Tips on discpline needed | Autism PDD

I feel really stupid asking you all about this, considering how many children I have

But I am really at a loss as to how to deal with Jason's outbursts of late. Today, he screamed and hit himself and me quite a lot, and it's been happening more and more frequently. Today, he actually took a swipe at his younger brother, which he's never done before. He's tackled him, and there was a time when that was aggressive, rather than playful, but I thought that had passed. It didn't hurt Gabe at all...he just gave Jase a dirty look, as if to say, "Hey, what did you do that for?" Still, I don't like it. He's been very screamy and stressed out the past couple of days especially, though.

With most other things, I simply remove him from a dangerous area (he can climb over baby gates) or try to redirect or distract him, but this is just throwing me for a loop. He's got the language skills of an infant...how in the world are you supposed to address behavioral problems in a child like this? Time-outs are almost funny in how spectacularily unsuccessful they are, and he has no favorite toys to take away. He doesn't really play with toys! I try to stop him from hitting me by either setting him down and/or walking away from him (usually leading to a meltdown, ha what fun), or restraining his hands and/or feet gently as possible until he calms down. Sometimes, that won't work, and he'll actually follow me and try to hit me again!

What the heck else can I do?! He has an appointment (finally!) with a psychiatrist on Monday, and I am afraid he's going to recommend medication for him. I will say no, I think, for now, and I guess I'll have to hope that we can address this through therapy, but he won't receive services after tomorrow for almost three weeks, and I need something to get through this until we can try non-med approaches.

Any suggestions?

Sorry, no help. Just wanted to say that the past 2 weeks or so we have had the same behavior, for the first time. Lots of flinging around, head banging and hitting himself, hitting and throwing things at me and his siblings. Really new behavior for my 3 1/2 yr old. Saw our dev ped on Mon and she was not a lot of help. Just reminded me that he must be very frustrated not being able to communicate no kidding and to keep a notebook of what is going on before the behavior starts. So far no rhyme or reason. We also can't take away toys or do a timeout. He wouldn't have any idea what I was doing or why. Tell him to go to the corner, or go sit in the chair. He just doesn't understand language like that yet. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread. Hope someone has some good ideas. Just wanted you to know you are not alone. You will be able to address this through therapy. An ABA therapist will help
implement a Behavioral Intervention Plan for specific behaviors. You need to
document the frequency of these behaviors and what preceeded it. You
really need to insist that you son gets behavioral intervention asap. This is
the primary reason people do ABA. We were able to get a grasp on my sons
behaviors pretty early on and worked on it constantly. Kids need to learn
contingencies and have a reinforcement schedule. I think you are using all
the right approaches. You are right not to give him attention (as it could be
for attention) You are right to remove him. Have you thought of rewarding
him with (skittles, gummy bears etc.,) when he is behaving appropriately?
giving him attention when he is having quiet hands?

Thanks, Kathy. It's good to know I'm getting at least part of it right! :)

Unfortunately, he will not be getting much, if any ABA. We're going to be using ABLL's which I gather are used in ABA, but I don't know if they're going to use ABA per se. They're definitely not going to be using aversives (I asked specifically about that), at least.

When we wrote his IEP, the behaviors were not that bad, but it is getting worse. I don't have the final draft yet, but if I'm not mistaken, he would have to be assessed specifically if I want to include a BIP. *sigh*

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely be taking a hard look at it, and I'm going to try to write everything down. It's just hard to know right now what is preceding these outbursts sometimes...I have a busy house during the summer!

Edit for typo.