Thank GOD Bernie is fully potty-trained. It truly makes life much easier. He still had accidents last summer pretty much until I started making him wash his own underwear out in the sink. He's the kind of kid who hates having his hands dirty so I used that to my advantage. Worked like a charm. My kid who'll be five in a month is another story completely. He LOVES having his hands dirty! And he is a sensory seeker as far as smells go. Thank GOD the days of fecal smearing are over, although I don't necessarily trust him on the issue. Anyhow, he'll be five in a month and we aren't sending him to his full-time school program which he spent three hours on the bus traveling back and forth to every day, so we're giving it a go.
Last summer we had the Behavioral Troops in and attempted an ABA intensive potty-training protocol. It was developed by a couple of psychologists in the 70's to train an MR teenager with a smearing problem and it worked. Another case I've heard of it working is a kid who used to be sweet but is now really aggressive and unhappy and spits in your face. Who knows if the two have anything to do with each other, but he used to be sweet. Now he's not, but he uses the toilet. You can see the protocol here. Three of us spent two ENTIRE days in the bathroom with no time out of the room for Clark. He peed into the toilet for the first time during this time. It was brutal though and he never indicated he had to go so we dropped it after two days.
We gave it another go over Christmas break. We tried a different approach using a timer and trying to determine how long he could stay dry. We started at an hour.....got down to five minutes. That was also brutal. He'd stay dry-we'd take him to go....nothing, put his pants on and he'd immediately pee. It was exhausting with two other kids to tend to. It was obvious at that point that he was controlling the situation and wasn't choosing to be ready so we gave it up. We tried another approach by making him sit on it until he went every number of minutes. One night he sat on the toilet for nearly four hours before we put a pull-up on him which he peed in immediately. At this point with school starting back up, we decided it was HIS issue and let it go. Sometime during the remainder of the school year, I asked the staff at school to take him every half hour and they would only comply to taking him once an hour. This is NOT a kid who cares about peeing on a cheerio or getting a sticker or turning the water blue or getting a toy or a star on a chart.
So we did the Son-Rise Program and of course this question came up and the answer was very simple. Mark a date on the calendar that you are going to be done with diapers (which thankfully we get free because of his diagnosis) and let the child know that he can use diapers until that point and then they're done. Also, use their motivation to celebrate attempts and successes. Okay, so I had to think about it. The one thing that motivates this kid more than ANYTHING.....is candy. So we are making it simple and setting the timer for every 45 minutes and he gets one candy (a M&M type from the food co-op) every time he tries. He will never get candy in any other situation! Sometimes he pees and sometimes he doesn't but he always gets the candy and we always celebrate the attempt. The goal at this point isn't to be potty-trained but for him to initiate needing to go. We've been doing it CONSISTENTLY for three days and he's still happy to try and today the timer went off and I told him to go potty and he went into the bathroom, pulled down his pants and sat and tried on his own. I'm thrilled! This is progress and that's all I ask for at this point. I also believe putting the "yes environment" principles into place around the house has given him a much greater sense of control and happiness so perhaps he doesn't feel as strong a need to control this particular situation. He's never poo'ed in the toilet yet, but initiating pee and eventually going on his own would be AWESOME. Some severely Autistic kids wear diapers forever. This timer should come in the mail in a couple days and will give him more of a visual which I think will be helpful. I think if we're consistent with the time between trips to the toilet eventually he will start to stay dry especially if he can see the countdown. He's already started staying dryer throughout the day and it's only day three. Gotta do this thing!
Last summer we had the Behavioral Troops in and attempted an ABA intensive potty-training protocol. It was developed by a couple of psychologists in the 70's to train an MR teenager with a smearing problem and it worked. Another case I've heard of it working is a kid who used to be sweet but is now really aggressive and unhappy and spits in your face. Who knows if the two have anything to do with each other, but he used to be sweet. Now he's not, but he uses the toilet. You can see the protocol here. Three of us spent two ENTIRE days in the bathroom with no time out of the room for Clark. He peed into the toilet for the first time during this time. It was brutal though and he never indicated he had to go so we dropped it after two days.
We gave it another go over Christmas break. We tried a different approach using a timer and trying to determine how long he could stay dry. We started at an hour.....got down to five minutes. That was also brutal. He'd stay dry-we'd take him to go....nothing, put his pants on and he'd immediately pee. It was exhausting with two other kids to tend to. It was obvious at that point that he was controlling the situation and wasn't choosing to be ready so we gave it up. We tried another approach by making him sit on it until he went every number of minutes. One night he sat on the toilet for nearly four hours before we put a pull-up on him which he peed in immediately. At this point with school starting back up, we decided it was HIS issue and let it go. Sometime during the remainder of the school year, I asked the staff at school to take him every half hour and they would only comply to taking him once an hour. This is NOT a kid who cares about peeing on a cheerio or getting a sticker or turning the water blue or getting a toy or a star on a chart.
So we did the Son-Rise Program and of course this question came up and the answer was very simple. Mark a date on the calendar that you are going to be done with diapers (which thankfully we get free because of his diagnosis) and let the child know that he can use diapers until that point and then they're done. Also, use their motivation to celebrate attempts and successes. Okay, so I had to think about it. The one thing that motivates this kid more than ANYTHING.....is candy. So we are making it simple and setting the timer for every 45 minutes and he gets one candy (a M&M type from the food co-op) every time he tries. He will never get candy in any other situation! Sometimes he pees and sometimes he doesn't but he always gets the candy and we always celebrate the attempt. The goal at this point isn't to be potty-trained but for him to initiate needing to go. We've been doing it CONSISTENTLY for three days and he's still happy to try and today the timer went off and I told him to go potty and he went into the bathroom, pulled down his pants and sat and tried on his own. I'm thrilled! This is progress and that's all I ask for at this point. I also believe putting the "yes environment" principles into place around the house has given him a much greater sense of control and happiness so perhaps he doesn't feel as strong a need to control this particular situation. He's never poo'ed in the toilet yet, but initiating pee and eventually going on his own would be AWESOME. Some severely Autistic kids wear diapers forever. This timer should come in the mail in a couple days and will give him more of a visual which I think will be helpful. I think if we're consistent with the time between trips to the toilet eventually he will start to stay dry especially if he can see the countdown. He's already started staying dryer throughout the day and it's only day three. Gotta do this thing!
