Stopping Weird ASD Behaviors?
Ming from Agents of Speech discusses when to intervene in autistic children's behaviors and when to leave them alone. She covers reward systems, sensory supports for physical issues like tiptoeing, and communication strategies like gestures and PECS, with real parent questions about potty training, stimming, and tantrums.
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Hello, welcome to our Monday Lives Today. I'm not at home, but I want to talk to you guys about stopping weird behavior, especially for children who are on the spectrum. So why is this topic important? And that's because we see, you know, people on the spectrum who do weird things and they might not think it's weird. And I've been seeing some parents and some kids over here and a different city in Indonesia. And one of the parents said, oh, my son, he doesn't like to wear any clothes when he goes to take a number two, like a, you know, a big one. And she was like, should I stop that? And I was thinking, no, they shouldn't stop that. In fact, you know, if he's able to put on all these clothes after doing such a private matter, then it should be fine, right? There isn't. There shouldn't be any thing that would make him, you know, like, it's. It's not weird unless other people judge him, you know, that's what I think. And if it's not affecting anyone else, then by all means. Right. So the other thing that she also asked was that when he was at home, he like to turn his. Turn the lights off to go. Go toilet again. And my thoughts are, well, if he's in the mall or outside somewhere in the restaurant, as long as he doesn't switch off all the lights, then. And if he's at home, then it's fine, he can do whatever he wants, right? Because even if at home he cannot do the things that he feels comfortable with and where can he be comfortable? Right? So this is also something that I think a lot of parents will feel, especially the moms will feel like a little bit strange. Then they already don't want the child to. To feel like, to feel that way, to do that. I'm sorry. To do certain things. Right. Another one is that one of the children wants to go upstairs because upstairs hasn't been lived in. There's nothing upstairs in the house. And the mother was scared. And there were some paranormal. Paranormal, whatever that. That word is that, you know, some. Something strange is going on in the house, and she's a little bit scared about allowing the child to go up. Well, obviously I said, yeah, it's not the best idea. But at the same time, given that she's been going and you already blocked it, what's the. What's the matter of allowing him. Allowing her to go over there? Obviously, from a spiritual or religious standpoint, I know nothing. I know. I also know nothing about metaphysics. So from my point of view, if that's a behavior, then, you know, try to allow, like, if you allow her, so what, what's the worst that can happen? And if the worst that can happen is something that you cannot, it's, it's not negotiable. Then don't allow her to go at all. And how you do that is very easy. Okay? It's easy and it's hard. It's okay. It's like this. It's simple, but it's not easy to do. It's simple to tell you, but it's very hard to give you the solution, right? Just like today I was with, I would say a colleague now, is that she didn't like a certain brand of a toilet and she didn't go use it and then she had to hold her pee, right? So that's something that, you know, this is weird stuff, but at the same time, it's fine for everyday life and the people around the ASD people. So at the end of the day, how do you stop these kind of weird things? Is number one, think about, do I really need to stop this, this behavior? What's the worst that can happen? Is the worst that can happen something that is not negotiable? Right? Is it because of our need to feel normal, quote, unquote normal and not embarrassed all the time? Is it because of us? Or are we thinking from their perspective? And if we're thinking from their perspective, then why would we want to stop such a, such a behavior? Okay, is it that bad? So that's my, my reaction all the time. Is it that bad that this person is doing this? Is it affecting you that much? Or is it because you have a certain idea about that and, and, and you don't want your, your child to, to do that and it will make you look bad or make people around them embarrass or something? And the second thing, okay, let's, let's say the behavior is not, is non negotiable, it's bad, it's very detrimental. And that there are a few that are weird and you cannot, you cannot say yes to, for example, tiptoeing, walking. There are degrees of it. Like if you walk tips tiptoe for extended period of time for like it's so tiptoe that it's nearly doing a ballet dance, you know what I'm saying? Then it's gonna cause irreversible damage, you know, if you keep on doing it to your feet. And I've seen it before and with my own eyes And I can tell you these things cannot be negotiated, right? For example, playing with things that might, you know, doing weird, weird stuff that might affect health is also a big no no. So how do you stop that? It's simple, but it's not easy. Okay, so it's just like a lot of things in life, it's simple, but it's not easy. Just like you know, losing weight, very simple. Eat less, exercise more simple. But is it easy to do? No. So how do you do it? So whenever you see the absence, absence of this weird activity, you have to reward and also label. And this comes in a few different ways, right? Because labeling it and letting the child understanding what this behavior is is super hard if their language ability is low. So the thing about it is, because we can't explain the reason why, we have to reward the opposite of that, which is the absence of that thingy, right? So for instance, today a weird activity that I, I was treating was, you know, like weird activities can go from non verbal all the way to very verbal. So today one of the weird, weird things that this kid was doing was asking really random questions. And it was this disrupt everyone's conversation. It's like suddenly I'm talking about McDonald's. And the, the next, the next question he would ask, what is that? Can I take your phone? Can I touch your phone? What is your phone made of? You know, this, this kind of weird questions. And it's weird because he's so verbal and he needs to go to school that I need to teach him to don't ask these questions or else it's going to impact his social life, right? And to make it easier for him to, to, to, to conduct himself in the world. So what we did was we set the rules. No doing the this, not doing that, not doing why. So the specifics for my case just now were you will have to like keep your hands to yourself. No touching people, other people's stuff, right? Don't ask silly questions. And what are silly questions? Things that don't relate to the topic, right. And they have like five chances to do so. So the thing about the chances thing is something I learned when I was in ABA long ago. And I think it's one of the best things I ever learned to be honest. Like you don't get this anywhere else if you're a speech therapist, right? So how it works is you get chances and you set a time limit. By the time that the child can, is finished. They get rewarded depending on how many chances they have left. So yeah, that's something that you have to, you have to remember. All right, so let me see what's going on in the chat. So good evening from Clarissa. Good evening to you too. Marilyn says thank you. No, no need to thank me. Les Grossman from, from Tropical Thunder. Yes, we're live. And yeah, so you have to reward according to the chances you have left. And this is for the use for verbal children to tell them, hey man, these are the ground rules. If you do as I say, I will give you the rewards according to the chances that are left. Right. That's something you have to remember. All right, and then for non verbal children, what do you do about that is. Sorry, I just changed to high definition. Okay, so for nonverbal children, how you do it is you try to trigger the child to perform the act, but before you do so, you stop them. And if they do stop, you reward them. Okay, let me give you an example. So if your child really likes to. Okay, let's use the example of. I don't want to use like not extreme example because if it's not extreme example, then it wouldn't warrant therapy. You know what I'm saying? You're not going to want to stop some type of stimming. And for non verbal children, because you cannot explain to them. The thing about it is that what happens if you stop one stim, another stim happens, you stop one, another behavior happens because the behavior is a means to an end, right? So if you see like children flapping their hands, right? If you stop that, they'll start shaking the head. You stop the shaking the head, they'll like try to use their eyes and doing like doing something with their eyeballs, right? So that's something you have to think about that. So how you do it is you reward them when there's absence of the undesired activity. Okay, so let's say you, we do the tiptoeing first. If the tiptoe is very extreme, how do we deal with it is that we can physically prompt that child. It depends on like you may work with a OT or a physical therapist, occupational therapist or physiotherapist, preferably both. And then what you do is to think about how to reduce this tiptoeing. So there are some sensory needs that needs to be met. An OT can tell you that. And most of the times a lot of OTs can eliminate, can eliminate the tiptoeing through their own methods, which is like sensory integration, whatever. But at the same time, if they add your input with like some behavioral intervention, sort of like rewarding and so on. It'll be much faster. So one of the methods I've seen is to put a weight. And what I mean by weight is just putting a backpack on with a bunch of books and that backpack. That weight just pulls down the kid and they won't, they won't tiptoe anymore. And when they don't tiptoe anymore, you reward them. You keep on rewarding them. It's good, good. Not tiptoeing, good boy, nice walking, whatever. And then you get less and less and less books. Like you put less and less, less books inside of their backpack. And therefore, as they're like you're still talking to them and pointing to a leg and let them, letting them feel what it feels to put their heels on the ground and so on. And it's easier for you to tell, hey, this is the correct thing I want, right? So you make it so that getting the correct behavior is as easy as breathing. You know that that's what you want, right? That's what therapy is about. Making something hard super easy. Let them achieve success in a very controlled environment and then reward them for that. And then slowly take away the constraints, right? Take away the greenhouse stuff that you've been putting, like you've been trying to cover them with to make them successful, right? And then slowly put them into the wild and then, and so on and so forth. Let them know that they can do it, right? So that's, that's all therapy is. It's just controlled environments. Let them win when they win reward, and when that happens, take away the safeguards that you've been putting up and then reward even more, right? And slowly get rid of the rewards and tell them, hey, this is actually just normal. Life is like this, right? So that's something, I think that's true for all types of therapy, at least from my perspective. I'm sure there are a lot of people saying that, oh, you're thinking the wrong way about therapy, whatever, but that's how I see it. All right, so let's see some questions. So Frankie says hi, is there any advice you could give us for toddlers that are verbal but not using words for communication? So Frankie does a whole video about that. It's very, very common what you just asked. So there are loads of. I think in your case, Frankie, you're talking about how children are using words for, you know, like self entertainment purposes. For instance, like singing songs, knowing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, even up to 20 or even 100 sometimes, you know, knowing all the colors, knowing like all the animal names, sometimes you know, vehicle names, you know, concrete mixers, whatever, dinosaur names. But then at the same time they won't use words to, to get the means met. Right. So loads of videos out there inside of this channel, actually, or, or the Facebook page that you're commenting on. And how you do it is basically how you do it is you need to start off with teaching them the language function. And just because like I'm getting you just of it. But just go and search on YouTube or Facebook like children can, can sing and recite ABC but won't talk to you. That's. I think that's the topic. Right. The thing about it is you cannot expect a child who knows to use words for self entertainment to know how to use words to communicate right away. So you need to have a middle point which is usually like sign language, right? Just gestures. I don't mean like full on sign language or just, just tapping you or whatever. And teaching that basic language function, the language function, all right? Not to use words to communicate, but the function meaning, do they know how to request properly? Do they know how to say no? Do they know how to comment? So the easiest one to teach always. And everyone talks about this is requesting. And there's a lot of names out there, like manding. I don't know what other names are out there. Right. But, but what I mean is when they want something, how can they tell you? And the, the easiest way is just to teach them like a certain gesture, show them what they want, teach them a gesture, like just take their hands and do it and then give it to them without the fuss. All right, So I hope that answers your question. Frankie, you can do a lot more research in our page. Me, um, says, hey, what's up? From the Netherlands. That's great. Kelly. Yep. Asks how to stop visual stimming. I guess that's a, that is a autocorrect, I guess link like blink eyes, flipping fingers. Right. So first of all you need to think about, if you stop them, like is stimming acceptable or not? Right. Usually speaking, it's fine if it's like for a very short period of time, but if they go on stimming for like 30, like 10 minutes or whatever, then it becomes rather they go inside the stimming for too long and it's very hard to get them out back again. All right, that's what I mean. So what you have to do now is to think about what is the low. What, what is the maximum amount you would allow him to stim? Oops, sorry. Hit the table. So that's something you need to think about. Second of all, if you want to stop this stimming, what are better alternatives for your child to stim? Because there must be something that he or she wants to stim with. It's impossible to stop. Oh, it's a short one, then it doesn't matter. I really think if it's a short one. Right. If it's a short one, it's really doesn't matter if I really think. Okay. Because we all have stims, whether you like it or not. And some are more appropriate socially, some are not. You know, I've got a friend who likes to like, pick their nose like that and he thinks that is socially acceptable. Not going to name any names here. If he watches it, then he knows that's just dim, in my opinion. You know, I don't think his, his, his, his. How to say, his nose is that dirty that he has had to do it every few minutes. You know what I'm saying? So some are more socially acceptable, some are not. If it's just for a bit that he's like that, I mean, yeah, that's fine. The whole point of this video is to think about is it acceptable or not. And if it's acceptable, then don't do it. Like, just don't do anything about it. Because at the end of the day, if you stop it or you stop it too much, it's gonna not be great on your relationship with him. And you just need to pick your fights. You know, as children get better and older, they will start to know, oh, some things I'm not supposed to do in the public, you know, and that, that needs a lot of time. And what I mean is you have to pick your fights. And not like if the blinking eyes, the flipping fingers like that. It's just for a bit then. Okay, Right. If it doesn't affect their learning, then it's fine. Usually speaking the older ASD children I see, if you engage with them with something that they need to do, then they will stop stimming. If you give them too much free time and they have nothing to do, they will start stimming. All right, that's true. As far as seeing quite a few, like, adolescents and ASD people. Right. Okay, so me ask my, my model likes to make sounds when nobody's watching him. How can I stimulate to interact with us slash people? Right, yeah. As I said before, as I said Before. Okay, I haven't said that before just now. Right. So what I mean is you need to find something that he likes to play with you. Okay. That's something that's not non negotiable. If you just. How to say this, like the, the reason why. You know how I made this like you Facebook video and so far like somehow it became a semi viral, not even like that viral, like 35,000 views so far. And I thought it was pretty cool. And title was how to make your child speak. Like three ways to make your child speak. Right. Very juicy title, very clickbaity. And then one of the comments, the parents say, oh, you can't make people speak, you're ugly. You just in for the clicks, whatever. Well, while she's not totally like wrong, but at the same time I'm saying it because a lot of parents are thinking like that. I'm saying oh, how do I make my child speak? That's like one of the things that a lot of parents want to know. Yeah. So here you say how can I stimulate to interact with us? It's not about how you stimulate. It's not about stimulation. Right. We do see language stimulation, whatever. But it's more about like language facilitation. How do I facilitate my kid to want to come to us? Right. I mean that's at the end of the day, that's what you, you're trying to say. Right. But the wording makes me think that you need to go there and make them talk to you. Right. So that, that's not really the, the correct mindset towards this. So what, what I mean is what do you bring to the table with your kid? How do you add value to the child's life? Right. That's therapy 101. How do you go in and make it fun for the kid and make them want to continue to play with you and don't care about the sounds, don't care about interaction right now. Because if you're fun as a person and you can create routines that, that the child would enjoy, interaction is just going to come naturally. You know, like so many kids just can smell that you want them to do something and then they just don't want to talk to you anymore. It's like you're going into a mall and you see that sales coming up to you with the pamphlet and you're like, oh, and you're trying to get away from him. Right. So it's kind of the same with children. Like it's just non verbal communication that you know, like you got to be someone who brings value, bring fun on the table, and that's what you need to do, right? Create a bunch of play routines that even if he or she isn't watching, you're still having fun, right? He's still having fun. And then he'll start to like, oh, what? You're having fun? I want to try and use the things that he overlikes already. Maybe it's bubbles, maybe it's snacks. Doesn't need to be like fun. It could be just rewarding, right? It could be like a car slide that we always talk about. It could be anything. It could be like a ball. It could be water guns, it could be water spray, it could be balloons. It could be anything. All right, okay. On to Era says or Ira, my 2 year old boy is still nonverbal, not focusing. What should I do to the stage? Oh, and then he adds, but he can hum the AB ABC song. So I want you to rewind this live for like 10 minutes and then look at what I said to Frankie. All right, cool. So Sonia says, true, rewarding is a great idea. Yes, it's a, it's a super good idea. Go try out. You know, it's simple, but it's hard to do, you know, that's why even if, like an agents of speech, the online platform that I'm working on, it's like, even if we give you all the information about how to do things, it's simple. But then when you try it, say, hey, it doesn't work without. And it's because you need to be consistent about it and you need to convince yourself first that this is going to work, I'm going to stick to it. And therapy is like that. It doesn't work for a very long time and suddenly it works, right? And that's. And why I talk about all this stuff as opposed to, you know, a lot of the mainstream speech therapist content out there, which is more, oh, like five ways to play in a way that will encourage your child to talk or oh, let me give you some tips on parenting or whatever. It's. Yeah, I would love to do that. I would love to. But at the same time, if I tell you that, what's the difference? If you try that, what activity but you're not the person who can pull it off, then what's the point? Right? I can tell you all day how to, you know, it's a good analogy. Like, I'm going away from therapy, right? But you see Gordon Ramsay cooking all the time. All the time on YouTube. But doesn't mean you can cook like him even if you get the same recipe. Well, no, because you still need to know what, when is the correct timing to go into it? Right, the timing. Can you visually observe your kid? When is the good time to prompt him? Right. Second of all, second of all, do you have the mindset to keep on going even if there's a failure most of the time? No, that's not the, that's not the, not the case. Right. So yes, Sonia, it does take a lot of effort to do it because it takes real, a lot of consistency. Right. Like the parent I saw today, the kid just started to talk after like a year. Like maybe not in October last year, which is like around seven months, right? No, that's more than seven months now. Dude, it's already May. Yeah, sorry. It is seven months. So in around seven months time he starts to talk and use words. Before he was just like, like the very stereotypical non verbal ASD child. But now he's got sounds right? And obviously it's not my thing. It's like his teacher slash therapist said, oh, I learned the techniques from me or whatever, but I really think it's just because she was very consistent about doing it. And right now the bottleneck was actually the mother because it's obvious that the kid needs some sort of communication like tool at home, maybe pecs. Right. And it needs to be a very strict reinforcement, very strict reward schedule. But the mother couldn't stick with it. And that's because like no one's blaming, no one's blaming anyone. It's just that, you know, being a mother is super difficult. And seeing her juggle like two or three kids with all the, all the housework and still running a business, like who's got time for a reward schedule? You know, I'm saying. So I get it. But at the same time, if this is very important for you, you gotta, you know, tighten it up and not just search for like short term strategies on the Internet, like five tips to make your child talk or whatever. Like that's a good way to get, to get you into my world. Right? But at the same time, you know, like I see a lot of the content out there are just like, oh, parenting tips, whatever. Are you gonna do this? You gotta, whatever, whatever. At the same time, it's very difficult for anyone to pull off effective home therapy without knowing what you're in for. Right. And choosing your fights. And like, for instance, I think a month ago I talked about how you shouldn't, you should choose your goals. And don't go for like 10 goals, just go for one. And this is what I'm talking about, right? If don't choose to get rid of certain weird activity, weird behaviors. That's not the point. That really isn't the point. You get rid of one weird behavior, another pops out. It's not worth it, really. It really isn't. Okay, so Jaziel says my son is three now, is now trying to speak. So we his trying to say wash hands, but it comes as waha. That's fine. That's the worst. Worst of. That's the least of your worries right now, Jaziel. Your main focus now is to get more words that are associated with a certain, like a one to one relationship. So he doesn't use waha for other things, right? I don't care how he pronounces it. That's a speech problem. And that's okay for now, like because he still is three, he's just learning to speak. And if he can't do wash hands and he's missing the sh and wash like sh and hands, which is three consonants, I think that's permissible, right? I mean your main focus shouldn't be on the speech and to get him to say more sounds. And the more he says the sounds, the better. Then he will become and probably he will catch up. Probably. I don't know. But at the very least it's not if it's a final consonant deletion. What we call in this case multiple is like just the simplification, like reduction of all sounds right at the back. I think it's still. It is something typical developmental, like a lot of kids do it, whether or not if they are delayed or not. So I think it's permissible. Your main focus should be teaching more words, you know, not to care about the pronunciation just as of now. Because the more you try to push them to say it correctly, the more they hate talking to you. So don't do that. All right? Says Matali is only yelling lately because he can communicate. So sad. Do you have tips about that helping him in that meltdown? Well, the worst thing, the thing about is that, well, if you're taller is. Is. Where were you again? Sorry? You said you were in. Let me see. Oh, you're in Netherlands. So I don't know. I don't know whether you guys have you. You guys have any therapy ready in your country? So usually at this point I would tell you that you should do some gestures, you know, some pecs you know, like picture exchange, communication system so that at least he has a way to get his message across to you. That's what I would say. And what I mean, there must be something you can guess about the communication part, right? At the very least, you should be able to guess around what that he wants and why is he yelling? What does he want from you? So if you can, can you think of a way that he can tell you with a gesture or you have no idea at all, then that's something you have to try. Start guessing, you know, because you can never fulfill a communication need if you don't know what the need, what the end, what he wants, right? So you know, that's a food for thought for you. Like you gotta know. You just gotta know. You just gotta keep on guessing until you get it. Because for a toddler, there aren't a lot of needs. They're not gonna tell you how he dropped his ice cream and like yesterday and he thought about it suddenly and he's crying now, or he's like, he just got out of relationship. Very simple needs, man. Think about it, think about what it is and if, you know, think of a way to teach him to communicate with you rather whether it's with gestures or use like pictures. Giselle says, my son, when you tell him no, he will hit himself. How can I stop that? The question is, what are you stopping him? Why? What are you telling him no about? And is there another way for him to get that item? All right, do what he wants, right? And if not, then think about how to reward. Remember what we just said here in this, in the beginning of this, of this video, right? Tempt him, all right? Say no before he gets mad. Reward him. Sonia says, my son is four years old, nonverbal, asd, okay? The first words he says, no rather than mama, papa. Haha. That's. That is so. That's so common. The reason why is because no is such a strong communicative communication function, right? Saying no to stuff is so intuitive to kids because whenever we try to teach them, you're actually invading their personal space. So a lot of times they're like, the first word they know is no because stop teaching me, right? Stop trying to. And most of the time I always say this to parents and they always laugh, right? Is that the parents feel like a vending machine. A vending machine, right? Because he comes over, push some buttons and get what he wants, right? And then when the vending machine comes over and tries to tell him to do something, they say no. And just push them away. And it's just. You're just there until, you know they need you again. And then Jesus come over and get. Get what they want. So it's. It's something like that, you know, like, you gotta. So therefore, what I said just now about, like, creating adding value to his child's life, thinking about how to make things fun for him is especially very true for ASD children. So they're like, oh, man, I want to play with you. You're. You're a funny guy. You know, it doesn't need to be, like, crazy, but, you know, it can even be. You can just bribe him, right? Just any means to get them to start listening to you. I'm all for it, okay? I don't care if it's not natural or you're not using, like, using some sort of, you know, you're bribing or whatever. I don't care about that stuff. The most important thing is that you get a win, and you get a win quick. If not, you will just think that it's not going to work, right? So Madhumatulika says, my question is that. Is that a melt. Unnecessary in autism? Necessary? I wouldn't say necessary, but it happens a lot. I would say. I don't know. I don't know how to answer this question. I don't know. Isn't that. It's not necessary. That's all. I really don't know how to answer this. I have, like, one minute left, so I'm gonna take a look at this. Sorry, I couldn't answer that. I don't know how to answer that question. That question has regressed in potty training. He used to go by himself. Now he will not go. We basically force him. Reason number two and hold it in advice, right? I have no idea. You got to use some rewards. If you. For after you force him, you have to give him something. If he refuses to go at number two, where does he go? In the diaper? If so, then make it easy for him. Put the diaper on and put him on the potty. All right, So I really need to go. I'm just really quickly looking for other questions now. You can say up when we're going up and saying mama down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Undiagnosed my schedule for screening. Well, good luck to you, man. God bless you. Doesn't have money. Oh, yeah, of course, there are loads of ASD children who are super calm, right? Loads. So many. Very, very easygoing. A lot of them just that you don't hear them because they never ask a question. Right? You never see that on Facebook. No one's gonna put on Facebook. Oh, my God. My ASD child is so calm. All you see is, like, broken walls, broken windows, you know, they hit the TV or something. You just see the bad things, you know? My child is accurate words. Then the next day, he already forgot and cannot speak that word anymore. How can he remember? Add gestures. Don't care about the words. Add gestures. Make the gestures consistent. First, because the gestures carry a lot more semantic information. Meaning that gesture has a lot more meaning that transcends just language. Okay, I gotta go, guys. Sorry. Time to go see.
