Zach is a bitter also but not too bad. One thing my OT suggested was something to chew on. Zach will not chew on toys at all! It's against his moral code or something. So she asked me if he will eat steak or something that it is harder to chew..... so I thought and thought and finnaly came up with licorice. Well most of it in the store is too soft, so now I open it up and let it sit out and get rock hard! He will chew and chew on it and get's out some of his oral frustrations and then is less likely to bite his hand. This is a cheep and easy one to try. If that doesn't work try taffy or something else that you can sit out and let get hard!!! Chewey sprees, starburst, hard gum, hard mints, lifesavers, try a lot of different things.
[QUOTE=Sunny]
if i had the patience, i would make tshirts with that saying, using iron on transfers. i could sell them online and donate the profits to the autism society or something. unfortunately, i dont have the patience for such a project, and i'm not very good with an iron. i'd end up burning all the tshirts lol!
[/QUOTE]
Sunny,
LOL....You sound like me except I would end up burning myself!! I can't even cook a meal around here without getting burned!!
Karrie
LOL i think its a great shirt and its perfect for my daughter.LOL! I might try to go to a Tshirt place where they put pictures on them and what not and see if I can get a boy style one made. Not that ds commonly bites others other than self and dh and I (one once dd), but you never know he's only 2! LOL
Amber
Karrie, you should see me with a curling iron. its a disaster. there's a good reason why i always blowdry my hair straight! lolHi Everyone, my name is Jess and and I am mom to Isaac who will be three in
September. He was diagnosed with ASD last November and life changed dramatically after that. He is our only child and although there were red flags from around 14 months it still came as a shock. Right now he is doing ABA, ST, and OT.
Our biggest behaviour issue right now is with biting, both himself and other people. It is especially bad if I pick him up during a tantrum (ex. if he starts tantruming on the road or a public place) and if he is angry sometimes he will bite his hand. Just wondering if anyone has any insight on how to deal, and if discipline is effective or just reinforces the behaviour? Any advice would be welcomed i've been going through this with my daughter for quite some time. she
started out with only biting me - on my shoulders, legs, and stomach. i
have pictures of bite mark bruises that you would not believe. i
document it all. lately she doesnt bite me as much as she used to, but
she bites her arms a lot. i feel so bad during the summer when she's
wearing a tank top and her arms are covered in bite marks. i can only
imagine what people must think of me as a parent.
DO NOT DISCIPLINE! my case manager told me that a lot of times, these
kids cant help themselves. they dont mean to do it, they just do it
because something in their body tells them to. she also told me that if
a child latches on to you or themselves really hard with their teeth
and you cannot get them to let up, stick your finger horizontally
underneath their nose and rub back and forth really fast. they'll
automatically stop biting.
i dont quite know what, in general, works to stop the biting. what i
did for my daughter was encourage her to squeeze when she feels the
need to bite. sometimes when i see that "look" on her face like she
might bite, i immediately shove my arm in her lap and tell her
"squeeze!" and she'll take my arm and squeeze it as hard as she can. it
hasnt totally eliminated the biting, but it has decreased. but
sometimes, she just really cannot control it.
i had an incident with my daughter today. i got her out of the bathtub,
combed her hair, and was getting her dressed when she fell into a
massive panic attack for no apparent reason. she was screaming,
shaking, flailing her arms and she turned bright red. i knew something
bad was going to happen so while her arms were in the air i grabbed her
wrists as hard as i could and held them straight out. sure enough, she
suddenly lunged at me with a very angry open mouth. the look on her
face absolutely terrified me. but i had such a good grip on her wrists
that she couldnt quite reach me. then she snapped out of it and
realized what she was doing. she collapsed into my lap and sobbed. poor
baby. but a few cuddles on the couch seemed to make her feel better.
Hi Jess Welcome to the board. As Im sure you are aware each child on the spectrum is different and what works for one child wont always work for another. That being said in my experience discipline only reinforces the undesired behavior. With my son he is going on 10 and still bites himself mostly out of anger and frustration. I have become pretty good at being able to predict my son's behaviors. I see the way he is acting and know it is leading up to something worse and try to intervein BEFORE if possible. I have heard of people trying chewy tubing and other oral stimuli and my son's OT evebn gave him one of those telephone cord looking bracelets and we tried to redirect him to bite that when frustrated instead of himself. Unfortunatley it seems that he needs to feel that pain in order to release his anger/frustration and calm himslef down,.... so nothing has worked 100% for us.
Whatever you decide to do remain consistent with it and make sure EVERYONE involved with him uses the exact same approach 100% of the time.
There are products in the different catalogs for oral sensory.... possibl;y having him chew on something every few hours might also help.
My son has gotten better w/ this recently. Although he changes so frequently that it seems behaviors come and go and come again. He rarely bites others, but has hit others. He has bit myself and dh before a few times. Mostly he bites his hand when tantruming or when really overly stimulated. That also includes getting overly excited. Once at a pet store he got so excited that while standing in front of a glass window looking at kitties, he started to jump up and down w/ both feet over and over while screaming really loud and high pitched and biting his hand here and there. Boy the looks! Incidently, dh ended up getting one of the kitties for him because ds has daddy wrapped around his finger lol. What's funny is that now that we have the cat at home and not jumping from behind glass at ds, our son could hardly care less the cat is around haha. The cat is so lovable and tolerant w/ the kids though.
Luckily, when he does bite himself, he rarely ever has more than mild bite marks. He has hurt himself a couple times, but usually it's like he just needs some oral stimulation (he is very oral) and so he bites himself but not real hard. Now the few times he has bit myself or dh it has really hurt though! He also chews on his fingers and sometimes he has drawn blood from that. He just always needs oral stim. This is still fairly new to me and ds hasn't even been dx'd yet, so I am not sure how to stop this other than the chewing on iv cord like what was mentioned above. Just wanted you to know you weren't alone in this craziness!
Amber
Good luck on the biting, I still havent figured a way to stop it. Megan bites me and my other daughter 11 and herself. Sometimes when angry or fustrated and sometimes when she is excited. I too know the look and try to avoid the bite comming. I know what you mean about the looks when Megan decides it is tiem to rock back and forth as hard as she can bting her knee while in the stroller in the mall.. Oh well if people dont have anything better to do then shame on them.LOL that's a great shirt! I might just have one made if I can't find one. Is is femine or could it be for either sex, the one you got. I'm sure unless it's pink ds won't care lol.
Amber
Thanks for all of the advice. It helps to know I am not alone in this problem.
I think I may have to get one of those t-shirts in blue, LOL!h
Sunny where did you find that t shirt lol Megan needs one too lolYes, my dd needs that shirt too! i bought a tshirt for my daughter yesterday that said "Back Off. I Bite." with a mean kitty on the front. it was the last one they had and it was in my daughter's size. now everybody will be warned. i got it at Target. its pink and grey and very cute. only ! i was lucky to get the last one they had at my local Target. hopefully you guys can find them.