Hi,
My ds (nearly 5) has just started reception, he has ASD and we had been trying to toilet train him over the summer holidays (about 8 weeks+ as his nursery broke up early and their school reception started quite late) -
after all this time, it hadn't really worked and he still has no real sense of when he needs to go to toilet. We did have some improvement where at the start of the summer he would wet himself and not even be aware that he was all wet, now he will notice afterwards and run to the toilet or take the wet clothes off, but he has never managed to notice before hand and ask to go to the toilet or take himself.
we had been taking him to the toilet through the day and sometimes he would go, sometimes he wouldn't or sometimes he would be distressed and doesn't want to go.
so after all this, I felt he's not ready to go to school in pants and I've sent him in pants with pull up underneath in case of accidents. He has no statement (we applied twice but got turned down before even being assessed by educational psychologist - which I feel is wrong with asd, speech disorder and these toileting problems as well as dyspraxia, low muscle tone etc etc.. but we have kept trying and just not got anywhere with it!)
Anyway, so his class has a split teacher. He started mon - thurs with one teacher, went with the pull ups, he came home with wet trousers on the 1st day because none of the teachers will help him to actually pull up and down any of his clothes or pull up etc so he had not put it back on properly. tue-wed was okay. Thur the 2nd teacher came in, and said oh he's doing so well with it, send him in pants (no offense to her, but it was her first day with him so how on earth would she even know)
Since they asked, I did send him fri with pant only, they have taken him to the toilet every 15 mins and he was okay. so they want to continue this.
I've gone along with it but I feel really unsure whether this is the right thing for him. He is sensory under responsive to most of the senses, his body awareness and interoception are not too well developed yet -
he won't feel hungry, thirsty etc if he sees a banana or something he would take it and eat because of the visual cue of seeing it but he never asks without seeing or being reminded. he never mentions he's hot or cold or anything, he just wears certain clothes from habit so then when it changes season you have to work to get him out of the habit of wearing coat, or summer sandal etc cos he hasn't noticed being hot or cold with them. I feel that all of this is affecting his toilet readiness because he just does not feel the need to go to the toilet or understand the body signals.
If they take him so regularly every 15 min, yes he'll probably go out of habit when they ask him to sit, but I don't know whether this is counter productive as he's not getting any chance to feel the sensations of having a full bladder, and these are the things that he needs to learn??? Also, he must be spending his whole school day sitting on the toilet??
Does anyone have any experience with this? Am I right in feeling this is not the best way to handle toilet training with a child with these difficulties, or should I support them with keeping this method?
He doesn't have a separate SPD diagnosis and we haven't had any sensory support from OT, they only saw him for his fine motor skills since he had a GDD dx before his ASD and he's behind in all the skills. I have been asking for help with toilet issues for quite a long time, and asked his paediatrician to give an appointment to help with this too - but nothing. They all say their department is not the one who deals with it.
I dont know what to do?