DS talking to himself non-stop at school-please suggest something

[tiredmummyoftwo]

DS (4.3) has had two months of schooling and has settled in well. But recently he has started talking to himself at school non-stop blocking out everybody and everything. He is non-stop repeating songs and DVDs. He always repeated things but before falling a sleep or when he is on his own, not in a public place like that. He used to be very quiet when with other people. His 1:1 and teacher both have said that they can't make him stop. This is making other children scared and although at the beginning he had few children wanting to play with him, now nobody wants to be near him. Please help, we don't know how to stop this as he is fine at home. We understand that he is obviously stressed out at school, but we can't just stop him going to school.

How about a quiet place for him to go when he feels overwhelmed.

My ds absolutely hates school, things have improved since he has been given a quiet place to go, away from others.

All I can think of too is for him to have somewhere he go to be alone when he's stressed.

My ds also hates school, finds it distressing and according to his teacher the other kids don't want to play with him. It's heartbreaking isn't it?

I hope you find some sort of solution soon x

Dd1 does this too, she seems ok during class (although still talks to others) but at break time she spends a lot of time talking to her self and repeating things she has seen on the TV. Some of dd1's friends seem to have got fed up with her non-stop talking and she spends most of break times playing on her own or with the older children.

Luckily dd1 still loves school and doesn't really mind playing on her own, the teachers give her a lot of attention which she loves, her best friend is the head teacher and i have to keep telling her to leave the poor man alone .

I have a similar problem only my boy has a verbal stim, ie he makes oooing noises or sings snatches of nursery rhymes all the time. I have used aversive techniques on it at home (we do ABA) - but it has basically boiled down to telling him to be quiet, with a finger to lips shush sign, every single time he does it. It is exhausting, but it then gives teachers at school the chance to use the same shush/be quiet sign at school. The problem is finding out why he does it - if it is just a verbal stim, as my boy's, this technique might work. If it is a way of avoiding work, it's harder, but you may still be able to break the habit at home first and then pass it on to school. Is there anything aversive you could do at home to stop it, I can't think what but something that makes him conscious of stopping it, even if it's a finger over his mouth? It is so hard, because of course the last thing we want to do is discourage speech! But they can't interrupt the whole class and have to learn that there are times you have to be quiet too!

I agree as well that this is a sign he is overwhelmed and needs siomewhere to be with less external input

Am thinking that rather than making him stop (???) there might needto be ABA type input at this stage.

Are you certain his palcement is the right one for him? I guess that's the key question before anything else can be suggested

DS3 does this when he needs to take a sense of control back- usually in the car if he doesn't know the palce we are heading to. We generally let him get on with it (though it annoys his brothers massively), but do find that using ear protectors helps him.

is there an alternative soothing strategy he could do instead? Something quieter? Like having a ball under his feet or something?

My son has vocal and visual stims. We have just started ABA and advice is to always reinforce when not doing it eg nice being quiet or reward for not doing it. Would he wear headphones? Our OT suggested these but DS is only 2 and no chance of putting them on. Could he go part-time at all so you can see if it improves with less time at school? It would be hard to eliminate for a whole school day. Agree would also need a quiet space and a way of asking for this eg teach him to ask for a break either verbally or using a card. But the break should be somewhere which is just a quiet space and quite dull - not somewhere he gets to play with toys etc and is more fun than lessons! Can you talk to the LEA team about it if they have no suggestions you could suggest ABA input. ABA is the only approach which I think really takes the view that stimming should be stopped if possible precisely because of the stigmatising effect you describe.