need some help/advice

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hi, i'm new here. my six-year-old son has AS and is informally diagnosed with hyperlexia (i know there's a lot of controversy as to whether that's a stand-alone diagnosis, symptom, or "savant skill"). while he had tantrums and a lack of impulse control as a toddler and preschooler, it seems to have gotten so much worse since he's gotten older. a lot of it has to do with transitions we've been through in the past couple of years. my husband is military and we moved from pennsylvania to colorado when my son was 21 months, then from colorado to north carolina when he was 4 1/2. six weeks before we moved here, i had twin girls after a rough pregnancy with lots of bedrest and a deployed husband for some of it. my son had to leave his beloved preschool and started kindergarten a few months later. so i know, that's A LOT for anyone to handle, let alone someone on the spectrum. we've done everything we can think of to make things go smoothly, but it's been rough.

the move was almost two years ago, the baby sisters are almost two, but things have just gotten worse and worse. at school, he's fine. as soon as he walks through the door it's as if he's held it together all day long and doesn't have the energy to control himself any longer. he is one of those kids who seems to be in the middle of a cluster of disorders, AS being the biggest one, but there's also a lot of ADD, ODD, OCD, and even tourette's there. he is in constant motion and has trouble concentrating if it's not one of his special interests. he's defiant much of the time, and he has no impulse control. he's got tons of rituals that have to be observed , otherwise he melts down. he makes loud, sudden noises a lot and can't seem to control them.

we really work with him on the sensory stuff and try to accomodate him. one of my twins has SPD as well (without the autism) so we've just gotten used to making things SPD friendly around our house, when we go out in public, etc. we try to give him fair warning about changes and prepare him, give him reminders before transitions, etc. we have tried every discipline trick in the book and while time out doesn't work, it's really all we can think of to do. he cannot grasp how actions and consequences work, so it's like there's no carryover between talking to him about something he did wrong and him doing it again, even an hour later. i'm an early childhood/elementary certified teacher (i'm currently a SAHM) and i have no idea what to do with this child, even having worked with kids on the spectrum before! it's so frustrating, and we end up yelling at each other and i feel terrible. i know he can't help what he does, but i don't know how to help him with it. he receives OT once a week and ABA therapy four times a week for 3 1/2 hours a session but i'm not seeing a whole lot of improvement with us at home. other people have commented that they see an improvement when we're out at their houses, but our house is still a war zone.

here are my biggest questions:

what do i do about the impulse control? i'm talking about things like being way too rough with his sisters (he honestly loves them, i just don't think he can sense their limits), running out into traffic, messing around with the debit/credit card thing when i'm trying to pay at the store, climbing on the dining room table, etc...i could go on and on. i tell him calmly to stop, explain why, he laughs in my face and does it again, and it all goes downhill from there. is there a medication that has worked well with this kind of stuff? his psych talked about trying risperdal, but i'm very hesitant to go in that direction. we also talked about strattera, which i'd be a little more willing to try. i just hate to see him struggle with side effects while we wait and see if it works.

what do i do about stimming? my husband and i always feel like we should be trying to get him to stop but part of me says, hey, if he's stressed and that's how he needs to unwind, let him do it. he doesn't do any hand flapping or any of that anymore, but he makes "letter piles" from the book "chicka chicka boom boom" and writes seating charts for his classmates over and over and over again when he's stressed.

what do i do about the defiance and lying and things like that? we tried to do a chore chart with him so he'll remember to put his clothes in the hamper, clean up his room, and even flush the toilet and wash his hands when he's done in the bathroom, but nothing seems to motivate him, so reward based systems just don't work. and he's not intrinsically motivated to do this stuff. then he lies (badly) about having done it, even though he knows all we have to do is walk down the hall and check.

sorry, i feel like i'm rambling. i'm just glad to have found this site and i'll be happy to get some insight from those of you on the spectrum, as well as other parents. my mind doesn't work the way his does and i just want to do right by him. i feel like i'm getting nowhere.

It sounds like you're really overwhelmed - understandably. It's really common for rewards systems not to work for some kids. One of the problems is that most reward systems don't consider what the child finds rewarding. Another is that for some kids, the system itself is a turn-off, and in order for them to stay engaged, they have to be involved in setting the rewards. The rewards also have to change regularly, or the child will become bored or resentful. Not all children are like this, but for those who are, rewards systems can be very tricky!

Defiance is another issue that can be much more complicated than it sometimes appears at first. Is it really defiance, or is it a problem of transitions, order, or sensory integration that looks like defiance? Sometimes, when a child appears to be defiant, it is really that something in his world is "wrong," and he can't cope with it. Is the "defiance" about you and what you are asking of him, or is it about the thing itself. If it has nothing to do with you, it isn't defiance. If he'd be doing the same thing whether you approved or disapproved, he isn't being defiant, he's doing something that's internally driven. If it's internally driven, it's not defiance.

Have you ever read or seen the book Parenting Your Asperger Child, by Sohn and Grayson? It can be very helpful. Aside from giving ideas about ways of handling various situations, it also describes different "types" of kids with Asperger's. By figuring out what "type" of child yours is, you might be able to understand the child better. By understanding the child better, you might be able to help him understand the confusing world he's living in - does he need more explanations? more clear rules? Whatever it is, the book should be able to help you figure it out, and if you can do that, it might help with some of the issues you're dealing with.

Some of the problems have more to do with ADD than AS, but my sister has ADHD so I'll offer what insight I can.

He did, and he doesn't. Send him off to stim for a few minutes and he should be fine.



Most of the time you can stop an "autistic tantrum" with a simple hug. It's a reaction to being overwhelmed, like drowning, so the comfort and stability of a solid hug from someone who cares about us can help us calm down (and avoid collateral damage). That or hiding in the closet/restroom until we're feeling better, but a hug is faster and lets you feel like you're doing something.



Sounds like he can help what he does, but it's still very difficult and stressful and mostly done by gritting his teeth. He'll probably get better at it over the years, find tricks to let some of it out without people noticing. Usually elementary is the worst time for parents of AS kids, and high school is the worst for the AS kids themselves. I say focus on helping him cope with the stress, and the rest will be easier to manage.



Many medications would help with this, all of them have side effects the question is which side effects can he (and you) live with at this point. Some use different medications (or none at all) depending on whether they're on vacation, or weekend, or school/work, whatever so you might want to bring that up when you discuss it with his psych.

Having an outlet for his hyperactivity might be helpful too. Get him a giant hamster wheel , or maybe a trampoline or a punching bag. If you do it right, this might double as a socially acceptable stim too.

Martial arts might help too, especially hands-on grappling like judo or wrestling. You might be thinking he's dangerous enough as it is, but having better self-control and knowing what he's capable of will help him do less damage. And holds are less dangerous than strikes.



Something NTs seldom consider about AS - stimming is for stress relief, doesn't matter much what the ritual is so long as it gets the job done. Many stims are not unusual even among NTs - twirling a pencil, pacing, shadow boxing, chanting mantras, etc. The main difference is we don't naturally know (or really consider) which stims are culturally "normal", though some of us figure it out eventually. If his stimming is causing problems, maybe you can help him find some rituals that are more acceptable to you, with the motivation being "not looking like a freak".



Again sounds like an ADD issue. My (adult, ADHD) sister sometimes prepares a whole meal for herself, goes to the restroom, goes to her room to get dressed, and leaves - with the untouched meal still on the counter. The lying is suspicious, but is he lying because he's trying to weasel out of doing it, or because he fears your wrath for something he may have honestly forgot?

Aspies often don't understand social hierarchies or recognize the reasons for authority until they're older (if ever). Did you try treating him like an (inexperienced) adult?

Ask him WHY he doesn't do it, he may be having more problems than he admits, and/or it may be possible to make reasonable accommodations to make the chore less of a chore. Like listening to music while cleaning his room to make it less boring, or letting him go for a quick run outside every 15 mins when doing his homework to satisfy hyperactivity.



Oh you'll see plenty of rambling here. Us AS types love to ramble.

thanks for the book suggestion. i've read a couple of others that have been somewhat helpful, but this one sounds like exactly what i need.

trying to figure out what the "defiance" is stemming from is one of our biggest problems. with things like washing his hands and flushing the toilet, i know it's sensory. a lot of it is lack of impulse control, i think, but how do we get him to the point where he can control his actions? i just don't know what we're supposed to be doing. he had two huge meltdowns at dinner tonight, the first because he was making a really loud slurping sound over and over again and we sent him to time out for five minutes, and the other because he was stabbing the table with his fork over and over again. we ask him nicely, he laughs and keeps doing it, we tell him he needs to stop or he's going to time out, he laughs and does it again, and then he goes to time out. when he comes back, he keeps doing it! my husband and i are kind of at our wit's end.

thanks for all of the insight. as far as the hyperactivity is concerned, we've got him outside a lot of the time (the trampoline has been the single best purchase of our lives ). we've tried two martial arts classes with no success, because he wasn't able to follow along with the rest of the class. however, there's a martial arts studio in our area that is starting a class specifically for kids on the spectrum and we've got him signed up for it, so hopefully that will help a lot.

Sometimes, when kids are doing things like stabbing the table with the fork, there's something going on that you don't know about. It could be that there's a story/fantasy going on in their minds. There could be something really funny to him about the stabbing of the fork into the table - maybe it reminds him of something. Have you tried, instead of telling him to stop, asking him what he gets out of the behavior? It might be a stim, but it might be more - it might include a whole imagination thing too. Ask him. If it's something he really needs, maybe you can figure something out that gives him the sensory feedback he needs, but that doesn't drive you as crazy. Try working with him to meet his needs and yours. It might work.

When you ask him to stop the slurping, have you ever told him that the sound hurts your ears? Does he know why you're asking him to stop? Maybe he thinks you're being arbitrary, and he just doesn't feel like going along with your arbitrary rules. Lots of kids with Asperger's won't go along with rules that don't make sense to them. Punishing them with time outs doesn't work. If you keep trying to use that as a method of "teaching" him to behave, you will get to your wits end way before your child behaves as you are trying to "make" him behave.

i'll have to try asking him what he gets out of it. that's something i hadn't thought of.

as far as telling him why we want him to stop is concerned, we haven't had much success. we tried that tonight with the slurping and it just kept going on. as another example, he was on the trampoline this afternoon when one of his little sisters ran under it and my husband yelled for him to stop. he stopped, then when we explained why (we didn't want her to get hurt), he laughed and kept jumping, even though my husband was still trying to get her out. the reasoning just doesn't sink in.

i know time outs don't work, but what kind of consequence should we use? i don't want to just let the bad behavior go. he just can't make the connection between his actions and consequences.

It sounds like a tough problem, and you might want to get some professional help to try to figure some of this out. An evaluation to figure out how much of what you're explaining he can understand and process might be in order.

His inability to make the connection between the behavior and the consequence is the reason why the consequence is pointless. If he doesn't make the connection, to him, the consequence is essentially random. If he's doing something that is dangerous, it needs to be stopped immediately. It needs to be very clear to him that there is a difference between jumping on the trampoline when his sister is under it (dangerous) and slurping a drink loudly (annoying, but not dangerous). If your response to them is similar (to him), he can't learn to respond differently to them. The fact that he stopped jumping when you told him to is excellent. The fact that he started again when you explained why is troubling. Did you praise him for stopping? Does he respond to praise? It is generally preferable to work on behavior by supporting the behavior that you desire than by punishing the behavior you consider unacceptable. Try to "catch" him doing "good" stuff, and praise him for that (if he responds well to praise). Figuring this stuff out is a lot of work - but it's worth it!

You are mentioning several different things here that are all .. complicated. I think the first thing to do is decide that home is his safe place, and tell him that. You will accept some less desirable behaviors at home if he demonstrates consistently that he can hold them in in public. Bad manners at the dinner table? Fine - at home. In a restaurant - no. All I have to do when I see my son slipping in public is say, "honey, we're in a restaurant, use your best manners." And he will - being able to do so is a condition of eating out, and he happens to love eating out. At home, however, trying to use good manners really stress him. Better that he just eat, given that I have a child who lives mostly on air.

I wouldn't censor the slurping or the fork thing. If it's a stim, he needs it. If it's attention getting, you'll actually be depriving him of his goal. Good either way.

Lol, yeah, dinner at our home is an interesting affair - but it works.

The toilet and hands is an on-going problem. Yes, it is sensory, most likely, and far beyond impulse control. My son is 12 and we're still fighting it. I echo a simple refrain every time I see him leave the restroom: "flush" "wash." Which he then goes back and does. The consequence if he doesn't? Well, he learned a few years ago that I wasn't beyond marching him back in and doing these things with him. He didn't like that, and has learned to just do it when I ask instead. Sometimes, amazingly enough, he actually has remembered. Again, public doubled importance to home, and we're at 50% now for remembering in public. Eventually it will all become habit. That is what I'm looking for with these skills: the point at which he does them by habit.

I am not a fan of medication, and we have not used any. We've addressed the too rough with his sister by limiting physical play between them, and carefully monitoring any cuddling they do. She, unfortunately, is always trying to draw him into physical contact, so just teaching them to stay away from each other wasn't really an option. But, forcing them to separate does work as a consequence. If it can't be controlled, it has to be stopped, and neither child likes that. Your son cannot sense his sister's limits and, even if he does, he can't stop the train from continuing down the track once it's started. Recognizing that helps.

As for the constant motion and fiddling: allow much of the stuff at home in exchange for him controlling himself better in public. Think of your child as having the ability to control his impulses IF he is only asked to do so for short amounts of time. Prioritize your needs in these areas, and then teach him that there is a time and a place. And give him acceptable fiddle toys for public. My son responded really well to that change in tactic.



Allow it, but with an understanding that there is a time and a place. Everything about my son's overall behavior improved once we realized the stims are a NEED, not an option. Easy choice for me, at least: a child who has meltdowns because life's expectations overwhelm him, or a child who acts totally weird at home? We've given up ever having a lovely home with pretty furniture in pursuit of a happy child who can control his impulses when needed most. And, it works.



Drop the list. Focus on one skill at a time. Once it's become habit, you can move onto another one. Be patient - it can take a while. Things that seem easy to us can be incredibly over-whelming to our kids. And things that seem difficult to us - that we would never have thought to ask from our kids - can be easy for them. Which leads to another way to attack the issue: My son doesn't pick up his clothes but he will cook dinner for the family, will set movies for his sister, and trouble shoot our computers. Encourage your son to try different things around the house and then let him choose his own chores.

Kids lie when they don't feel they have another out. And AS kids may lie because, being very literal, to their eyes everyone else lies all the time, so why shouldn't they? And, well, 6 year olds don't really "get" it when it comes to lying - my son learned about tangled webs with something silly when he was 9 or 10, and that pretty much sealed it for him - he doesn't lie. But your son still has some life to live to get there, and he's likely to play a lot of twisted angles first, because it's the only thing he knows how to do. Hates brushing his teeth? He can't explain why, and he can't get you to change the rule, so he lies. When he figures out you can tell, he'll try wetting the tooth brush and leaving a tooth paste trail. Or he'll play the literal game: "have you brushed your teeth?" doesn't ask if he JUST did, just if he EVER has, so he'll truthfully say, "yes." We basically rolled with each phase, let him know "sorry, you still haven't won, and I'm taking you in to brush your teeth with you NOW." I think ultimately that works better than any punishment: the fact that the lie simply does not gain the desired result.

You need to learn how to effectively manage and correct your child's inappropriate behaviors. Drugging your kid into submission is not an option, especially with a child this age. It's just wrong, and is incredibly dangerous. Don't get me wrong, there are some cases where meds are necessary, but usually only if the child is a danger to self and others. It sounds like you just need new methods of discipline.

i'm not a huge fan of medications either, and the point is not to drug him into submission. we've considered medications at this point, however, because i think if you find the right one it can "take the edge off" of the impulsive behaviors and allow his brain to be more receptive to discipline, new strategies of dealing with undesirable behaviors, his ABA therapy, etc. this isn't something we've taken lightly. would i rather find new methods of discipline? absolutely. but i think medication does have its place. for us it would be a last resort.

good point. i already pick my battles a lot, but i'm probably going to have to do more of it.

thank you, very helpful advice. we've talked about the roughhousing and he's basically said that it's 1. a way for him to show her he loves her and 2. sensory seeking behavior. now that my husband's home from deployment, they wrestle at night before bed and it helps A LOT. we talked today about finding another way to show affection for his sisters, and he has started blowing them kisses (his choice).

the stimming at home really doesn't bother me, i just didn't know if it was the right thing to do. but it makes sense to allow it at home so he's able to pull himself together in public. when we go out we always bring his magna doodle, which really helps. if he's able to write at all times he's okay. as far as the sensory stuff is concerned at home, i too gave up the idea of having nice furniture a long time ago. plus he's got a swing in his room, rings hanging from his doorway, a beanbag, etc. i think a punching bag would help too.

you're right about the list; i really need to just focus on one thing at a time. and you brought up a good point...for all of the things he won't do, there are some others that he loves to do (even if they don't need to be done often). he can't stand the sound of the regular vacuum (which isn't surprising) but he loves to use the dustbuster. i'm going to do some more trial and error and see what works best for him.

thanks again. sometimes it really helps to have a fresh perspective on the situation. i get so bogged down in the day-to-day issues that i feel completely overwhelmed.