Hi

Anyone out there can give me some tips with potty training a 4 yr old.

He has mild-moderate autism and I tried to train him last year in October and he made the connection of knowing that he has to go on the toilet but most of the time he either ran to the toilet but it was too late or did it in his nappy anyway. He didnt seem to be bothered with a wet or soiled nappy.

At daycare the other day the "manager" asked me if I was going to try to train him soon and I said yes in the next month or so. She said to me "you do realise that most autistic kids aren't ever toilet trained?" and I was mortified at this! Talk about having no faith in him before we even start. OK he has autism and it may be the case that he never can be trained but I think it was out of line for her to say that to me when I havent even really tried! So now I'm more determined to try!

Any tips for training a non-verbal 4 yr old please pass them my way!

Rose 67 down here in Oz!:cool:

Honestly, if I knew the magic trick, I'd be selling it to make some money :P

My son turned 4 in Sept.
I've heard (and tried) the jelly bean trick (give them one if they use the potty), the target practice one (with cheerioes or whatever else), etc.. IMO, if they're not ready, they're NOT going to use the potty. I did the jelly bean thing at home, and it didn't work. Suddenly, it worked.. but only at school. Then, he was going at school, but peeing literally all over my floors. He still sometimes poops in a pull-up (sneaking one if he has to), but I think if it's not solid, he just doesn't know what to do. :( Otherwise, one day (middle of last yr) his teacher told me that she wanted me to send him to school in big boy undies. (He was holding it for the 3 hours during school, so why not?) With me standing there, she told him that he knew he was a big boy, and that he should wear big boy undies to school the following Monday. Well, he's been wearing them ever since. He has not had any accidents at school, either. He rarely if ever has accidents at home now- unless he's too preoccupied to get to the toilet in time. He *usually* poops in the toilet, and only wears pull-ups at nap time (sometimes) and bed time.

Hi Rose,

Please doink the daycare manager on the head - children with autism are all different to each other and should never be lumped together as 'can' and 'can't'!!.

Scan Amazon for books on toilet training ASD kids, we used a great book which I can't remember the name of now, but I'm sure a scan on Amazon will bring something up.

Each child is very, very different. My little lad was a little like yours - wasn't bothered about wet or dry and didn't seem to notice if he wet or soiled himself (he's still the same now and will quite happily wee in his pants if there is something good on TV!). I kind of toilet timed with him - sat him on the potty after he had a drink, sat him on before we left the house, as soon as we got back and every 45 minutes to an hour during the day as well. Tiring, but it meant that every now and again we were lucky enough for him to do a wee in the potty rather than anywhere else and when it happened there was a big fuss and a Smartie for his efforts. It took a long time and it was hard work but he got there eventually. School need to do their bit so when you are trying something with him they need to do the same when he's with them. There are different methods so read around a bit and it's really a case of keep trying until you find something that helps. Poos took a lot longer to get to grips with and once he figured out he had some control over pooing we started getting a lot of poo pictures on walls, but that's a different story!!

Some children with difficulties might not learn to use a toilet I guess, but I'm very against writing skills off in young children - there are plenty of four year olds without asd who are still having lots of accidents!!

Good luck with it!

Janine

I reckon that if he made the connection about going on the toilet you are probably going to be ok.
My boy seemed to have no idea, and didn't care if he was wet or dry. School trained him at 5 and a half.
I'd tried and failed, and they said don't worry, they would work with him when it was time.
It's a difficult decision even with non autistic kids, to train or not to train, to wait or not to.

Good luck;)

Hi Rose,
Please doink her on the head for me too. Drew did not get potty trained until he was 4 yrs. old. We tried when he was 3 and 1/2 and it was just too much stress for him. He could pee pee but it was too much for him to go #2. Then he regressed and began peeing in his underwear. He covered his ears and said "I don't want to talk about it".

We backed off and tried again a few months later. He loved his big boy underwear. Then he said he did not want to be a big boy anymore. We hid his pull-ups. It took about 2 weeks before the entire thing clicked with him. He does very well. He was 5 in October.
Drew tries his best to please his teachers and Momie. He loves praise.

Just be patient and don't let anyone tell you that your son Can't to anything. Oh yes he can.

Good Luck and keep us updated.

Hi Rose,
Please doink her on the head for me too. Drew did not get potty trained until he was 4 yrs. old. We tried when he was 3 and 1/2 and it was just too much stress for him. He could pee pee but it was too much for him to go #2. Then he regressed and began peeing in his underwear. He covered his ears and said "I don't want to talk about it".

We backed off and tried again a few months later. He loved his big boy underwear. Then he said he did not want to be a big boy anymore. We hid his pull-ups. It took about 2 weeks before the entire thing clicked with him. He does very well. He was 5 in October.
Drew tries his best to please his teachers and Momie. He loves praise.

Just be patient and don't let anyone tell you that your son Can't to anything. Oh yes he can.

Good Luck and keep us updated.

Thank you so much for your help I will keep you posted, I am going to give it 100% and try anything and everything.

Hi Rose,
Please doink her on the head for me too. Drew did not get potty trained until he was 4 yrs. old. We tried when he was 3 and 1/2 and it was just too much stress for him. He could pee pee but it was too much for him to go #2. Then he regressed and began peeing in his underwear. He covered his ears and said "I don't want to talk about it".

We backed off and tried again a few months later. He loved his big boy underwear. Then he said he did not want to be a big boy anymore. We hid his pull-ups. It took about 2 weeks before the entire thing clicked with him. He does very well. He was 5 in October.
Drew tries his best to please his teachers and Momie. He loves praise.

Just be patient and don't let anyone tell you that your son Can't to anything. Oh yes he can.

Good Luck and keep us updated.

Thank you so much for your help I will keep you posted, I am going to give it 100% and try anything and everything. Thanks rose67

My dd is 7 years old and was dx with Aspergers and anxiety this past Dec. I had a lot of criticism from others because she was nearly 4 and not potty trained. We had so many frustrating moments getting her trained. I finally quit pushing her and let her learn on her own with guidance. She was completely trained a few weeks after her fourth bday and has never had any accidents.

Every child is different and each child has different weaknesses and strengths. He will get it. They all do. It just takes time.

Hi

Anyone out there can give me some tips with potty training a 4 yr old.

He has mild-moderate autism and I tried to train him last year in October and he made the connection of knowing that he has to go on the toilet but most of the time he either ran to the toilet but it was too late or did it in his nappy anyway. He didnt seem to be bothered with a wet or soiled nappy.

At daycare the other day the "manager" asked me if I was going to try to train him soon and I said yes in the next month or so. She said to me "you do realise that most autistic kids aren't ever toilet trained?" and I was mortified at this! Talk about having no faith in him before we even start. OK he has autism and it may be the case that he never can be trained but I think it was out of line for her to say that to me when I havent even really tried! So now I'm more determined to try!

Any tips for training a non-verbal 4 yr old please pass them my way!

Rose 67 down here in Oz!:cool:

Shes talking rubbish most Autistic kids do get potty trained it may take them longer but they get there in the end. My son is 8 years old now and has got very limited speech and has moderate Autism. He was not potty trained when he started nursery school at the age of 3. He started a mainstream nursery and the Head Teacher was shocked to find out I still put pull ups on him. She told me to remove them at once as they were a comfort zone. According to her Autism is a development delay which means you take longer to learn things it dosn't mean you can't learn. She told me to put up with accidents for a while and when the child realises he is going to get wet he will be more inclined to use the toilet. With the help of the nursery my son had bladder control within a week. It started off with him wetting himself for a few days and then he tried to hold on as long as possible and eventually gave up and used the toilet. Bowel control was more harder as he would hold on until he came home in the evening and demand a nappy on. He would go into a room and empty his bowels and come back and ask me to remove the nappy. In fact he was 7 before he had bowel control. I took him on holiday and did not unpack the nappies. He held on as long as possible thinking America had no pull ups or nappies so he should wait until he got home and then pooh. He got constipation but with the help of medicine 3 weeks were too long for him to wait and he started using the toilet. I know its difficult but your son seems to know what the toilet is for and i am sure you can get through to him if you are persistent. I just had a great Head Teacher to push me. Good Luck let us know how you do.

My daughter just turned 8 in November and she just became potty trained. I thought that she will never get potty trained, but it's just like she oke up one day and just started to use the bathroom. She is moderately autistic, and she has a vocabulary of about 30 words, but she is trying to speack in semtences. believ me when I tell you that your child will be potty trained, it will just take more time.

My Zachary was about 4 & 1/2 when we finally got him potty trained. We had several false starts with the potty training but he just didn't seem to get it. He was almost completely non-verbal at that age and looking back I really think a big part of the problems was that he really just didn't understand our expectations. compounding that was the fact that he was very resistant to change, and wearing a diaper was just fine with him, so why change? Zach would also on occasion play with the contents of his dirty diaper (ugh!) One day Zach was playing in his room and my husband went to check on him. He walked into his room and found Zach "finger painting" with you-know-what. My husband freaked, picked Zach up, brought him to the bathroom and really yelled at him about "poopies go in the toilet, not in your pants!" Now, I do NOT advocate yelling at your child, but that day things finally seemed to click for Zach and he was potty trained from that day on. While yelling isn't the right thing to do, my husband is human and had just reached a limit that day. And the yelling seemed to finally get through to Zach. It really proved to be a pivotal moment in Zach's life. It was almost as if a switch was turned on that day. Zach was almost completely non-verbal at that age. After that day his language blossomed too! Over the next year his communication skills improved tremendously!
When Zach was first evaluated and diagnosed at the age of 2, we were told he was severely autistic, moderately mentally retarded, and would never have any useful language skills. We were advised to attempt a PEC's communication system or possibly sign language to have some way to communicate with him. And really, during his preschool years this was a very accurate description of Zachary and his abilities. Now though, Zach is 10 years old and is in a mainstream 4th grade class. He has a para to assist him when needed and goes to a resource room when he needs extra help with math and reading. All of his coursework is at grade level, and his language skills are so good now that he did not meet special education criteria for speech therapy this year! Last year he had some cognitive testing done that showed his IQ is certainly not in the retarded range at all! In fact, one of the sub-tests regarding spatial reasoning skills had a score of 178!
So my message is that there is always hope, and that sometimes our most frustrating moments can lead to our best progress!

Leanne

My son is going to be 5 in June and he is not potty trained. He was 97% potty trained about 1 year ago, he would sometimes still go pee in his pull up. Then he just stopped going on the potty, and he would only go in his pull up. It was a big problem, he would hold it, going poop, and not go for 3-4 days.

We are restarting it again. I think the biggest thing is not to get frustrated.

Good luck
Kass

My son is autistic and now 18.Yet I remember well the frustration of getting him potty trained.He was in a headstart program and a requirement to attend was that a child must be potty trained.He was 4 then.
He would poop in his pants.He did not have many verbal skills.He would point to things he wanted at times.Other times he would scream in frustration.
He would poop in the bathtub.
We made some picture cards of a child eating,playing,drinking,sleeping,going to school,riding a bus ,car etc...and a child going pee in a toliet or pooping in a toilet.Pics of cold,hot,cartoons,shoes,shirts,pants,soc ks etc...

We would show him the cards and say the word.Eventually he learned them.
He would point to the pic of what he needed or wanted.It's worth a try.
It takes time and alot of patience as you know.MB