Consequences for ASD

[BlackLabradorsRock]

Hi - we had a meeting at school today and the teacher and SENCO kept going on to us about consequences, and how other children are starting to copy our son's autistic meltdowns, because "he gets away with throwing things around, so why can't I"?

I've explained to the school so many times about how you praise good behaviour, look for triggers to avert a meltdown, and how to analyse behaviour post-event (Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence) to create learnings for the future. He's had a crap teacher this year and luckily doesn't have much longer with her as the school year ends shortly (we aren't in the UK).

Our son is 7 and high-functioning, does anyone have any links too resources we can share with the school about how consequences don't work as well for autism as positive reinforcement?

Thanks

Oh gee! Where is my eye roll emoji!!

I have worked with many children and I dont think I have ever come across one that thinks "Ooo look xx is having a meltdown I think I will have one too"

Seriously and these people call themselves "professionals"

Love the idea of an eye roll emotion!

What has been said already TBH.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been told "ds needs to stop leaving the classroom" and "ds needs to co operate better with his peers in class" and "ds is immature"

I find the answer I tend to give now (which I doubt is in anyway helpful!) is "well when you've discovered how to punish my ds asd and spd out of him let me know - plus you'll probably make a fortune selling that 'cure'"

The sensible answer that will probably get a better response is to suggest they punish the kids choosing to behave that way and put in support for the one who can't control a meltdown.

NAS website?

Like the idea of punishing the kids that are choosing to behave like that, I did think of something similar, although 6 hours after the meeting!

I was starting to doubt myself, they go on about consequences at every meeting. They said that as DS has "no consequences" it's not fair on the other kids. I did ask on how many occasions in the 40 weeks of the school year they'd had other kids copying him by throwing things but they couldn't give me an exact number....

Ah well, schools break up here on Friday for summer, and next year we are getting some more support in the classroom and have just started working with a private psychologist who seems to be very switched on so far.

I need the eye roll emoji for every email I send to the SENCO these days.