Will ABA therapy help with violence?

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It's always important to keep in mind that, no matter how autism expresses itself, the primary deficit is one of communication. She may not be able to identify what's bothering her, or she may not be able to express it, or she may assume you automatically know everything that's going on in her head.

One thing that worked with DS, when he was really struggling, was to switch from verbal language to texting or emailing. Sometimes he was able to write things he couldn't say. The key is finding a work-around that applies to YOUR situation and your daughter's particular needs.

Whatever the cause, that sounds like one seriously frustrated kid.

For everyone's sake, I'd say you guys need three things:

1) Alternative ways of getting the frustration out,

2) Some better strategies for dealing with the behaviors, and

3) The tools to solve, or at least work around, whatever issues are so doggone frustrating.

Birth control pills may help with hormonal imbalances (and I think pretty much everyone has hormonal imbalances at 13). They have worked for some people. They were Hell for me. Between depression and loss of libido, they were a miserable experience I will not repeat...

...but loss of libido in a 13-year-old would probably be a DESIRABLE side effect.

With ABA as with the Pill-- call and ask questions. It does no harm to try. If they turn out to have their heads on backwards, or if it's not addressing your problems, you don't have to continue. Six Saturdays is a lot...

...but not too much hassle to survive if it turns out to be something that can put good tools in y'all's hands.

DW a mom - managing me is a huge problem. It is difficult for me to be calm and figure out how to help her when she is physically attacking her sister and making her scream. We had another meltdown yesterday because I wanted to go to bed early at 9:30 pm and she wanted me to stay up and watch a show with her. We had just spent almost an hour watching another episode and she started to get mad because her twin decided to watch too. Her sister gave up and went upstairs to her room. I have noticed one of her triggers is having alone time with me and then her sister wanting to join us. I can't always send her sister away because she needs time with me too.

So one minute we were brushing our teeth together and she was going to tuck me in and then the switch turned on and she was in meltdown mode. I ended up calming her after about 20 minutes when I got her to go into my room and kept on asking her if she was thirsty or hungry and did she want me to read her some picture books? Something got through to her and she was finally able to ask for something to eat and to pick a few books to read. I was glad to know more about how to help her this time, but I do hate that I lost an extra hour of sleep. (I had been up since 3:30 am the night before and was so exhausted) I find the meltdowns get me feeling so anxious and upset, it is hard to sleep afterwards. I just lay there replaying what happened and how I could have done better.

Waterfalls - Yes I definately do need some help with my daughter. I am now looking forward to the program and what they can do for our family.

Momsparky - my daughter is 13, but her coping skills are those of a 2 year old and she gets very mad when she doesn't get her way. And when she is not coping, then there isn't much to do but wait for the storm to pass. I do know she was upset last night that we had run out of dessert and even though she ate nacho chips and some frozen fruit, it wasn't "really dessert". So I will get some today at lunchtime to hopefully prevent that trigger.

I think you are right that she assumes that I know what she needs. I will have to work on remembering that her needs are pretty simple when upset - food, water or time together (like reading books) and offer them when she is getting upset.

I feel like she got her way because she wanted me to spend time with her and I wanted to go to bed early and then it took another hour before I could finally go to bed. So even though I didn't watch the tv show she wanted, her meltdown got me to read books to her rather than going to bed early.

ASDMommy - the problem is I see some patterns, but I can't change them all to please her. Like on Sunday, I know she didn't like that I was going for supper at my boyfriend's place. She knows I go once a week for a few hours and this is my break and our alone time as a couple, but she didn't want me to go. She wanted to go play tennis or something fun and I was leaving her. A huge trigger is not getting her way, but she can't always have her own way.

Emilemulder - I just spoke to the program intake worker this morning and she says it is a 10 week module that I will have to take after our intake appointment where they figure out what help she needs the most. I can do it in a class or online and have to watch some videos on ABA and then answer some questions afterwards to see if I am grasping the material. Then it will be about a year on the waiting list for their specialized help where you have a team of ASD specialists that will help you with your family's specific problems. I definately do need all of the help I can get.

Pddtwinmom - My daughter has gotten more violent since puberty started. I have thought of putting her on some kind of birth control, but she hasn't had her first period yet. I also read in the book Aspergirls that the hormones could make her worse - I know the pill made me nuts at times. I was going to book an appointment with my gynecologist to look at our options once she has a period. I know I was a roller coaster of emotions during the teen years and can see why my daughter is having a difficult time. Her twin has her dramatic moments too. That is why my mom used to say to me "I hope you have triplet girls and they are all like you!"

LeagueGirl - Did you have your period when they put you on the pill? I don't think my daughter would take a pill every day - she hates them even if it is for pain or fever. I was going to see about some kind of IUD.

Buyerbeware - she is definatly frustrated and it seems to be worse this week. It's like we avoid meltdowns for a few weeks and we are all getting along really well - but then we get a cluster of meltdowns and you wonder what changed. I have noticed that getting her outside to play frisbee, tennis and catch really helps her mood, so we have to try to get her out more often. The weather doesn't always cooperate with us though.

It is true that trying the program could be of real benefit. I am glad I may be able to do the parent module at work on my lunch hour (through the internet), so I won't have to try to fit it in the evenings and the weekends, when I try to do fun things with my girls. If I were to spend that time at a program, my ASD daughter would totally hate my being away.

I think you just said something extremely significant without being aware of it. Her coping skills ARE EXACTLY like those of a two-year-old. Ask yourself how you handled her sister at two years old in the same situation? It took me quite some time to wrap my brain around the idea that a developmental delay means TREAT HIM LIKE HE'S YOUNGER THAN HIS BIOLOGICAL AGE. The only difference is that your daughter is physically stronger than a two-year-old, but thinking of her as one may help you stay calm.

For DS, for instance, we taught him to look for antecedent "warning signs." Prior to melting down, he used to ball up his fists. We taught him that if he was balling up his fists, he needed to go be by himself in his room until he was calm - and then we practiced having him ball up his fists when he was calm and go directly to his room. Verbal direction from us is a trigger, so we make "cards," where we simply handed him a card that said "take a break in your room." We practiced this as well when he was calm, kind of like a fire drill. Things that would work on a three-year-old, YKWIM?

I am learning to see that developmentally she is 2 at times, unfortunately since we just learned this in November, her sister and I are having difficulty seeing this sometimes. I would love to be able to get her into her room to calm down, but she will not do it. She likes to be with me, but will keep going after her sister. Her sister will try to lock herself in her room, but then she will pick the lock and go in after her. And then I have to get her out of her room and into mine or her's. She becomes totally focussed on attacking her sister and then attacks me when I get her away from her. If I take her sister into my room and lock my door, my aspie daughter will kick down the door. We have had to replace a few door knobs and glue the door frames back together.

Also, she gets upset so quickly, it is hard to head it off. It is like a switch turned on and you have to find out how to turn it back off. I will have to look at old threads to see what other parents do during these difficult times. Usually I don't see much that works for my family, but it is nice to see that other people are going through the same thing.

Would it be possible to talk with her and her sister (probably separately) and come up with a schedule of "guaranteed" alone time with each of them? There will probably be times she wants "extra" alone time, but maybe having some predictable planned time might help satisfy that need and remove one source of meltdowns.

You'll probably have to go through the identifying the many sources of meltdowns and chip away at them one by one.


A year waiting list! You need help now. Have you checked into whether your health insurance will cover anything sooner?

Yeah, that is the hard part, isn't it? Sometimes if you make the problem issue happen on a predictable schedule or at bleat give as much notice as you can that can help. Sometimes with the older ones, you can also reason with them when they are calm.


My son has always hated shopping. He used to have sensory issues with the smells in a supermarket--then of course there is the boredom factor ---and the fact that he finds certain departments fun--like produce with the scale. So it is the worst possible thing. Sensory issues and alternating under and over stimulation. When he was little--I stayed home with him and my husband went shopping and would call home with questions. It was that bad. Then when the smell issue was less severe we started taking him. It was really bad and so we would acclimate him for bits and so on.

We take him one day a week on a predictable schedule. Sometimes we have to change it around or do 2 days, and we give him as much notice as we can. We try to keep it to 3 stores or less, if we can. If we can't, we cut him a ton of slack, onlookers be damned. (within reason) We have had talks with him explaining that if he wants juice we need to buy it when we run out, so we need to food shop. We try to compensate for the stimulation issues as we shop by engaging him.

So, I would talk to your daughter when unstressed about why you see your boyfriend, and see if you can get her to vocalize her issues. Empathize with them, but tell her you also have things you want to do. List all the things she likes that she gets to do, and ask her if she doesn't understand that you have things you like to do, and say one of them includes seeing your bf. Then maybe try to put it on a predictable schedule.

This is just me spit balling --I am sure that there is a better way--probably the Explosive Child Plan B, way where you try more carefully to get her input and help crafting a solution.

Edited;typo fix

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 27 May 2014, 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I got my first period two weeks before I turned 12. I was put on birth control at your daughter's age and they helped a lot, had no side affects.

Zette - I was thinking how I could do some sort of schedule, but I am not sure if they would like it. They are 13, so sometimes they are hiding out in their rooms playing video games or watching their own tv shows or even playing games together, then they suddenly both want to be clingy to me. If I try to get her sister to go to her room, she will insist that she is allowed to be downstairs and will refuse to leave. I may have one ASD daugher, but her twin can be a handful too. I wish we had had a diagnosis when she was younger, so it wouldn't be so hard to change things now. She doesn't want to see her twin as developmentally delayed and needing to be treated differently now.

I live in Canada with free healthcare, but we have long waiting lists. I don't have any private health insurance to get into the private programs. I did apply for some funding, but I was declined. Hopefully with her aspergers program at school next year, the teachers there may be of some help.

ASDmommy - my boyfriend and I do have a schedule we stick to with seeing each other. Tuesdays and Thursdays he is at my place and depending on if he has his daughter, I go see him on Saturday or Sunday for supper. About once a month, we do something with his daughter who is 7 and my ASD daughter really likes to play with. I do give her fair warning about any change to the plans too. Like last night I told her when I got home how exhausted I was and how I was going to bed early. She was fine with it all night, until it ruined her plans for watching another tv show episode together.

My daughter doesn't usually like grocery shopping at all either - I usually take her twin and she just helps carry everything upstairs and to put them away. I only get her to go a couple times a year if that and you can tell it is very stressful for her because she ends up yelling at me and her sister the whole time about everything like how we are pushing the cart or what side of the street we can walk on. Sometimes I would like to be my daughter for one day, so I could truely understand how she sees the world.

The key to getting your daughter to go to her room on her own is to create a plan with a contract that she signs, and then to practice it until it's automatic, again like a fire drill. Again, nonverbal signals are important - DS reacts the wrong way to verbal direction in these situations.

Grocery shopping is a sensory assault for most people on the spectrum. DS can manage going to the Aldi, as they're built on the idea of being minimalist, but he really has a hard time at a regular store (for him, the smells in particular are challenging.)

What do you use as a nonverbal cue to get him to go to his room?

You've received some really good advice to try. I hope things get better, as meltdowns are hard for the entire family

Would it be possible, during a calmer moment, to ask your daughter for some suggestions/alternatives if things don't go according to plan? For example, with dessert, could she make a list of alternatives to the expected dessert? If she is part of the process in the decision-making, perhaps her outburst and disappointment wouldn't be so severe? I'm thinking you could have whipped cream or jello/pudding on hand and create something quickly? Or blend fruit and make a smoothie? I think having some alternatives to her concrete "must haves" may help make her a big more flexible?

For us, it was all about trying to prevent those meltdowns in the first place too. The trick was making sure our DD was on board and that could only be accomplished when everyone was calm.

In addition to the "alternatives" list, I also tried to introduce the concept that sometimes unexpected surprises are a good thing. How would she feel if, instead of heading straight home from school, the three of you (sister included) go to a fun restaurant or drive-thru for a treat? Or maybe hit a toy store and see what each girl could get with $1-$5? I would reinforce the change with a phrase like "See, sometimes change can be fun and good, right?"

And final thought: we had a "calm-down" box that we created for DD when she felt like she was on the edge (as others have said, helping your daughter identify when that is may be the step before the "calm-down" box. We too found it hard to say something to her when we could see she was moving toward meltdown mode, so I would employ a hand signal or write a note. My DD later told me she could hear me telling her to go to her room and it sounded like I was yelling at her [I wasn't, but that's not what she felt!]). The box contained things that would help her cope: drawing paper, pencils, a small iPod with calming music of her choice, squeezing putty (crafting kind), beads which she would string....the thing is, the contents of the box are things she chooses which helps her reset. The box was kept in her room, so going to her room wasn't a "punishment"...it was a chance for her to spend focused minutes on doing something stress-relieving.

Edit: Regarding sensory overload..I saw this video a few years ago and it was eyeopening...a glimpse into the world of sensory overload:
http://vimeo.com/52193530

Making a list of dessert alternatives is a great idea - she was going to make popcorn because we have lots of kernels, but she wanted me to make it. Had I known it might have prevented a meltdown, I likely would have made popcorn or baked something or gone to the store. I have been trying to go get groceries every second weekend because it is a lot of trouble doing it every week, but I realize it isn't worth it because if we run out of something crucial like milk or dessert, it can be a crisis in our house. It is so upsetting for her if she doesn't have these things.

She doesn't even like unexpected surprises sometimes - like if I come home and offer to take her and her sister for a treat, we could spend half an hour debating where to go and what to have and should we go on a different day and it's too dark to go outside and she is too tired, etc. I usually try to prepare her for anything - good or bad. If we have a surprise treat, I pick it and bring it home - this makes her happy because it is at home and she doesn't have to choose or go anywhere.

The calm down box would be awesome if I could just figure out ahead of the meltdown that she needs it. Usually she seems totally fine and then someone will say something and she will start freaking or hitting right off. It is easier if she is mad at me because I try not to make it worse, but her sister can say things to further aggravate her and then wonder why her sister is so mean. I have to keep teaching my NT daughter that her sister really doesn't have much control of what she says and does at that time.

I will check out that video on sensory overload - sounds like it could really help me understand my daughter better.

Audball, I just watched the video link you recommended and that was really eye opening for me. I have some of her noise issues, but it is never as overwhelming as in this video.

ABA only would have made me even MORE violent out of retaliation.
If someone was willing to LISTEN to me and BELIEVE me as to WHY I was so violent (I was being bullied to the point of torture in school) and had actually DONE something about it instead of blaming me for it happening, maybe I wouldn't have been so violent. Before you do anything with your daughter, I'd try to see what's going on in her life. My mom always told me I was "misinterpreting" everything. If I got raped, she'd probably tell me I "misinterpreted" that as well. Even if I had "misinterpreted" something, seeing things from my perspective once in a while might have helped a LOT. I was always told my my mom that I needed to learn to see things from other people's perspectives, yet she never felt the need to learn to see them from mine. If you ever want to see a photograph of my mom, just look in the dictionary under the word "hypocrite". Anyhow, before you try anything, I'd suggest you try and see how things appear to her and take HER side once in a while, even if she does "misinterpret" something.