our son is becoming a angry little boy. well thats not exactly right either... he's just getting more violent. every time it seems that he comes over to see either my husband or i no matter what his mood is he has to pinch or bite or scratch, etc.
isaac is non-verbal and so i understand that he has a high level of frustration but sometimes he's happy when he does this too. its like he is just constantly lashing out at everything and everyone. we are getting at a loss as to what to do with him. he is getting bigger too so we need to do something before it becomes a really big issue. i dont want to be looking at a 6 foot 200 pound teenager that has no idea how to control that down the road. so any tips would be appreciated!

how about when he comes to you hold his hands and firmly tell him NO, if you see that he wants to bite or pinch tell him No biting or No pinching etc, he might get the message.

Dont let him get away with this for sure. My son started this with his borther. I kept telling him no and he eventually stoped for the most part. One thing Ive learned from meetings and therapy is we use too many words for them to understand. Instead of explaining to him use fewer words I found this helped with my son alot.

Do you think medication could help or behavior modification?

I agree that it needs to be addressed, and he shouldnt be able to do those things. However, I don't believe medications (or an increase) should be inroduces so quickly. Considering aggression, it seems that it has to be fueled by something. Possibly some change in his routine, symptoms, surroundings, etc. Is there a pattern to his agression? Anything has changed in his routine or surroundings? Does he seem to have other increased symptoms?

SGH

isaac isnt on any medication right now. we have never had the need to address it with medication... probably because he was smaller and could be manuvered easier:) and a ton of things have changed for him this year but there has been a lull in activities for about a month and now he starts to get over board. he has been accelerating all winter but it seems to have start to come to a boiling point just recently, like i said though, since things have started to calm back to a routine. the lady who supervises his ABA instructor and makes his program plans will be here today so i might see what she suggests. he mostly targets his father but on friday he choked his younger cousin who he generally gets along with. its a good thing that isaac is my sisters favorite nephew or she might have been more upset. well, i hope something can be figured out before he goes to school this fall or i will have to get a dedicated line just for the school and all of the calls they will be wanting to make

Hi Liz, my 5 non verbal boy is also getting to know his powers. This I belive is because he has two other brothers and a Dad who play wrestle. He enjoys this type of play, which makes stopping it hard, for it is the only game I don't have to make him play with us. But he is taking it to another degree and pushing or hitting when it's not play time! I have learned that my son can understand anything I want him to, I just have to be creative. I just started him on time-outs. I thought it would be too tramitizing but it's not. I learned that he finds it too interesting when I make my angry face, so I firmly but lovingly grab his hand and say NO HITTING! BAD! TIME-OUT! TIME-OUT! I put him in his time out spot and make him sit there if he gets up I put him back and Stomp my foot, clap my hands, STAY! I will sometimes have to hold him there, try not to make time out too long at first until he understands. I then like you would with any kind of child reflect on what happened in simple terms, In a more calm voice- No hitting, be nice, get up. A quick- it's ok hug- not too much loven you don't want him to start miss behaving for attention after punishment. It is just now starting to work, it has taken a couple of weeks of enforcing his time out. Now he will stay in time out and he is not happy about it! He has learned that somethings are just not acceptable. That is a huge concept for these kids!!

Kids typically display behavior for 4 different reasons:

Attention seeking: Kids will act out (such as aggression) in order to gain your attention. For example, if your child hits you, and you immediately provide them attention (either positive or negative... doesn't matter), then they will learn that this is a way to gain your attention, and will continue to do so. The key to solving this is by ignoring the behavior, and by giving extra extra attention for appropriate behavior.

Escape: If your child aggresses, and thus gets let out of doing a particular activity/chore/etc, then he learns he can escape things by hitting/kicking/pinching. Follow through on the demand if this is the case.

Tangible: Aggresses in order to gain access to something he/she wants. If this is the hypothesized reason, hold out on giving the preferred item until he/she is able to appropriately communicate for the item.

Sensory: Aggresses because he/she likes the way biting/kicking feels. This is a tough one, but with aggression, it is usually never do to sensory. You'll see sensory motivated behaviors more often in self-inurious behaviors (head-hitting) and self-stimming.


(hope i made a little sense!)

orbiekl5, i think the problem is that it falls under all four of these catagories. he hits his father because mark will immediately react and isaac rolls with laughter any time he knows he's pushed daddy's buttons. he is using it to get out of ABA instruction though his instructor is pretty on top of that most time but sometimes he is just to big for her seeing how she is sickenly small in our chubby 6 foot plus family:) isaac is on his way to fitting in with mom and dad though not as chubby i am sure;) he also hits if he gets frustrated when he doesnt get the food item he wants... which when we lived with my father, dad was quick to get him what ever he thought isaac might want so we still have issues with that one. AND he will be stimming and suddenly decide to just come over and scratch or pinch or whatever... he is just all over the map!

he has a ton of frustration and i think its because he is coming to a cross roads in his developement... or maybe that is too much wishful thinking... but i talked about it with his aba instructor and it seems that the more he is capable of following direction and using skills he has learned that more he lashes out. so maybe its from working hard to do those few things and the stress of over coming harsh stimuli to enter our world for a bit... or maybe he is getting to a point where he thinks hey this isnt worth it! verbal praise and snacks arent enough reason for me to have to struggle so hard!

who knows what he is thinking but something is up and i cant for once put my finger right on it. i have always been very intuitive with him... i was with several of the clients that i worked with at an adult care facility as well when no one else was able to understand them or their behaviors. i have always had a good handle on the source of isaac's behaviors but maybe he is changing now that he is older and i am too busy looking at him as my baby boy to grab hold of all of the signals he is handing me. i dont know... but i am sure it will come out in the wash... it usually does, right?:)

hi, my son is 10 and large, 165 pounds, have you had an o.t. do a sensory evaluation?, with my son he mainly becomes violent when frustrated, we have a comunication board for that, it does require you can find alot of neat free printable communication pic bords and ideas on dotolearn.com
joey also recieves alot of sensory, it was more difficult wen he was younger but if you can redirect to a "sensory" activity which is usually simple things like spiining on a chair, bouncing a ball, etc, the tantrums become less frequent. we also have an hourly visual schedule which is followed to the t , as anything that isnt planned isnt happening.
is he on meds, sometimes the meds do more harm than good. let me know a bit more and hopefully i can give you some additiona ideas. im certified in behavior assistance for the develomentally disabled and my son has many behaviors. hope to hear from you.

isaac does have an ot... and she has been great! she has given me all kinds of tips and tricks to calm him but sometimes it is just not enough...

the supervisor of his ABA program is writing new programs for his which basically are busy work:) she wants to start a program to teach him how to watch t.v. and i thought all kids were born with a natural talent for it;) but basically isaac has no other activity besides stimming and so the idea is to teach him how to occupy him a bit better... its very possible that he is just realllllllly bored because he has never learned to play independantly and since he has a young brother i dont have the time so spend solely stimulating him.

Does he enjoy Music? My 5 year old loves to watch movies in fact I hide them because he figured out how to work the VCR. But he has learned a lot from them. I don't care for the baby boc type because they hardley ever show humans. Although It might get him started. He likes- the leap frog movies and we sing the A says aa song he has learned to sound out letters from that movie- I had hunted and found a lot of movies not in stores that have people singing and doing sign language, its like the people are talking to you! Same with your baby can read- It's kids talking, or they show an object, say it then show the word. I don't remember what magazine I ordered them from but I will find them if you would like. It is a good work out for me to get my sons to do a circle time, but they do enjoy it. It's the most effective way to get my autistic son to play with his siblings.

How old is your son when did you start seeing changes. My started his bad behavior at school with potty training issue. We had to home school him this year. He is beter it took 10 months to get him out of biting and slapping. It took time patience and a lot of love they are insucure. Once they lost trust then it takes a while to reasure them that every thing is ok again.