CONSTANT crashing into other people. What can I do?

[stopgap]

My son is 3.9, and was diagnosed with HFA about six months ago. He has always sought out vigorous motion and pressure, which used to be lots of hugs (upwards of 50 a day when he was two) but over the last year has slowly become crashing into other people, either with his head or a sort of side slam. He's a bit like the human pinball, and it's becoming more and more pronounced!

I've asked him why he does it, and he can't quite articulate, but he is convinced that he can't stop. He's a self-aware, highly verbal little boy, but his behaviour overall seems much more frustrated these days. The crashing he now does easily 100 times a day, and he has started randomly crashing into strangers.

I've done time outs, redirection, holding him tightly to try and replicate the same sensation, tried to get him to jump on a trampoline etc. but am at a loss. He does occupational therapy twice a week, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

I was going to sugest ot but it seems like they are helping.

My toddler is a barger. He does this a fair bit but it's getting less. He has replaced it with pulling my clothes over face.

Consider spd - which can be present with hfa - especially look at the under responsive vestibular system or propeceptive system

www.spdfoundation.net/about-sensory-processing-disorder/

We found weight blankets and vests helped a lot as did a lot of exercise especially gymnastics

Also heAvy massage - we take a tennis ball and roll it all over his body while he lays on carpet - he loves it especially when you press quite heavily

In the end the ot trained me in a limited capacity and we did 30 minutes of therapy every morning and night - hard to start with but soooooo worth it - different child

Thank you. Yes, I definitely want to start incorporating such things into daily life, and these are a fantastic start. I might need to start demanding more from the occupational therapist in terms of feedback.

Heavy backpack helped my DS.
The little back pack with the strap on to hold onto them - filled with stones can be quite effective!

Swimming also helped and still helps DS.

He also has lots of bedding on his bed.

Blankets during day to wrap himself in!

Right, we are off backpack shopping tomorrow :D

Poltergoose, yes! I may have posted on the thread some time ago, when we were at the very beginning of the diagnostic process, and I already knew about SPD (suggested by his o/t, but not officially diagnosed) but then we went through the lengthier process of ADOS, speech exams etc. and he came up as ASD. I know that the conditions exist concurrently (or can do) so I shall be asking plenty of questions on Friday, as I have a meeting at my son's preschool to discuss how he's doing.

stopgap I understand about 90% of people with ASD also have SPD (although the reverse is not true) but that it's common not to get a separate dx as the SPD is considered part of / subsidiary to the ASD, iyswim.

To echo what others have already said, we try to incorporate lots of proprioceptive input activities into daily life.

My DS is suffocatingly, at times unbearably, tactile, and does lots of crashing and headbutting, grabbing and squeezing, amongst other things. We try to redirect this into more controlled, safe activities and games - we have many that DS loves including piling all the sofa cushions on the floor as a "crashmat" and let him jump on them; challenging him to push us from one side of the room to the other with our hands out and pushing against each other, etc.

You've probably already seen recommendations for the books "the out of sync child" and "the out of sync child has fun" - the latter has loads of suggestions for these sorts of games.