Toileting | Autism PDD

Our son was toilet trained at age 4-1/2. The key was finding a way around his sensory issues, so he could relax on the toilet and let nature take its course. His main issue was gravitational insecurity, and sitting on the big toilet probably felt like trying to pee while sitting on the edge of a cliff (potty chairs were too small). Yipes! What worked for us was letting him sit backwards, facing the tank. He felt steadier holding onto the tank and looking at the tank/wall. Once he was fully trained, he quickly transitioned to standing to pee and sitting the normal way.

Here's a link to my collection of potty resources, including articles, social stories, and visual aides.

http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16098&am p;KW=potty+resources

Good luck with everything.

I didn't think B would ever potty train. I used the techniques outlined in "A Work in Progress" and it made all the difference. I still have the chair in the bathroom, but he rarely uses it anymore. I don't have my copy of the book with me at the moment, but a brief synopsis of what I did was:

Sat in the bathroom all day one day with him. We only left to eat. I had one of the kitchen chairs in there for him to sit on naked. I had plenty of water for him to drink. I'd put him on the potty about every 15 minutes. I used plenty of verbal praise when he'd pee. It finally clicked. I knew he was ready to start this because he'd started taking his pull up off and peeing on it.

Now he is trained. I'd call him night trained even. He is non verbal, but does a really high pitched squeal when he has to potty. He's had a dry pullup for 3 nights in a row now. He still has accidents, and I expect he will for a while yet.

Does anyone have any success stories of toileting their child? If so, would you mind sharing? If your approach was something outside the box, all the better, because we've tried numerous practical and standard behavioral modification approaches for my four-year-old daughter with very little success.

We've tried token economies, immediate positive reinforcers, verbal praise, changing the celebration from a high-five to a fist bump, re-writing the lyrics about popular and childrens songs to reflect potty usage, ignoring "accidents", criticizing "accidents", musical toilets . . . my goodness, we've tried a lot! None, however, work for more than 2 or 3 days.

Part of the problem is, she absolutely doesn't mind being wet or soiled at all, which I realize isn't uncommon for kiddos on the Spectrum. So, again, please, if anyone has any success stories, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you!

My son whom will be 6 in November was a child I thought would never use the potty. We did all that you stated above and just figured he would do it when he was ready. Well he started school in August and has a male teacher who is very routine oriented and strict. What they do is take the kids to the toilet through out the day, if the child doesn't go they let them get off for five minutes using a timer to let the child know when the five minutes is up, then the child goes and sits back on the toilet for 5 minutes until that child has gone potty. For some reason this method clicked for my son, he goes pee and poop, still not close to being night trained but I'm not complaining.

He will tell me when he needs to go and will sometimes go in the bathroom all by himself. I feel like my son was ready and the method they use at school has helped a lot, maybe you could try it with your dd, I know how difficult and frustrating this can be, hang in there it will happen

Payne is daytime potty trained, but wears pull ups at night - his meds make him SLEEP through the pee pee dreams. Sometimes he'll wake up...usually naps, etc. and go so he would/could wake up for it had we not given him his night time meds. When he was younger we'd make a huge deal out of him going in the bathroom...he'd go with anyone going in there and sit while we were going and we'd talk to him about why we went in there, what we were doing, why we looked different from him (boy/girl)...then he started getting his words back and by the time he was 4 and in spec ed pre-k the teacher started wanting him in big boy pants and they did the same thing...he'd see the older kids going to the big boy potty and he wanted to make friends... so he started imitating us. I used the timer on my son. His problem was compliance so our BCBA suggested taking him to the potty every 15 minutes. I carried his timer to speech, to the store, and the teachers followed through at school. IT TOOK 4 DAYS for him to finally pee that first time into the potty. I had tried everything up until that point and this was the last straw. It took every bit of willpower I had to follow through with this. He is now totally pee trained. No success with pooping yet, but I am so thrilled that I'm not going through a whole package of pullups a day now!

Thanks everyone for your great advice. I'll have to look it all over tomorrow.