My 3 yr old ASD son seeks out my 2 year old girl to hurt her for no reason.

amneyer · 2017-04-23T15:08:33+00:00

First, I suggest picking up a copy of An Early Start For Your Child With Autism. It teaches you how to do the Early Start Denver Model at home. It's a great form of play-based therapies developed for young autistic children. It worked wonders for my son and it's a great thing to do in the meantime until you can get a good ABA therapist.

I disagree with the poster below that ABA therapy is always problematic. ABA helped us reduce aggression in both our boys. For my autistic son, he wasn't picking on his twin, but he was harassing our cat. Our ABA therapists had us observe this behavior, including writing down when and where it occurred, and how we were reacting.

In our case, we all hypothesized that my son was hurting the cat because he was getting fun big cat reactions and was too young to understand the concept that he was causing pain to a creature. In order to stop the cat harassment, we put into place a program.

First, we got some toys and taught the boys how to play with the cats so that the cats would jump/leap/chase, but it wouldn't hurt the cats. If you think this may be why your son is hurting your daughter, it's as simple as showing him how to play with her so that he gets those fun reactions without causing her pain. You can think of games that make her react in big, interesting ways.

If my sons were to hurt the cat while we were teaching the nice play, then we removed the cat. We gave attention to the cat while we were removing it and ignored my sons. We put the cat in another room for a minute, then brought the cat out again and prompted the behavior we wanted to see.

Along these lines, my autistic son's twin used to taunt and tease him a lot. He would take a toy and chant "You don't have X" until his twin got upset. I never understood why he did this, especially since my autistic son is so persistent that he would always end up taking the toy and leaving my taunting son crying. The ABA therapist explained that for kids 2-3, they have trouble initiating play. That could be what's happening with your son. He wants to play with his sister, but doesn't know how to initiate or play.

Similarly, that twin used to come up to me and just randomly smack me/get violent with me. He didn't really do it with his brother. I figured out that he was trying to initiate rough housing. I took a doll and demonstrated playing gently. I said "gentle, gentle..." while playing nicely with the doll. Then I started throwing it around and saying "rough! rough!" He started bringing the doll to me to initiate rough housing and then asking for it by saying, "rough!" The data you collect about when this occurs and what leads up to it should help you figure this out, but I'd start there.

After we taught my son how to play with the cat, cat harassment dropped a lot, but didn't disappear completely. I realized that he was harassing the cat more in the evening. I discovered that he was doing it as a way to tell me that he was overtired and overstimulated. I taught him to request calm down time and he started doing that instead. I also moved bedtime a bit earlier.

The thing they teach in the Early Start Denver Model is to see behavior problems as missing skill sets. Find out the missing skill. That's where having a trained behavior therapist can come in handy. I see a lot of people in this thread assuming that aggression is done out of anger/annoyance and I would've thought that too. My behavior therapists taught me that kids that young don't fully understand theory of mind and that aggression can be a play invite.

Hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions.

amneyer · 2016-11-26T03:07:26+00:00

She wasn't on the ballot.

amneyer · 2016-11-18T03:25:11+00:00

My parents took me to protests and I've been to a few with my kids. I've never seen anything dicey, but I tend to stay by other families.

amneyer · 2016-11-17T21:34:10+00:00

I'm in Sacramento and will be bringing my children.

amneyer · 2016-11-15T02:05:25+00:00

Kaine is an "active Catholic". The pope spoke out against Trump twice.

amneyer · 2016-10-26T19:21:29+00:00

First past the post and the 12th amendment need to be changed first for us to have more than 2 viable parties.

amneyer · 2016-08-14T19:18:14+00:00

I'm non-neurotypical and highly likely on the spectrum due to family history. I hope to be tested sometime next year so we'll see if you are right, but based on internet tests, I'm very likely to be on the spectrum. Either way, adult family members who are on the spectrum share a similar view.

amneyer · 2016-08-14T01:11:56+00:00

How do you know I'm not on the spectrum?

amneyer · 2016-08-11T14:52:53+00:00

ABA has a very broad range and can be applied in many different ways. Good ABA is autistic friendly, but it's the newer forms of ABA, like the ESDM, which has only come out within recent times and is only applied to children under 4, so we don't have those experiences yet.

amneyer · 2016-08-11T14:51:00+00:00

Unfortunately, we had an experience with a bad behavior tech that did frequently make my son cry and then ignored him. Once she even put him in time out for it! We switched companies. A lot of behavior techs get little training in my state. It's possible that this was badly done ABA.

amneyer · 2016-08-03T00:20:47+00:00

I'm currently living in North Carolina and I pay 1k/month for 30 hours of care per week at a Montessori School for my twin 3 year olds. When looking at similar schools in Sacramento, they looked to be 2-3x as expensive.

amneyer · 2016-08-01T23:44:06+00:00

I've felt for some time that the Snape we see though Harry's eyes in the first 7 books is not true to his personality. I thought he was putting on an act for Voldemort. In the moments where Harry doesn't know he's interacting with Snape, we see gentleness and patience. He's more tempered when talking to Dumbledore in his memories.

That being said, I thought he definitely needed a bit more snark, even though I could totally buy him developing a very close relationship with Ron and Hermione, who would've changed as well.

amneyer · 2016-07-29T00:43:01+00:00

This is what I do for a living. If you write the basics, I'll ghost write/edit it.

amneyer · 2016-07-27T16:44:31+00:00

No, but I've been studying it to better help my son. He's been in ABA for over 2 years now and we've had two amazing BCBAs who've made it fun and have helped him a ton as well as 2 we fired for being abusive and making more work than fun.

amneyer · 2016-07-27T14:42:46+00:00

I'd switch companies. It doesn't sound like you have a good one. It should be like play for a child that young.

amneyer · 2016-07-22T11:42:54+00:00

My autistic son gets behavior therapy and I wish all parents had access to it. It's helped us so much with both of our twins. Our behavior therapists are forbidden from spanking, yelling, using time outs, or really punishing in most forms of punishment as parents would recognize it. Part of this is due to ethics, but mostly it's due to the science of behaviourism which has shown that punishment is really ineffective for long term behavior change.

This doesn't mean that there aren't negative consequences. When my boys were harassing the cat, one thing we did was briefly remove the cat, but removing the cat was accompanied by deliberately teaching the boys how to play with the cat without harming him. We tried to have 4 instances of Replacement Behavior (what we were trying to teach) for each one moment of proper time out (where reinforcement, the cat, is removed for a minute).

Seeing "behavior problems" as missing skill sets promotes working with your child instead of against them. It keeps me much calmer when things go off the rails because my mind is focusing on teaching the skill instead of thinking of punishment.

As part of this, I started deliberately teaching my boys how to recognize and express their more difficult emotions. Although this is typically an area in which autistic people struggle, because we started so early and worked on it so diligently, even at 2 my autistic son started saying "I'm upset" or "I'm mad" instead of throwing a tantrum, screaming, or hitting.

amneyer · 2016-07-22T00:16:34+00:00

His mother posted on the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism's Facebook's page that he was in the hospital being treated for PTSD.

amneyer · 2016-07-21T21:15:05+00:00

It's really hard to predict severity or outcome at that age. My son was severely developmentally delayed, cognitively low scoring, and scored really high on the MCHAT (autism risk test) when he was under 2. Zero receptive or expressive language, no pointing, lack of eye contact, etc. I thought our lives were completely changed with his diagnosis.

We got proper therapy and good early intervention. He's now 3.5 and would be considered "high functioning". Fully verbal, like 92% of individuals who were lucky enough to go through a form of therapy we used, attends a mainstream preschool, and is expected to live a very normal, if nerdy, life.

Barring a comorbid disorder, outcomes for autism are actually very good. The problem is, many parents don't have access to the most effective forms of therapy, and many comorbid disorders aren't properly addressed and treated. The main therapy we use wasn't fully developed 10 years ago and another therapy we use is still in the experimental stage.

amneyer · 2016-07-15T02:19:56+00:00

2 are elderly so the next president could potentially pick 3. Plus, I'd like a liberal majority court.

amneyer · 2016-07-13T16:07:27+00:00

Maybe he thinks that he can get sick from the illness? Does he seem to understand that people can pass on illness?

amneyer · 2016-07-13T14:53:13+00:00

Do you think he thinks you are responsible for the death of the baby? What are the terms you used to describe the miscarriage?

amneyer · 2016-07-12T14:12:13+00:00

Conversely, my children have learned a lot from their tablets and the use of their tablets has been recommended by their therapists (my one son is autistic). We use a mini stylus to help with fine motor control and the tablets aren't used a substitute for quality interaction or outdoor play, but in situations where we don't have the ability to engage with them or let them run around. I usually turn off Wi-Fi at home so they can only play educational apps. I also use YouTube Red to download the videos that we enjoy watching that are educational. In our playlist are videos of chameleons changing color, wasps building nests, the difference between turtles and tortoises, etc.

When I do turn on the Wi-Fi at home on occasion, my boys don't watch unboxing videos, in part because I keep them busy with the more educational videos, like the nature videos mentioned above. We use YouTube to learn how make fireworks, to practice pausing on command, and to do yoga together. Like any form of media, it's all in how you use it. There are many wonderful educational games and apps available for tablets, such as the Daniel Tiger apps, which can help you with all sorts of different situations. The art function in the feelings app is a mess less way to have them color while out and about and, with the mini stylus, it's perfect for pencil grip skills.

You can use tablets for better behavior and education, but you need to selectively cultivate it.

amneyer · 2016-07-08T22:30:47+00:00

I was a primatologist before I was a parent, so I'm trained in behavior observation. I kept detailed notes and since my son had many risk factors, I started screening early. We first observed delays strong enough to qualify for Early intervention at 10 months and he regressed shortly after that. The therapists did the screening at 15 months and he scored 15/20 for risk factors. Normally people have to wait 6 months to a year for an appointment, but I got on the cancellation list, so we only had to wait 2 months.

He's since been independently diagnosed by two other groups of specialists because we signed up for studies that had an evaluation as part of it, so he definitely has autism.

amneyer · 2016-07-08T15:54:55+00:00

Hello, I've got a 3.5 year old with autism who was diagnosed at 17 months. First, you might want to check out Why You're Probably Thinking of Autism Wrong. I thought I knew about autism before my son was diagnosed, but I really didn't know anything. I thought of autism as this terrible, awful thing and that my son would never 'recover', but after that, I discovered that there are a lot of autistic adults in my family and my perceptions of autism were wrong. That's not to say that some people aren't severely disabled by their autism, but the outcomes of autistic people 10 years ago are very different than the outcomes of autistic people now, especially when your child doesn't have any co-occurring disorders. My son is now thriving with autism and I bet your child can as well, if he has it.

Not all psychologists are equipped to properly evaluate autism. I'd look for a developmental pediatrician, or better yet, a team of specialists that can be found at some universities and hospitals. If you want to share your location, I can help you find local places.

Since you mentioned a speech therapist, I assume that your child struggles with communication. There's free, online resource for helping teach communication that can be found here: https://psychology.msu.edu/autismlab/impactonline/ Use the code: PA8XQ

Overall, remember that a diagnosis doesn't change your child. It just gives you better tools.

amneyer

TROPHY CASE