how to help my "space invader"

Post Reply New Topic

My boy (5, verbal, "high functioning") is really struggling with not touching people and their faces, and getting way, way too close people faces both when speaking to them and not speaking them. Sometimes he does this aggressively, but mostly it seems to me like a really strong compulsion.

It's getting to be too much for his little sister (who generally has so much patience, compassion and understanding for him) and our family and I'm not sure how to approach the whole thing anymore as it is just getting worse. I feel like it's one of those things that I really have to intervene in for fear of it escalating into violence when the other person is continually upset or made very uncomfortable. I also get that feeling while out and about of needing to make a show of correcting the behaviour so I don't look like a lousy parent (I don't often feel this way about some of his other atypical behaviours). But this has led to him just repeating the scripts "Don't touch faces", "Give her some space", "That's too close" etc. while he is doing these things or right before he does it. A lot of behaviours that we don't want to encourage we try the whole positive behaviour thing and shower on praise and attention when he is doing the "appropriate" thing and withdraw attention or ignore the inappropriate behaviour. But I can't just let my son walk up to someone and put his hands all over their face, or press his own face up to some other kid's face in the pool, or walk by a row of people brushing his hand along their legs and private areas as he passes by- things could get really ugly and we've had some close calls.

I'm really afraid that after some big steps made recently with the neighbourhood kids, this will start really negatively affecting those new and fragile friendships. It's already affecting things with his sister which makes me really sad as they've been great friends. And frankly the whole thing is driving me nuts- both the constant irritating behaviour and feeling like nothing we've tried is sinking in.

We've read social stories about personal space and inappropriate touch, practiced appropriate touch and even made some visual things we use to show how much space everyone should have. Nothing seems to make a difference.

Any ideas?

As always, thanks for any input or advice.

Functional Behavior Assessment -- as it sounds like a sensory processing issue.

Your son is getting SOMETHING out of getting in people's faces, touching strangers legs, etc., some sort of sensory payoff -- and once you find out what it is, you can (ideally) provide him with the sensory input he needs in a manner that doesn't involve manhandling others, eg fidget toys, brushing protocol, "sensory diet", etc.

In the meantime, I'd suggest explaining a "personal space bubble" with a visual aid (clear plastic globe with a little toy inside, so he can SEE how far away he needs to stay from other people) and the supervising him closely if he's in the vicinity of other people (so you can remind him, ideally with the toy-in-globe as a visual prompt).

The sooner you can get this issue addressed, the better.

Yes I do believe some it is sensory-related. We've tried keeping his hands busy with the fidget toys he likes. We do follow a sensory diet and provide him outlets for his sensory needs every day. This doesn't seem to lessen the occurrence of the behaviour at all.

As I said in my post, we have continually explained personal space and we have used visual aids. I am always supervising closely and use the visual aids as a prompt when the behaviour occurs.

I'm looking for other approaches as these are not working.
Thanks.

Are there any specific sensory activities that would be applicable to this issue?
He is a sensory-seeker for sure, he loves crunching dry things like leaves, running his hands and eyes along surfaces of different textures, and looking at things with his eyes very close to them (this just started a little while ago). We do a lot of play with sand, play dough, and we let him crunch all the leaves he wants outside (it's hot and dry where we live, so he has no shortage). He also has a cocoon swing and a trampoline that he loves.
Brushing would surely be torture for him though.

I can see the sensory side, it may feel good to touch other people's faces and clothing and certainly I understand the urge to reach out and brush a hand over interesting fabric or accessories. There is another side to it that I can't figure out... it's almost like it is his preferred way of initiating interaction even though he consistently gets bad results (and he knows and has used other methods to initiate interaction before). And then there is the predictable reaction from me or his dad when he does these things and we have to stop him before things escalate into an unpleasant situation.

We had a really horrible first meeting with our homeschool group this morning. I'm just feeling so lost on this issue and becoming incredibly frustrated. It's especially hard because my son really wants to be around other people and kids and make friends and we have been trying to give him more and more opportunities where he has support to help him through, but obviously this issue is making all of that nearly impossible.

I feel you. My son is a touch-seeker, too, and some of his past behaviors made me want to run screaming down the street. My only advice is 1) he'll likely grow to control himself better as he gets older, and 2) don't be afraid/ashamed to use the shopping cart seat in stores. I put my son in them until he physically wouldn't fit anymore (around 7 years old). Sometimes I still wish I could get him in there.

If you've effectively decided OT's not effective, my Bly suggestions are:

1. Try a different OT. The current sensory diet isn't working, so what's the harm in getting a second opinion and tweaking it?

2. Line of sight supervision at home and when playing with neighborhood kids. If you can't be wishing 5-6 feet of him, close enough to stop him from manhandling kids, parents, passersby, consider keeping him at home.

(I was the least tactile kid on earth and to this day loathe being randomly grabbed. Yes, your space invader's handsy-ness will alienate the neighbor kids. Yes, it's a manifestation of his autism, yes, he's working on it, yes, others should be open-minded and not mind his grabbing them... but they very likely will... but we live in the real world. And it's almost impossible to unalienate kids if you've spent years and years inadvertently groping them).

I bristle at this. The last thing kids with autism need is to be excluded, marginalized, and kept locked away from society. You want to grow an Adam Lanza? That's how you do it.

Thanks for the advice. I do generally see things progressing (albeit incredible slowly) in terms of his self control and also knowledge of what behaviour is appropriate.
We do ok with the grocery store after lots and lots and lots of behaviour training with it. It helps now that he has to hold hands with his little sister. That's one hand that's not skimming along glass bottles and poking all the fish and meat. Lol. And the other hand I have him hold onto the cart. It is working more and more. Sometimes we get the random dash towards something irresistible.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

Wait until it your little darling who is CONSTANTLY groped by a classmate with a disability who can't yet help him/herself.

My eldest presently has a classmate with autism and Tourette's. "C" calls my girl vile names an average of 27x per day (his para thoughtfully keeps track). My girl is civil to C because she's required to be (and because it stops the world from descending into anarchy) but has zero desire to see him outside of school. Small town, one school, one third grade class, so, no, they can't be separated until high school.

I regularly get heartbreaking calls from C's mom, inquiring why my girl is nice to him at school but declines all play dates with him. I won't and, well, CANNOT make my girl like him. I also can't blame her for not wanting C to be given the opportunity (it's an involuntary verbal tick, thus not bullying) to call her "Fatty Patty, Fatty Patty, you are so #%^ fat!" evenings and weekends.

So this child, "C" should be kept at home? Not allowed to attend school? Thanks for hijacking my thread, but no thanks- I don't want to continue this particular vein of discussion.

The point isn't that ac should be kept at home. The point is that your little space invader is likely alienating, probably permanently, rather a lot of mankind. M

The point was that what you see as a sweet boy with some challenges is handsy grouper to everybody else.

She already knows it's a problem, duh. See how the title says, "How To Help..."?
Too bad you didn't offer any help. Are you trolling?

I don't want to get too far away from the original question, but I do want to comment on one thing:

You cannot MAKE your daughter like him. But you can help her understand that she dislikes him for something that he cannot help, and you can help her learn to be more accepting. My son has transient tic syndrome, so while he does not have vocal tics (yet), he does totally get the whole idea of tics. This is the way he describes it "it's like having a mosquito bite that itches. You can ignore it for a long time, but that doesn't make it stop itching. In fact, the harder you try to ignore it, the more it itches, and the more uncomfortable you become. So, you just have to itch it." I believe your daughter can learn to ignore it and not pay attention to what he is saying. It may not be easy, but if you could help her to understand, she might be able to psychologically distance herself from it. The kid wants playdates with her, obviously he likes her. If at the end of the day, she takes the tics out of the equation, and she still doesn't like him, then let it be. But if she doesn't like him simply because of his tics, and she is not taught that you need to look beyond disability, then I think she is missing a valuable teachable moment. I am grateful to every single parent who has ever encouraged their kids to look past my kids' quirks so that they can have friends. He won't have this particular tic forever and your daughter could be missing out on a great friend for a superficial/fleeting issue. If this is coming of as judgmental or preachy, I apologize. I have edited many times to try to make it not feel that way. I totally get why your daughter would not want to play with him. But I do think this is an awesome opportunity for her to learn about acceptance (truly embracing someone's differences) instead of simple tolerance (just putting up with them).

Back to the space invader. My son was intrusive and had poor impulse control at that age. It was very sad, because other kids in his class generally liked him, but they could only handle him in measured doses. What made a huge difference for him is when he started to notice people's reactions to his behaviors. Before he noticed their reactions, he lived in complete oblivion. When he started realizing that kids were physically moving away from him, it was at first heartbreaking. Because he was becoming aware that people saw interacting with him as a negative, but he had no idea why and no impulse control. For him, the turning point was when he was put on stimulant meds at the age of 7. This simultaneously increased his impulse control and improved his focus for learning appropriate interaction skills. I am not saying your son needs to go on meds, or that meds are the only way to help it. I'm saying that noting reactions made the difference. The problem is that most adults will mask their displeasure and smile, which is perceived as an act of approval. Maybe you could coach people you know well to respond in a negative;/exaggerated manner to his touches?

Two thoughts - I remember when DS was very, very little, we had this issue with one of our dogs, who had black fur but brown, extremely expressive eyebrows. DS (and, frankly, most babies we had in the house...it is clearly part of a "normal" developmental stage at some point) COULD NOT resist touching the dog's eyebrows whenever they moved. Fortunately, the dog was incredibly tolerant, even to being poked in the eye the times when we didn't get there quickly enough.

I can't really explain this behavior, but I think maybe it had to do with BOTH the movement and a desire to explore the mechanics of it and also some kind of understanding that there is something being communicated by facial movement.

I don't know if it will help or not, but maybe some social stories/videos about facial expression and body language will help redirect this behavior? It seems kind of like you've got a little scientist there and you are preventing him from making a thorough investigation (does that seem to ring true for you?) - if so, you may be able to help him by using other tools like videos.

I think it is OK to physically pick up and hold a child for a bit if they can't learn to respect another person's body and space, in the same way that I would think it is OK to restrain your child from opening the car door if the car is moving, or I would stop a child from stealing candy at the grocery store - matter-of-factly physically stopping them.

That will mean more hands-on time with your son (you may need extra help with your daughter as you sort this out,) but it also does not mean that he should be isolated, in the same way that you wouldn't stop taking a kid who opens the car door out for trips in the car. It may also mean meltdowns, but at a certain point that rule - respecting other people - has to take precedence over his immediate ability to understand.

We have issues with our very tactile child, also. I think having a competent one-on-one aide who can spot triggers and can intercede would be a big help. I wish we had that instead of the incompetent, bus-driver person they had assigned to the class on a part-time basis while my son was son was in PS. I think the line has to be that you can't touch people just because you want to --- scaffolded with someone being there to prevent it when the impulse control thing doesn't work (which in the beginning is about 100% of the time.

At home we are not as restrictive obviously and allow more physical contact than we might normally prefer. There are certain things that we enforce--like not yanking or smooshing too hard, but that is an iterative process.

We have yet to find a sensory replacement, as he seems to need an actual person. (we don't have a pet--so it might be a living thing and not a person thing, but I have no way to test that--nor would that be fair to the pet, anyway.) Sometimes letting him touch a variety of things from his tactile sensory box helps minimize touching things in stores, but we have not had success figuring out the deal with the idiosyncratic snuggling.

Some of it is brought on by intrusive thoughts and stress, so it is clearly a calming thing, but there appears at this time to be no better substitute.