Can anyone explain this?

[adrianna22]

Hi

I have been friends with a really nice woman I have met at the autism groups.

I was out with her DS one day, and she was having a real hard time as her DS was acting up. After many minutes, figuring out what he wants... ( he wanted a drink) the mum hands him the carton, but realises that there was no straw. Her DS noticed this too and began to cry, luckily I had a straw in my bag, as my DS drinks a lot, and I presented this to her DS. But he still was crying.

So I ran to a shop, picked up the exact same carton drink that my friend had presented to her DS and with a straw and gave it to him and he was okay.

When we went to the park, her DS wanted to go to the toilet. There was no noticeable toilet around as it as a very big park. So I suggested he should wee into my big empty bottle...but when my friend tried to make her DS wee into the bottle, he would not tolerate it and demanded to use the toilet.

Back at her home, she started to cry as says that her DS is always like this and then she asked me why, but I really did not know what to say, but I reassure her that she is doing a great job.

Why was her DS acting like that? and are there any tips, that I can tell her about?

That is classic autistic behaviour.
He knows that he has to have a straw with the carton. The straw is always attached to the carton. He cannot understand that you can use a different straw with a carton because the straw is always attached to the carton.

He won't pee in a bottle because you have to pee in a toilet. My DS was like this. Toilets are for peeing, bottles are for drinking.
DS will only pee in a bottle or outdoors if the only choice is to do that or wet himself. And it took a while and a lot of reassurance for him to accept this rather than just wet himself!

These are classic examples of rigid thinking.

I see! My DS has been diagnosed with autism, and he doesn't really have that rigid thinking like her DS. I should of known that it could be related to autism.

With the toilet thing, I thought it could be due to embarrassment, because none really wants to wee in a bottle in public! but I did wonder why he would not give in.

What tips can I give her? Should I just tell her to reassure him to try?

I agree with nah rules are rules to many children with autism!

My Dd3 sometimes takes a while to accept new rules or routines into her life but once they are there they are set in stone. She would never wee anywhere other than in a toilet!

It makes life much easier if adults learn to stick to the rules too, you cant spend time training an autistic child to wee in the toilet and then say oh its ok just wee in the bottle, that will not wash. If she wants him to wee in different places she needs to teach him that its ok but then she might run the risk of him weeing anywhere he fancies.

It takes time for these kids to allow the rules to be relaxed and some won't allow any relaxing of the rules at all.

As these kids get older you get more tuned into them. You will realise that you have to check the carton has a straw or that you make sure you get the toothpaste that says 6+ when the reach the age of 6!

She can try and do him a social story to tell him its ok to pee against a tree or in a bottle when they are out but it doesn't necessarily mean he will accept it. If my DS doesn't like the content of a social story he will rip it up.

Rigid thinking is part of autism. You can't change it, you can only hope they get less rigid as they get older.

Just to give you an example or two of my ASD daughter (4) and her rigid thinking.

1. She has taken all half term to stop panicking about the fact she doesn't wear tights to school now the weather is warm.

1. The other week her dad unclipped her car seat and let her out instead of me. She had a massive meltdown about it because it was not the usual. After half an hour of panicky crying I had a thought and took her back to the car, clipped her back in, then unclipped her again. She calmed down then because apparently all was ok with the world.

1. Every change at school -sports day, special dressing up, etc is met with panic and all through last year she refused to wear different clothing from her uniform. Because you wear uniform to school you see - not sports kit, not a witch costume, but only UNIFORM.

Your friend's son sounds entirely normal for someone with autism .