: Suggestions on potty-training my 4 yr old non-verbal ASD son!

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Hey !

Thanks for the encouragement and the story of having been there and successfully done it. I guess my biggest hurdle is having two hyposensitive children to train. When I was doing the ABA schedule last summer with them, we were also starting up ABA and had so many things we were working on. ABA has been the best therapy for my two guys thus far! Anyway, you are right, we were living in the bathroom. was really getting the hang of the peeing in the potty. His bladder is just stronger and he can hold it longer and was starting to put two and two together. Garrett on the other hand would hear let's go to the potty and he would pull his pull up off and go where he was standing or just go in his pull up. So, he was understanding what we were doing but the suggestion of going potty made him go right there on the spot. I started trying to take Garrett first without announcing we were going to the potty

and the trip to the bathroom would signal him to go. I was taking him at one point every 15 minutes. Then they started school in the Fall and both boys were sick more than they were well. When they had severe upper respiratory infections with lots of congestion, it threw their balance off and they developed a total fear of sitting on the toilet. At that point, potty training came to a complete halt. For the entire semester that they were in school, they missed two months due to illness. They would get well and I would put them back in for a week, and then I would get the call, is sick or Garrett is sick and they would miss another two weeks.

Now fastforward to the summer. I have pulled them out of school because they were not getting any benefits due to way too many illnesses. They were actually regressing. So, they have not been sick in a while and after our trip to see their doctor next month, I plan to start the wonderful ABA schedule of potty training.

So, do you suggest possibly training one boy at a time until he gets it down and then going to the other boy or getting it all over at once and absolutely living in the bathroom and doing nothing else until they both get it down?

Thanks,Dana and Garrett, just turned 4, SCD 2 yearsCeliac, ASD, Speech and Motor Apraxia, sensory processing disorder

Subject: Re: Suggestions on potty-training my 4 yr old non-verbal ASD son!To: mb12 valtrex Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 2:17 AM

Hi Dana, it took really working on Tyler's gut issues for him to be bowel trained. As you said it was very difficult with his diarhea. But we were able to train him with urine. We basically lived in the hallway bathroom for about 2 weeks and then 3 months. The first two weeks were HELL. I remember breastfeeding my infant in the doorway while my son screamed and I put him back over and over again. We used ABA, but what it looked like basically was that I had a clip board and timer. I took him every 30 minutes and made him sit a full 15 minutes. We were trying to catch him so we could reward him. Yes my son too at the time had no awareness. I just kept putting him back up on the potty and I ignored crying, getting down etc..... Also he had to clean up any accident. Hand over hand wiping making accidents not so much fun.For us we had a light up fish lamp I got at Spencers that Tyler

loved. I turned the lights off after a successful potty sitting and he got to watch the lamp. Then we had to take baby einstein videos away. Which sucked at the time because I couldn't play them at all through the day. They were only reserved for that magical time when we got drips on the potty. Then HUGE celebration movie time, and happy happy mommy! Reward reward reward!It worked but it did take a full couple weeks for that one magical time to happen. I seriously lived in the bathroom and had no life. Paid off though. We used ABA for this and implementing BE diet. It took us a few years to get his gut health better. With great diet, tons of fermented foods, and a round of Vancomycin his stool formed and his awareness improved. The bowel movements on the potty then came. Take care,> > > >> > > > Hi, In the book toilet training in less than a day they use > rewards> > > > every time the child successfully practices the entire act of> > > > toileting. The idea is not to produce urine or poop, the idea >

is> > > > to practice the act of toileting, cleaning and flushing. That > way> > > > the child receives a reward each time he does the job (whether > there > > > is> > > > a product or not). It works with kids on the spectrum as well > as> > > > typical kids. try it, you'll see a great attitude follow both > in> > > > you and your little guy> > > >> > >> >>