Poo

[wasuup3000]

Anyone with a child who has ASD have a child (almost 6) who poo's himself/herself almost daily? Any tips and what may work to help him be a bit cleaner in that department? He is just not all that bothered.

There have been threads on this recently- maybe search special needs for 'soiling' or 'poo'?
I have just been sent details for a course on toileting and asd in my area (east midlands) maybe the nas or your local asd organisation (ours is norsacca) or inclusion support may know of courses/someone who can help.
My 7yrold with as toilet trained ok, but 'explored' his poo for a long time. Tbh we eventually got strict and punitive with him (eg taking away favourite things when he did it) because I was going mad with it all over the place. This is probably inappropriate for your ds and I know getting cross doesn't work with most asd children.
Good luck.

We had this problem (still have to a certain extent) and I started a thread about it fairly recently. Ds2 is 7, fully toilet trained for wee but not poo. He was doing it in his pants on a regular basis and then handling it, dropping it on the floor and wiping his hands on the nearest surface. Although it sounds mad, I made a 'Book About Poo' - a social story with very simple words and pictures about where poo should go, the fact that we don't touch it with our hands and the rewards he'd get if he did his poo in the toilet.

We have had limited success in that he is now always puts the poo in the loo - but still with his hands. He knows that he then has to wash his hands/wipe them on loo paper but hasn't got the motor skills to do this independently yet. So we are having to keep a very close eye! He is also always going at night now - this is good in the sense that he's in a routine, but not good in that I think he's very aware it's not OK to soil yourself (has never done it at school, even in the worst stages) and so 'holds it in' until bedtime.

I sympathise - it's a long old road - but according to most posters on this subject on here, they do all get it, more or less, in the end. It just takes a long, long time.

Thanks for those replies. We has smearing when he was around 2-lovely especially when given 1/2 a chance he would cover the TV screen in it and himself. He was trained be it late he had a fear of sitting on the toilet to go. He tends to stick his hands down there and they get a bit messy when he has soiled. I asked him if he had last time and he said "don't say that word" which usually means yes he has but don't talk to him about it.

Ds2 isn't very verbal but he ALWAYS says no if I ask him if he's done a poo. There seems to be a huge amount of fear/anxiety surrounding bowels for some children on the spectrum.

This will only work in a home setting and for a certain type of ASD child - one who hates mess of any kind but I found letting DS1 walk around in just a long T shirt really helped as he was fearful of what would happen without comfort layer of clothes so was easier to rush to toilet.

I might just try that. We are seeing the clinical psych but think it may take a while for her to get to on to the soiling issue. She is newly qualified (not in ASD's either) and she has yet to get to grips with the fact that no matter how much she tries to tell our son that milkshake is milkshake and it will taste as good and the same no matter what writing is on the cup that he won't agree with her.

We have a 'poo lady' (officially known as the incontinence nurse) in our county - haven't seen her yet, but a friend of mine with a child on the spectrum said she was excellent. Might be worth seeing if there's someone similar in your area?

Great! Thanks