 1 min" etc etc

No harm in offering other stuff, he may one day surprise you.

I went on a helpful course post diagnosis where the guy running it said to focus not so much on the behaviour, but whether it was a problem - so if he is doing his own thing not bothering anyone let it be, but if he is annoying someone in the cinema by being a train, or making you late for work as he won't leave the ipad behind then the behaviour is an issue and needs to be dealt with, but in a way that he can cope with.

Thank you. Trying and failing to articulate my worries here, but does letting him be a train run the risk of entrenching behaviours and leaving him 'worse'? To take your example, does letting him be a train at home mean he will do it more while out, thus causing more problems than if I'd stopped him?

Am I making any sense at all?!

One thing I wish I had known when Dd3 was 3 was how difficult it was for her to move on. She used to have massive meltdowns if we turned the TV off before the program had finished or if we didnt give her enough warning that we were going out.

In hindsight we could have prevented a lot of upset if we had known how anxious it made/makes her and now we work round it and rarely have a problem.

Also visuals have helped us massively.

Keep coming on here for support and advice it really is the best place

It's such a hard time, the is he/isn't he phase - I am sorry.

Have you looked at any books/websites? There is lots of info around about how to treat him, how to help him, and how to help teach him.

Wrt to how to approach and deal with this specific behaviour, I would actually persevere with encouraging him to expand his play and activities. One of the things common in asd is repetitive behaviour, and ime left unchallenged these could become more and more ingrained (I certainly saw this with my own ds at that age, before we started any intervention).

You could try simple techniques of giving him massive rewards (reinforcers) when he does something new, tries a new game, accepts it when you switch off Abney & Teal etc. It's kind of basic behavioural intervention: if you increase the reward for something, he'll associate that thing with something good. The harder it is to drag him away from A&T or whatever, the bigger the reward, which will increase his motivation to do that new thing again. So a reward for something which he does willingly could be something like an extra tickle, while a reward for something which is harder for him (like stopping watching A&T) would be much bigger, maybe a small food item. Even just small things like starting a game of eg musical statues (or something you think he'd like) and he joins in instead of running round spinning his arms would get a reward.

Not everyone favours this approach (we've done ABA for 3 years), but we found that the longer we left ds to his own devices, the more narrow and rigid his world became. We were pretty sure he would not just 'grow out of it' and just start doing new things off his own back without any intervention, and just couldn't bear to see him getting increasingly rigid and repetitive about things.

Our general rule is basically we try and intervene with anything we think interferes with him functioning, interacting, communicating etc at the level we know he can do. Eg redirecting him from a repetitive/obsessional activity onto a more suitable one, and rewarding him for doing so.

If this sounds like it might work and you want more info I'm happy to give more info, as are many others on this board

Thank you bialy, you've hit the nail on the head wrt my concerns. Could you recommend a book to introduce me to the concept of ABA and how to start doing it? I'll have to think properly about rewards...singing a rendition of Nellie the Elephant, perhaps, or reading a favourite book.

I think I need to talk to nursery about not just letting him do his own thing all the time, too. The comment about his behaviours not being disruptive was a bit concerning as had this image of him just spending all his time there spinning away in the background.

It's just so depressing. Sometimes he's right there with me, making great eye contact and really communicating with me (as we tickle, or sing, or read, or dance), and then other times there's this huge great big walland he hardly sees or hears me at all.

I feel so incredibly guilty and lost. My google history is full of delightful searches such as whether TV or white noise, or diet in pregnancy, pollution exposure, weight gain etc etc etc cause autism :( and my head is full of what ifs.

Yes, definitely worth speaking to nursery. Is there anyone there acting as senco? (Special Ed Needs co-ordinator.) I think every nursery as well as school is legally bound to have one (but might be wrong, might depend on the nursery). I had the same worries with ds's nursery, they'd say "oh he's been happy today" which meant he spent 3 hours playing with water

this is a useful book on ABA, and this is the real gold standard one, but is pretty technical(and not cheap), and probably best if you're actually doing a full ABA programme, which is quite an undertaking and can be hugely expensive. But definitely worth looking into even just to explore. Also other therapies like Floortime (Stanley Greenspan) and DIR (Direct Relationship Intervention).

Posting here is also invaluable for advice and support

Brilliant, thanks - I will have a look.

What Baily said