One small step for toilet training..one giant leap for Andy!

Yeah, that's right I'm making my own twist on Neil Armstrong's famous line of ""That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Many children with Autism have difficulty with mastering (or some even beginning) toilet training.  Knowing that it would likely be a long ride we started introducing toilet training over a year and a half ago...and to answer your question...no Andy has still not mastered it.

At the beginning, Andy was petrified to even sit on the toilet or a potty.  We tried to figure out a way to make it a positive experience for him.  Knowing he LOVES baths, we used to sit him on the potty seat on the toilet while we were running the bath.  This technique actually worked really well. 

We then started to add the potty routine into different times during the day.  Andy was not quite so easily swayed by this new routine.  I freely admit that we resorted to blatant bribery... a mason jar full of  Skittles were the highest reinforcer.  You can only imagine how quickly all of our friend's kids couldn't wait until they were at Andy's house to go to the potty! lol  I actually felt bad when they realized we'd removed it.

Andy was moving along pretty quickly in toilet training and then it seemed to just plateau.  He just stopped moving forward and on many days he was regressing.  Andy used to do everything in his power to avoid the potty.

1. Andy would flop himself to the ground.
2. Andy would run away.
3. Andy would scream...and scream some more.
4. Andy would hit or kick.

This behaviour is indicative of Andy attempting to control the situation.  When he is using this type of behaviour to control it usually means that somewhere along the line Andy has been allowed to slightly change the expectation and get away with less...which means it's time for a shift in power or power struggle for lack of a better term for mommy or daddy.  John & I have talked about it at length and we feel that it was a combination of Andy reacting to me returning to work and several people doing a potty routine their way in several different environments.

This all came about a month ago within two weeks of me returning to work.  The first thing we did to tackle this problem was completely unplanned...one Friday morning when I was on a day off I brought Andy to the potty.  He protested the entire time I was taking him to the potty, he then sat on the potty wanting to continuously flushing the toilet and then screamed at me for 45 minutes!  The kid has lungs. 

During that 45 minutes, I detached the flusher from the toilet so that his stim of flushing could not continue.  I stayed as calm and firm as I could on the outside, even though I was pulling my hair out on the inside.  I placed him back on the toilet every time he climbed off.  I continued to remind him every few minutes that he was expected to go pee.  I occasionally helped him use some of his relaxation techniques like squeezing hands, singing a favourite song or a hug.

The end result...Andy decided (and it was definately his choice) that it was no longer worth all the energy that he was using to fight against the expectation of going pee.  Andy accepted that mommy was not going to change or alter the expectation of going pee.  Andy decided that it was time he went pee...and pee he did!  I cannot believe how much he'd been holding in.  The funny thing is that after he went pee, he looked right at me and had a HUGE GRIN on his face.  He was proud of himself and his accomplishment.  He was quickly rewarded with several cheers, high fives and hugs by mom.

Those 45 minutes were the turning point in Andy's toilet training.  We then decided that consistancy had been compromised that it wasn't doing Andy any favours.  I made up a list of expectations for Andy's Toilet Training routine and posted them in each washroom in our house so that anyone could follow the same routine.  I also requested that everyone, including preschool and IBI, take Andy to the washroom at the beginning and end of each activity or every 30 minutes.  As the weeks went on we noticed a slow but steady improvement with Andy's attitude towards potty training.

Today was the paydirt... it happened during Andy's IBI session.  Here is an exerpt from the IT's session notes:

TOILETTING – while sitting at the table doing programming Andy pointed to the bathroom and said ``Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh``, IT presented him with an array of 3 pecs and Andy handed ``POTTY`` to me!!!! (prompted vocal attempt) He jumped out of his seat, ran to the bathroom, and had a successful void :) - AWESOME PROGRESS!

Astronaut Andy reporting for duty!

So maybe toilet training is not exactly equivalent to walking on the moon for some people.  But to be honest sometimes I feel like Andy's challenges that his Autism keeps presenting him is even harder.  Somehow my kid keeps figure out how to walk on the moon...even if it's at his own pace!