delicate/stomach turning issue re poo I'm afraid

[luckylady74]

Sorry this is a long one.I have searched past threads, but I can't find anything. I feel disloyal to ds1 discussing this, but I'm at a loss.
He is nearly 6 with a dx of aspergers. When he has a poo he will often (more frequent I think because he's picked up on our distress)put his fingers in it and then in his mouth. Dh went in to wipe him tonight and he had it all over his face and hands. Most of the things I've read seem to assume this is a classic autism type thing to do - not an as thing to do - so the course i went on offered no reference to it.His paed is not an autism expert( first to admit it) and for his own dignity I can't think of anyone else to ask. He does test things with his mouth, eg he's just brought a daffodil in a pot home from school and he's eating the soil if i let him near it.This has been going on for months and it is getting more frequent.
He is open to explanations of things and usually i can get through to him, but I don't know what to say. I just seem to rant on about making himself poorly and it being vile - this is doing neither of us any good.
dh has been close to tears about this - I think it's the contrast between a lovely day where he's been playing chase with a friend and then this.
Any advice on what I should put in a social story or just that this is a phase and normal within as parameters would help! Thanks for reading if you got htis far.

could it be partly a sensory thing - so if he had more squishy stuff to play with, it might divert the urge to more acceptable materials?

I think TC is right - or you could try a social story which very matter-of-factly talks about things it's OK and not OK to eat.
Sorry not to be more help - DS2(5) does this sometimes, not because he wants to eat the poo I don't think, but because he just doesn't realise that he shouldn't put his fingers in his mouth when they've got poo on them. He has severe autism so social stories are too advanced for him as yet. I just say 'No fingers in mouth DS2 - fingers have poo on' in as low key a way as I can (usually not very!)

Someone more helpful will be along soon.

More helpful than me I mean, not TC

Hello Luckylady, sorry I don't have much experience with this, but didn't want your problem to go unnoticed.

I don't know if you are aware of ABA (applied behavioural analysis)? I think it could help you. I am new to ABA and there are many people here who know much more, so just bear with me while I try to explain. (And sorry if you are an expert on this subject!)

You need to analyse the behaviour in order to find out what is motivating your DS to do it and to try and change it. What is motivating him? As you say maybe he has picked up on your distress? If this is the case, then the more stressed you get the more you are reinforcing this behaviour.

They recommend that you keep data on the behaviour (what was happening for, during and after the behaviour), for example, after taking data you may notice that it happens always at the same time of the day, or after a specific event, so then you can be prepared to handle the situation.

Also, DS needs to link this behaviour with a negative experience in order to stop, for example, if he absolutely hates the smell of coffee, then make him smell coffee after he does this. For example: In our case DS was fascinated by the telephone, to stop him from taking it and putting it in his mouth, everytime he picked it up we would make him put it back 10 times (or as many times as it took until he did it without screaming and on his own).
In this way he realised that if he took the phone he would have to do ten times more work to put it back. After one day of this he stopped doing it.
Sorry for such a long post! I hope someone else comes along with ideas.
Big hugs to your DH, it broke my heart to think that he would be close to tears and I don't even know him.

Agree with TC too about it being a sensory thing and to try diverting him with something similar. I have come across children, and adults, with autism who do this so its not unheard of in asd circles.

Another possibility if diverting and explaining it is not nice does not work then try preventing him from having access in the first place. One child I have worked with was in nappies so he wore clothing which prevented him getting to his nappy, but if your ds uses the toilet then this would'nt work.

Thank you for all your replies! I think what I can take from this is that I need to keeo an eye on what's happening when he does it - bed times are an excitable time and he's desperate for his dad's attention so I suppose that could be it. Also I think I will try and keep something for him to fiddle with in the bathroom and give it to him when he's on the loo.
Thanks again.