I'm New.. would love your help

[DZ4Sam]

Hello Everyone.
My 5 year old boy was diagnosed at the age of 3.5 yrs. He has been in ABA therapy since a few months following his diagnosis. He goes through phases every few months and this last one has been unbearable. Since the summer time when he had a splash pool he would play in, he has gotten into the habit of filling his mouth with water and squirting it out. But this has now evolved in a very bad way... he fills his mouth with spit and spits on the floors everywhere in the home, then sucks up the spit. Has gotten sick twice and we had to get him swabbed for COVID again today because of high fevers.

It is almost impossible to watch him 24/7. He is a very hyperactive boy. So far, we have tried balloons, slime, bubbles, redirecting, water beads and nothing works to redirect him. ABA school has been useless in this regard. I would love any suggestions you may have. Thank you.

 

[tree]

 

[Diego]

welcome to autism forums

 

[VictorR]

Welcome!

 

[DZ4Sam]

View attachment 64873

Thank you

 

[DZ4Sam]

Thank you

 

[Tom]

Thats one a good behavior specialist might help with. I'm sure there are multiple approaches. One (using hypothetical numbers) might be something like first finding out how many times an hour he does it. Say it's 4, or roughly every 15 minutes. Then watch and reward him for not spitting for 20 minutes (ie. Praise and something he likes). After a while reward for not spitting for 30 minutes. Anyway I'm not a professional and just give it as an example of using positive reinforcement to try and move something in the right direction.

 

[Thinx]

Hi and welcome, I hope that you enjoy it here and find plenty of useful information and threads to read. Has ABA been useful in any ways?

 

[DZ4Sam]

Thats one a good behavior specialist might help with. I'm sure there are multiple approaches. One (using hypothetical numbers) might be something like first finding out how many times an hour he does it. Say it's 4, or roughly every 15 minutes. Then watch and reward him for not spitting for 20 minutes (ie. Praise and something he likes). After a while reward for not spitting for 30 minutes. Anyway I'm not a professional and just give it as an example of using positive reinforcement to try and move something in the right direction.

Thank you so much. We have tried that. I will give it another try with praises and a reward.

 

[Crossbreed]

Hello & welcome @DZ4Sam .

When he got his diagnosis, did they include a severity level?

(Those with a severity level of 2 or 3 have brain damage on top of their autism [and need additional considerations]. I am ASD1 and have two such children.)

If you are in the USA, see Autlanders, Thriving Outside of the Box: Finding Support Resources in the USA...

See if your current therapists are listed with them. Not everyone who uses ABA is autism-competent.

 

[DZ4Sam]

Hi and welcome, I hope that you enjoy it here and find plenty of useful information and threads to read. Has ABA been useful in any ways?

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, ABA has not been very helpful in providing me with an efficient technique. When I ask what they're doing at the center, they tell they "block" him from spitting, but this is only possible because they are in his face all the time in their corner with him. This is much more difficult to do at home where he constantly runs around.

 

[VAW]

Hello Everyone.
My 5 year old boy was diagnosed at the age of 3.5 yrs. He has been in ABA therapy since a few months following his diagnosis. He goes through phases every few months and this last one has been unbearable. Since the summer time when he had a splash pool he would play in, he has gotten into the habit of filling his mouth with water and squirting it out. But this has now evolved in a very bad way... he fills his mouth with spit and spits on the floors everywhere in the home, then sucks up the spit. Has gotten sick twice and we had to get him swabbed for COVID again today because of high fevers.

It is almost impossible to watch him 24/7. He is a very hyperactive boy. So far, we have tried balloons, slime, bubbles, redirecting, water beads and nothing works to redirect him. ABA school has been useless in this regard. I would love any suggestions you may have. Thank you.

I don't know if this will help at all, but my son was very borderline, I remember back when he was in that age group 5 or 7ish and he did things it was pretty hard to stop him from doing things he wanted to do. With my other kids if they did something wrong and I gave them a time out, they would do the time out but with my Aspie son he would just get up and walk away and laugh. IF I sat him back down he would just get up and walk away laughing. I know the frustration! But I did figure out a few things and one was that if I asked him instead of telling him he responded much better. Like: GO clean your room! he wouldn't do it. But when I went in there and asked him like: Josh, it would be a big help to me if you would pick up your room, I would really appreciate it. He would do it. I don't know how you talk to him? but with me and my other kids IT was more like You guys get in there and clean your rooms. but with Josh that didn't work. Every child is so different but that worked for me. Like Tom said on here, I think positive re-enforcement sometimes works much better. How about giving him a shallow big plastic bowl, and say something like I know how much you like to spit but it makes it really hard for me, can you do me a favor and please use this bowl and do it there? That way you are not taking away something he finds pleasure in but asking him to do it only in there or maybe the bathtub? Just a suggestion.

 

[clg114]

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