Desperately seeking advice

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I'm at a complete loss. I'm not sure if anyone will have any suggestions, but thought I'd try anyway.

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Preface

My son is six, he'll be turning seven in November. Around ages two and three he said some words, even counted up to five. Speech wasn't great, but he was definitely doing these things, as well interested in cooking, picking up, and generally trying new things/turning into his own little person. Just to add, I never knew anyone with young children and was therefor never exposed to them. I wouldn't have known how a small kid was supposed to act, apart from my own research. He seemed to hit all of the milestones so I wasn't particularly worried. Please don't judge me or ridicule for not knowing signs of autism prior. I feel like a terrible person already.

Anyway, a tornado hit our place, all progress ceased to exist(He only babbled and made endless droning noises and whatnot). He was ultimately diagnosed with autism, the professional we saw saying the incident with the tornado complete coincidence. Before seeing a professional however, had contacted a child psychologist who said to simply wait it out, as the event might have been traumatizing/it wasn't unusual for children to basically 'pause', but would ultimately fix itself. SO, as you can imagine, the diagnosis didn't come until a while later.


The Problems

Well, things have only gotten progressively worse. He is violent, he never listens, and no form of punishment works(such as taking stuff away, sending him to his room, facing a corner, redirecting bad behavior by switching to something positive- you name it, I have tried it). Talking to him does not work because he does not listen, because he does not verbally communicate, and he will not watch your face, even if this has been worked on not only at home, but through his para via school. Even if he does watch your face, he shows zero interests in attempting to learn to talk. I have tried doing flash cards with words, reading(Which is almost impossible because he doesn't care about books, even books that include his favorite things), to painting letters and numbers on blocks since he loves to build, thinking this would somehow motivate him. Nope.

The extent of his communication is coming to grab you aggressively then drag you away to whatever he is wanting. He does point, but only if you're right there, otherwise it's straight to aggression. I have attempted to turn this around(Seeing as how it has been daily for more than a year or so), but no dice. Despite the fact that he will not verbally communicate, I still say things such as 'We don't do that', or 'Try it this way instead', whereby I will show him what I'm wanting him to do, but he'll simply smile, laugh, or get aggravated(Which more often than not includes very high pitched screaming, screeching, growling, groaning, tensing up, throwing stuff, attacking you, or beating on himself, walls... the list is sort of endless)... and so, we go immediately back to square one.

I have attempted to ignore this sort of behavior even, ALL OF THEM, because it was one thing I had never tried, but this sends everything spiraling further out of control, if you can believe it... somehow these things get intensified tenfold. He'll pinch, scratch, has even bitten before, and there are no doubt plenty of things I'm forgetting.

All of that aside, he literally won't do anything beyond endless, extremely loud groaning noises. These are near constant, so not much room for peace. You can't drowned it out and I can not even temporarily put in earplugs because he requires constant monitoring(Because otherwise he'll get into things he's not supposed to, try to jump out of windows. Generally anything dangerous and no lock in the world can stop him). I have attempted to teach him to tone it down a bit, and while sometimes he will miraculously listen specifically to this request, he will get right back to it within five minutes or less. No more, no less.

He is an active child. He is always running, jumping, what have you. We do a lot of pressure stuff, and for the longest I took him outside... but by now, over half of my size(I'm a small woman), I literally can not do anything with him outside anymore, as he can easily enough get away from me. He has no problem attempting to play with traffic, be rough with other kids(He nearly shoved a little girl off of playground equipment once- and there's plenty more instances where it makes it impossible to have him at playgrounds unless he is the only one. As you can imagine, this is unrealistic). Not only that, be will basically do all of the above in public as well... so. I'm not really embarrassed by these things, but I'm sure our neighbors hate us, and every kids that seems confused or frustrated, and every parent witnessing such behavior that gives odd looks. I don't know... it's depressing.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to matter what I do, his behavior is seemingly not capable of correction. The only time he seems even remotely interested in learning something is if it somehow benefits him or he has a personal interest, and those are so few and far between.

I have tried firmness, kindness, everything. I am so lost. I don't know what to do anymore, and the resources available for this sort of diagnoses have already been stretched as far as they can go within my area. The idea is definitely to move away, somewhere where resources are a little more plentiful, but since only one parent works, and during the school year our child is only there for an hour or two at best, dreaming for something better isn't achievable right now. In any case, I have my doubts that there'd be much room for improvement anyway(I know that's pessimistic).

The noises honestly wouldn't be that big of a problem, but you can often hear them from outside and, there's also the fact that we currently live in a duplex. It has to be running the guy next door to us absolutely mad. He's never said anything, but the avoidance is immense when he was otherwise generally friendly at first. I know it's not good to assume, but it's all I'm able to conclude. I'll also admit that I'm a bit paranoid because we were kicked out of an apartment two or so years ago because of our child's behavior. Since I don't know how to correct any of it, I don't know how to give anyone else peace either.

I desperately need help, but again, I don't think there is anything that can be done... so maybe this will only serve as a rant. If anyone does have any suggestions though for any of these problem areas, please share. I will try anything(Except for 'move to an actual house'. We tried our damnedest to find one during the apartment situation, but it simply didn't work out, and time ran out. We ended up in the first thing affordable. Much as an actual house would be amazing, that's not really a fix to the majority of the problems anyway. So, please don't go there).


In Short

I am desperate, exhausted, and thoroughly depressed.

What age was your son when the tornado happened?
Was your son intellectually normal before then?
Is he intellectually normal now?
In some cases, autistic children hit milestones of 1, 2, 3 year olds, but then lose skills for reasons not understood, and some relearn the skills later.

He was three, nearing four when the tornado hit.

He seemed 'normal' to me, and far as every doctor visit went and every person who interacted with him, none suspected anything wrong with him. Happy, normal child, far as I know. This is why we spoke with a child psychologist first, after the tornado, because that's when he declined. Everything just stopped. Anything else hadn't even really come to mind.




He is. Just doesn't care about talking/learning to talk, and has extremely selective hearing and anger that could rival even the blazing fires of hell.




Yeah, basically what the professional told us who diagnosed him. Never about relearning skills, though. Actually he said something along the lines of, 'Going to have a very young man in your lives forever'. This doesn't bother me, what does is not being able to find solutions that work to problems that desperately do need to be solved.

A lot of the issues with temper may be communication issues. PECS is something that often works for kids with limited or no speech. It is basically a clip art system where you make little cards with pictures on it he can point to to communicate basic things. There is more to it then that, and you do not have to spring for the official version. You can make them yourself--and I think there may be free or low cost apps out there too.

Other issues may be sensory, and it might help to observe what environments make him upset--loud, crowded, too bright etc.

There are children for whom standard punishments/rewards do not work. Unfortunately, when communication is poor it is hard to navigate some of the solutions. The Ross Green, Explosive Child program is one that a few of us use, in but when the child is autistic, there is still a lot of guess work because it is hard to actually collaborate (The system involves collaborative problem solving) So, on that level, you kind of have to suss out what the problems are and try to advocate for the child's point of view as well as your own.

I have thought this too, but without being able to verbally communicate, it gets so tricky. Sometimes I know what the problem is, but it's not anything I can allow and/or fix. I do let him have lights on or off at his own leisure, since I know that can cause problems, but that aside, he really doesn't appear to have too many triggers.

A lot of the anger spawns when it's something he can not have, or if he's overly frustrated with some sort of project he's working on, in which case all I can do is either attempt to console or redirect him, the latter of which usually unsuccessful because he heavily fixates, only wanting to go right back to it. Also what I explained in the OP, thinking the only way to grab my attention is through aggression, despite the effort in trying to teach him a different way.




I will look into this. We already do something similar already with food items, places, etc... so perhaps this will help in some other ways. Thanks for pointing this out, actually. I feel very optimistic that this could really help.




Another thing I will be looking into. I've already skimmed a bit.

Thank you so much for your constructive response.

As a kid (and young adult) I threw tantrums when I wanted something. Looking back, it was because those things were the pleasant parts of my day and/or stress releases. They were equivalent to how adults "treat" themselves or "take it easy" after an especially rough day, which is nearly every day for an autistic kid. It *might* help to incorporate more treats and/or stress releases into his day so he can have things he looks forward to and knows he will get. One thing that helped a lot was my mom rubbed my feet just before I went to sleep (stress release is easier for me at night for some reason). It helped me a little during the day, knowing that some of my stress would be released at the end of the day. Just to give an example.

As for the frustration, that's tough. I have a limited supply of patience every day, and once I am out, I am out for the whole day (unless I take a nap. Naps can be a stress reliever, too). Also, I dealt with frustration by braking stuff. If all else fails, maybe try giving him things he can break, if he is able to understand that it is not ok to break everything. I have no idea why it was so satisfying to me. I guess it was a "safe" way to be violent? Maybe it will reduce the violence towards you, too.

Oh and a tip, about his attention. You probably already know, but he may not be seeing everything he looks at. When teaching him PECS or other things, his attention may be switching between his thoughts and his environment without you knowing (if he's like me, when he looks at his thoughts, his mind will stop "seeing" his environment... even though he may be looking right at or interacting with his environment). Allow enough time, when showing him something, for his attention to land on the object multiple times.

You had mentioned faces, too. That's super complicated, you might as well be trying to teach rocket science. I think your best bet is to reach him through objects/pictures, as someone else has mentioned. Also keep in mind that thoughts are linked differently in the autistic mind. To use a real example, objects seen in the environment are not always readily "linked" to the schemas held in the mind. I can be scanning my desk looking for my box of envelopes, but not see it because the box was angled in a such a way that it didn't match the picture I had in my mind. Not sure if your son thinks in pictures or not, but the concept is the same.

Proloquo is an iPad app that may help. It's sort of like a digitized PECS. Very expensive, but it could be an option. Basically, he would tap on an icon that represents what he wants. As he gets more advanced, he would then start tapping on icons to string together full sentences. I hope you find solutions soon!

Is he receiving therapy for the trauma of the tornado? He might also have some PTSD from that too. Do you have a fenced yard you can bring him to play in? At least he could get out safely.

Our car has rear child lock out windows and doors so my kids can't open either for safety reasons. My brother at age 7-9 used to regularly open the car door when my mum was driving and did jump out a couple times.