all time low

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please, don't make the box !.......i'm very worried for his safety. yes, i know it's what he wants, but it sounds terribly unsafe.
son's meltdowns are usually a reaction to extreme stress and anxiety. ...you are probably right, btw, that your son's meltdowns are a reaction to the change in restrictions, schedules etc.
i don't , btw, agree with your son's school. i thinkg restricted scheduling makes a person become even less flexible thatn they were in the first place~ the real world doesn't work like that. even being an aspie with extreme issues~you're not going to get everyone to say the same phrases to him in the same manner, same tone of voice.yes, obviously , consequences should be consistent. maybe less talking would be better. has anyone tried picture prompts instead of talking to him ?

'ster, that's a good point - maybe he is being overmanaged at school and needs a little more flexibility.

Being in Denmark - a very small country - the "autism world" here has been largely dominated by a system called TEACHH, which is originally American, but I don't know how popular it actually is in the States? The last 2 or 3 years, ABA has been winning a little terrain, but it seemed to have become a (silly) professional "battle" about which system is best. And I know very little about ABA as there is little information "free of charge".
TEACHH is very visual and changes the enviroment to suit the child - I can see the problem with this, especially with HFA/AS where the aim must be to function in the "real world". My son started with pictograms and has progressed to typed words with a small visual picture (by the way - he could "take in" a whole page of pictures in 1/2 sec. and memorize them).
We have been advised by professionals with a lot of experience in TEACHH, which has been helpful but as you can see it isn't working for us at the moment! As I said, we can't reach that level of structure at home, and on the one hand it makes me feel guilt-ridden, on the other I think my son has to experience "normal" family life. Also, if we structure much more we will have to restrict the options of our other kids (bringing friends home ect.) in an unacceptable way, or isolate my son from the rest of the family, which isn't an option.
I am very interested in how other people teach and raise kids with autism. How structured is structured enough?
How do schools work with autistic kids?

The box: why does the safety issue worry you? Is it suffocation you mean?

I am very concerned for you and your son, and I think that you are doing the absolute best things that you can possibly do for him.

I've read about the TEACHH system, and have had some ABA therapy for my son when he was about five. First of all, my son didn't have too many meltdowns, so I can't really compare my experience to yours.

I just think that the TEACHH system doesn't really make much sense, because you can't always be adapting the environment to fit an AS child's very specific needs.

Even before our son was diagnosed (at age five), we knew something wasn't quite right, but we couldn't put our finger on what it was that was wrong. BUT, we constantly REARRANGED the routine. We did NOT keep things the way he liked them. Now, if he had been constantly having very difficult meltdowns, I might have kept to a routine more. But we could see that our son liked a certain routine (i.e. a certain route to and from Grandma's house), so we were constantly scrambling the routine. It helped him to adjust to chaos, and unfortunately, that's what the real world is to these guys -- chaos!

I don't know what the answer is to your problem, but I think you are right when you are concerned that more structure at home will conflict with the needs of your other children.

I think your son sounds like an incredibly bright boy, which always brings along it's own bag of problems. It would seem as if you almost need to "out-think" your son. You would almost need to always be one step ahead of him. If you could start by charting possible causes of his melt-downs, i.e. the smell of banana on a sibling's breath, then you could see what are the biggest causes of the meltdowns. Maybe you could talk about this with him. You could say "I know that you really dislike the smell of banana. The problem with that is, you never know when a classmate or a friend is going to have just eaten a banana. Obviously you need to get used to that smell, so we're going to work on that this week." I think this is how ABA therapists would approach it.

My son couldn't handle the squeal of the school bus breaks when he was in first grade. After less than a year, he got used to it, and now that he's ten, he has not problem with that sound. He adapted.

I'm sure that I don't truly understand your son's problems or needs, but I do think that posting about his progress and how YOU are doing is a great idea. All of us reading your posts will now want to continuously know how your son is doing. Many of us have been through this, or are going through it, and we all learn from everyone else's experiences.

Kris

Thanks for the kind words. Actually we had a good day taday - day 2 of a very low dose of zypreza (2.5mg) that is meant to help with impulse control. He managed MUCH better at the hospital, and has been happy at home (no meltdowns). He seems suddenly very much more motivated / able to be motivated, so I'm cautiously optimistic...
He is used to a high degree of preperation, and I guess being prepared for a "banana experience" is preparation too? How would I actually go about it - is it like cognative therapy, talk about a banana - smell a banana - eat a banana
I think he is a bright boy, but if we can't get his behaviour under control, it won't do him any good...

I'm REALLY happy to hear that your son had a good day! Both of you deserve a good day.

I'm not really sure how an ABA therapist would do the "banana experience" but I'm guessing that it might be as simple as talking to him and asking him what is it about the banana smell that he doesn't like. If it's nothing more than "I just don't like it" then you could say "Well, we're going to work on getting used to things that we don't like, and we'll start really slowly and work our way up to the point where smelling a banana doesn't bother us at all." You could start by peeling a banana far away from him one day, and if he doesn't have a meltdown, then you give him a motivator -- either playing with a favorite lego, or eating a favorite food. [My son was never motivated by food] The next day you could peel the banana closer to him, if he's successful, give him a motivator. The next day you could have him peel the banana. The next day have him smell the banana on your breath after you've eaten it. Everything is to be done very slowly and incrementally.

I wouldn't make a child eat a food they don't like. And I would never make a child do anything that scares them. But our #2 son didn't do well at swimming for years -- had an aversion to it, I guess. Our #1 son had a bad enough aversion to swimming that he let it affect his social life, didn't care if it was embarrassing to him, etc. He got over the aversion once he realized that girls and swimming often went together, and if he liked girls, he had to swim. But our #2 son was showing the same aversion, and we just kept plugging along every summer until last summer, where we really pushed the issue. We got him to finally jump off a diving board, dive into the pool from the side of the pool, etc. -- both things that initially scared him. Once he was kind of pushed into it, and realized that he had no need to be scared, he was swimming like a fish by the end of the summer, and now will have NOTHING to be scared of come this summer. Sometimes, I find that I have to kind of push my kids over an imaginary line that they have made about something -- swimming, school bus brakes, etc. -- and then they realize that whatever it was that scared them is no where as bad as they made it out to be. Then, when they've had enough positive experiences, they learn to generalize what they've learned about trying new experiences.

Kris

back to the box thing....really worried about suffocation, not to mention that if it's not secluded enough, he might begin to look for smaller and smaller places to fit into. just a tenuous situation at best. glad to hear your son had a good day ! celebrate the good day!
silly question, but...have you brought your concerns about school to home transitions, home to school transitions, and general home life ?

The box problem: I'm afraid he will hurt himself climbing into cupboards, wardrobes ect. - he once climbed into a cupboard under a sink which had a toolbox in it, and cut himself (on the botom -ouch) climbing out. So the box was sort of meant to be "a safe alternative". His behaviour is so irratic in a meltdown, he is very unsafe.
I have thought and thought and thought about home, school, and transport, have come up with a lot of ideas but none of them are really convincing. Honestly, I think it is more a case of him not coping as well with situations.
He had two meltdowns today: one just after I left him at the hospital - I left him for 2 1/2 hours. He usually stays in his room with a nurse or teacher with him.
One at night - a real blow, as he was really trying hard.
It's weird - none for a couple of days, then two in a row.

Why would the box suffocate him? It's not going to be airtight. He specifically requested airholes to alleviate suffocation concerns. And what's the big deal if he gets into smaller and smaller spaces? This might terrify someone with claustrophobia and be dangerous to such a persoon, but this child doesn't have claustrophobia. We can tell he doesn't because he wants to get into a tiny space. Getiing into a tiny space is going to make him feel better, it's not expensive, it's not dangerous, why not let the poor kid get into a tiny space?

Temple Grandin made herself a squeeze machine.
http://www.grandin.com/inc/intro-squeeze.html
It may have looked dangerously weird to many people, but she went ahead and made it anyway, and it helped her. Look at Temple Grandin now! World-famous, successful author, savior of beleaguered livestock everywhere. That's what happens when people are allowed to implement their own good ideas to make their lives better. They learn that they can be effective and that their ideas are good and useful.

Let the kid have his box!

I decided to start blogging about my son's progress, the box and more!
So if any of you are interested in how things are working out.... check my blog
Thanks again for your help and support.