Potty Training for the Autistic Child

Hi M.,
My name is also M. B my son has Asperger's and will not use the toilet. There is a book by a woman named M. Wheeler who wrote a book. Here's the link:

http://www.fhautism.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action...

This website has some very good ideas:

http://www.teacch.com/toilet.html

Hope that helps!

I'm not sure about the potty training thing. My son is 22 months & just started. What seems to work for us is a reward, he loves Curious George... so I bought a Curious George stamp set & if he goes in the potty he gets a stamp. He loves it, by the end of the day he's covered in them! & then they just wash off in the bath, to start fresh the next day. As far as your son covering his ears at loud noises... I used to be a Nanny for an autistic 5 year old boy & he would do the same thing. I don't want to make you nervous...it could just be his personality, some kids are quiet & like their world to be too.Good luck with everything!

Talk to your evaluating doctor about hyper sensory deficit disorder. It's symptomatically similar to some of autism's characteristics, but without the extreme social issues.

My daughter isn't autistic but it sure took her forever to potty train, she would go dry for a few days then wet and have several accidents. She just turned four and still has an accident usually when playing with friends and doesn't want to stop and pee.She has to wear a diaper to bed. She has been doing this since 2 1/2. The best advise I have is be patient and also maybe set a timer or something to remind him to go. Each child does it differently. My son, at 3 1/2 we decided to potty train and he had one accident and never needed anything at night.

Kids with autism can be sensitive to noise. You probably will find out more after his testing.

My son used to do the same thing beginning around age 1 and up until about age 5. He will still do it occasionally but now he is able to verbalize when something is too loud and bothering his ears. Is this the only sign your child is exhibiting or are there other symptoms/signs of autism being exhibited? My son is not autistic, he just has sensitive ears.

As for the potty training, every child is different and will learn at their own pace for whatever reason? My daughter was potty trained at age 2 with very little incident. My son was practically 5 years old before we got him trained completely. What I finally had to do was put him on a schedule so to speak. Basically, I would wake him up at the same time every morning and immediately take him to the bathroom. Varying his wake up time by more than an hour can be disastrous in the way of an accident. Then I would send him or take him to the bathroom every hour after that to see if he could go potty. Even if he argued that he didn’t have to go I would make him go try anyway, and he argued a lot but amazingly almost always went potty. And I always made him go potty right before bed time. It is very important to be vigilant about this schedule. Also, I know that this can be very frustrating and it’s difficult not to get angry when accidents occur but don’t. Resist the urge to show anger or displeasure when he does have an accident. This was a source of shame for my son to the point that he would try to hide his wet pants from us and would cry when we discovered them. Getting angry and yelling will only cause anxiety for everyone especially your child and will not help resolve the problem. This will most likely make it worse. When accidents do occur, just tell him it is okay that accidents happen and we’ll just try harder next time. You need to provide a lot of encouragement and a lot of verbal positive praise when he does potty each time.

Also, our pediatrician advised us not to provide too many beverages containing sugars like Kool-Aid, juice, soda or Gatorade after 7p.m. as the sugar encourages frequent urination. She advised that water was to be given after 7 p.m. and even then to limit the quantity. I purchased the small 4 oz sized disposable drinking cups (H.E.B. has a brand that is very inexpensive) and limited his intake to one of these cups right before bedtime.

My son is also a very heavy sleeper and wouldn’t wake up when he got the urge to potty at night. What I discovered was that my son would whimper several times at night and I thought he was just having a bad dream. Those whimpers were actually my queue that he needed to potty. Whenever I heard him whimper I would wake him up as much as possible and run him to the bathroom to potty and then tuck him back in bed. You can accomplish this with a baby monitor as long as you wake up when you hear him and take him to the bathroom. Also, my son cried if we put him in pull ups because he said they were baby diapers. So I went out and bought several of those flat (not fitted) flannel/vinyl crib mattress pads. I sewed extra fabric on the top and bottom ends and then laid the mattress pads on top of the sheets width wise and used the extra fabric to tuck under the mattress to keep it in place. That way when there was an accident I didn’t have to change the entire bed and bed sheets in the middle of the night, just pull off the crib mattress cover and put a new one on.

All of this will take a lot of time and patience and there will still be some accidents along the way but they should get far and few between the longer you stick to the schedule. It is very important to keep the schedule and make him try even though he insists he doesn’t have to go potty. Make him go in and pull down his pants and try anyway even if you have to go in and stand by him at the beginning to make sure he really does try. Eventually it will catch on. I hope this works out for you and good luck!

I have an autistic stepson. I have known him since he was 5. He is 12 now. Um, he is fully potty trained, but does cover his ears. His hearing apparently is too fine. There are so many other symptoms that come with Autism. I pray that your son does not have it. It is not easy, especially when they reach puberty. Let's hope you don't have a daughter, if he has autism.

i have a 6 year old autistic son. with the potty training, just dont rush him..........its gonna take him longer. my son didnt potty train till he was a little over 4 and he still did number 2 in his underwear till he was almost 5. my son still covers his ear with loud noises or strange sounds. autistic kids usually have very sensative ears. its completely normal

I would recommend the book "Potty Training in Less than a Day" (I can't remember the author, but it was written in the 70's). The method was originally designed to help mentally disabled children/adults learn to potty train. But they discovered that it also worked very well for children without mental disabilities. I know your son in not mentally disabled, but perhaps it will be beneficial for him anyway. I potty trained both of my kids using this method and swear by it! (The one thing I will say, is don't necesarily expect it to be complete the very first day. My son took a little while after the training session to decide he wanted to do it, and with my daughter I continued the rewards for 3 days after the training session until she was consistently not having any accidents.) The key with this method is that you are not just telling them to keep their pants dry/clean, you are TRAINING them to recognize when they need to go and then to do it.

I hope this is helpful!
P.