chewing on shirt collars | Autism PDD

My 3.3 ds has taken up chewing on his shirt collars.  He has always had a habit of chewing on things (paper, little toys…etc).  Any tips on getting him to stop or to chew on something more appropriate (if there is such a thing)?

There is a product called Chewlery.  It has worked wonders for my ds who is 2.3.  He puts everything in his mouth and we have been using it with him for about 4 days and he uses it instead of putting other things in his mouth.

Paws,

That looks perfect - he also like putting stuff around his wrests.

Thanks,

JJ Dad39335.9169675926

Chewing on clothes is a sign of a sensory issue called "oral hyposensitivity" and it's great to give Chewelry or some other item to give your child the sensory input he's craving.

You'll find other tips about oral sensitivities at this link:

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/oral-sensitivitie s.html

This website also has a checklist to help you identify other sensory issues involving sight, sound, smell, touch, etc. etc. 

Good luck with everything.

I know this sounds off the wall, but you could also look into zinc deficiency.  I know when my kids are deficient in zinc, they start mouthing everything.When Skylar started chewing on his shirts, I bought him the "My Stimmy" that someone posted on this board. It was a total of .50 (shipping included) and we got it from a lady on ebay. It did the trick for him, within less than a week, he stopped chewing on his clothes and his left hand. I will give you the link....here we go..

mystimmy
Okay poor person chiming in here.  Go get some of that plastic tubing that is used in aquariums.  It would fit over the end of a pencil.  We use it safety pinned to B's collar.  Many fewer holes in his clothes now.Sharlet did it heaps for a while but we didn't do anything, she just grew out of the phase. My son still chews his clothes when he is stressed. He did not do well with
one of his teachers last year and come home with holes chewed through
his shirt. I got him the chewlery but since he is 7 he thought it looked
weired. I got some chewytubes that fit at the end of a pencil and that
worked pretty well( apart from the fact that he kept loosing it).

That's what I was just wondering about Micki...Mason is in first grade--do you think the other kids would pinpoint either the chewlery or the my stimmy out on Mason...might be something they would tease him about?

We have been using gum at school right now, but he gets distracted by it, wanting to spit it out and get a new piece every few minutes.  But he is constantly chewing on his shirts and pretty much anything he can find...he also sticks things down his throat and purposely gags himself!  I need something to help that, but don't want to give him something that the other kids will pick on him about.

emerald- the chewlery that goes around your kids neck does get noticed
and my ds did not want to wear it. The one that goes around the arm
looks like a keychain and is fine. The chewytubes that fit at the end of a
pencil worked best (I got them through theraproducts.com). As far as
classmates noticing - they noticed. They noticed mostly that my ds
always had his shirt in his mouth and that the whole front of his shirt was
soaking wet. Chewlery is a lot less noticable.
As for the gagging - my ds did that some last year - I think he thought it
was an interesting sensory thing. I know that his teacher hated it, it was
not my favorite at the dinnertable either. We did sent him from the table
when he did it and he has not done it for a while now.
Never a boring day.uinn used to chew holes in all of his shirts...I didn't do anything special....he eventually outgrew it.

[QUOTE=little byrd]I know this sounds off the wall, but you could also look into zinc deficiency.  I know when my kids are deficient in zinc, they start mouthing everything.[/QUOTE]

Zinc completely cured Connor of his chewing.  Before zinc, he would chew holes in all of his shirts.  Within one week of starting him on zinc, the chewing completely stopped, and he has been chew-free for several years
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