WHY does he do this ? Please help me get this.

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Does he understand you?

Try redirecting his stims to something that doesn't interfere. Sometimes I have problematic stims to every time I notice I change it to hand tapping or leg shaking.

As for his verbal stimming, I can understand your annoyance. My brother, although not affected enough to be diagnosable, has some traits and does verbal stims that put me on edge. But I have to remind myself that just like I don't care my leg shakes, he doesn't care or notice he's humming either. Try explaining to him how it makes you feel. Autistic people might seem to lack empathy, but they often have more empathy than expected. He just has to understand it annoys you. Try maybe asking him to do it in his room. I'm very sensitive to others feelings but only when i know them and usually I can't do that from their body language so they have to tell me.

Remember that since you're NT, a lot of things won't make sense to you and never will but you have to accept them. Just because someone likes verbally stimming does not mean they will like talking. I shake my leg but I don't like soccer. I tap my fingers but I'm not a musician. You might tap your pen but you don't write novels. That might be taking the comparison to an extreme but perhaps you understand what I'm getting at.

Well, I don't think there's one particular thing to do...no panacea. I was in social skills groups and therapy since I was 4 years old but I did still talk mainly to myself (I recited my favourite stories that I memorized while walking in circles and things like that) when I was a child. As I got older I became more socially aware and conversed with my mom in a more reciprocal way. Grade 11, when I was 16, was the year I made my first real friend and I think I became a lot more socially aware at that age.

I think you should try the verbal program at home to help develop his language and then just keep going with what you're doing. If you read on this forum a lot of people with ASD do improve language and social communication a lot as they get older so he might just get better with time.

Also just keep being kind and accepting and loving toward your son and he'll feel it even if he doesn't show that he does and doesn't interact with you much. Again, he might do so more when he's older and in any case I think he can still sense your love and good intentions ect.

Thanks for filling me in on his age and about visual stimming; Mom and Nonames.

You are working very hard to help your son and it sounds as if you are using various approaches; some successfully. So with these in mind; my suggestion might interfere with the approaches you have in place. And my apologies for making a suggestion that is drastic.

AND from another topic:
-momsparky
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5014401 ... t=#5014401

Although you say your son is "yogi" and is indifferent if you refuse to give him anything; I assume that there would be some absolute limit to that.

When he is at school and/or asleep; start removing objects from your home environment. Start with his favorite visual stim objects and proceed until you have stripped the environment so that it has become as sterile as a house being staged for sale (removal of all clutter until only a few objects of furniture remain).

Perhaps this will induce him to use one of those appropriate words in request of a specific object. You will, of course produce the object graciously once he voices the word for it.

This sounds draconian, but if he feels a need for language perhaps he will use it.

Some individuals actually DO have problems processing verbal speech. Autism is neurological. Just like epyleptics can't "not have seizures" if they choose to, some autistics cannot VERBALIZE well. He may be able to do so under distress, but you must understand distress IS a motivating force to give it your all. He may not be as able to do so as you think.

To be honest I Have been in similar positions myself. Being told I can do it when I choose to, why not do it all the time? It does not work that way. Trust me.

That's the age when I started talking. Well, really actually with 4.

He reminds me a bit on myself.
I didn't talked until I was 3 and there just view words, and one sentence. This sentence in perfect grammar. My parents asumed I could talk, did everything, but nothing. With 4 I started talking, slowely. Now I talk "normal", but under stress I can become mutistic.

For the outside it seemed that at one point I could talk, but didn't wanted to, but that's not true at all.

It is hard to explain, but it was more like sometimes the words were comming out of my mouth, when there was no other option and I really had to and it usually took my a lot of strengh to say one word.
I watched others how they are talking and I noticed, they move their lips. So I tryed my lips to get moving. I toled them to move, but they didn't. For me it was highly frustrating. But sometimes I got my lips to get moving to say something, but no sound. Were is the sound?
Now I don't have this anymore, but under stress or when I'm anxious I'm still like this little child not knowing how my lips are moving.
I never used gestures to replace my silents. Usually not even today.
Now I think when I was this age that it was some autistic-mutistic thing going on.

My parents also talked in front of me, that I propably don't want to talk and so on.
But in the inside I was screaming: "I want to, but I can't", but my lips weren't moving and I just sat there in silence. This scene was shocking for me and I remember it until today.

Of course I can't tell if your son starts talking and when, but just because he says some words occationally doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk.

How do you know it's "won't" rather than "can't"?

Talking is one of the most complex systems, that's why animals usually don't talk.
Dogs can bark, but don't talk, parrots can talk, but have very limited abiliy to understand what they say and monkeys can't talk, but understand many words. Monkeys can also learn to comunicate through cards.

When you want to say one word. Your mind has to process this information and find the right word, than it has to activate your muscles around your mouth, your lips has to move in the right way, you also need to make the right sound and everything combined. You also need to be able to say this word than when you want (doesn't work in mutism) and so on.

This system is highly complex and so it is possible that it just works sometimes or the ability of the "active vocabulary" (talking) is distored, but not of the "passive" (listening) and so on.

Last edited by Raziel on 17 Jan 2013, 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

My point exactly! A lot of people confuse displays of a skill as the ability to harness it all the time. I'm sorry but babbling and talking "sometimes" and not others does not mean he is Opting to do or not do. That is a very narrow-minded outlook.

I am very verbose but that does not mean I possess the ability to be as articulate out loud. I am actually a very lousy conversationalist, have poor eye contact and have problems following conversations. Sometimes I can follow well sometimes I can't and by no means do I willingly opt to "stop" being responsive. Autism is not a switch you can turn off and on. Think of a tv with a short. Given the right wiggle it will turn on but otherwise it stays shut. Think of anger as the right wiggle for your son's ability to speak OP. that is the answer as to why as clearly as I can give it.

Does he understand that the purpose of speech is for communication?

I didn't. I had a few single words when I was two but I didn't really talk until I was about 4, and then it was just to narrate what I was doing ("I'm putting peas on my fork now, I'm taking them to my mouth. I'm going to eat the peas. I've eaten the peas, now I think I'll have some meat..." etc.). I did that for about 6 months and then shut up again. I think I didn't understand the purpose of speech. I didn't really start speaking properly until I was at school and even then I remained very quiet unless I HAD to speak (I am still the same - I don't speak unless I absolutely have to. And sometimes when I have to, I am so stressed that I actually CAN'T speak!! !).

Making sounds and actually talking are two different things - sounds are a random thing, whereas speech is structured, purposeful and meaningful.

Therefore, you cannot be certain if he really can (but simply doesn't want to) speak

According to my therapist I am a bit deeper into the spectrum then most, so maybe I can help you to understand your son.



You are physically able to clean your house all day, I know that you can do that if you want to and see a benefit from it. But it seems pretty obvious to me, that you choose not to do so, if its not necessary because its enduring and absolute no fun. ^^

Now imagine I was your husband talking: "Based on the advise of an intelligent young man her, i tried to use flash hygiene stuff with him, to teach my wife to clean more often. A real nice, glittering vacuum cleaner with pink ponies on it, thinking it would attract her attention. But wrong, she actually looks away. And if I follow her direction in which my wife turns her face, and flash the wonderful glittering pink pony vacuum cleaner before her, she gets angry at me? I have tried glass-jeweled wet-ex and a toilet-brush with flowers on it, nononono.... And if I persist, she just closes her eyes, because she knows I wont force her eyes open to make her look at those dang pretty cleaning stuff.

I am going NUTS. When she start to clean something on her own from time to time, I get upset and frustrated. If she could NOT clean, that is different. BUT, she can clean, but just chooses not to. "



Before you get me wrong, I dont want to get you upset. But as long as you are not understanding what the problem is, as long you are not able to work on it. The example I made would be a perfect one for me. I do not like doing housework, its boring, its stupid, its enduring, it costs time and so on... I think mostly you will understand this part. So why are we all doing this regularly: Because the mis-advantage of doing housework is much worse then the mis-advantage of doing no housework. So we accept, that we must do this from time to time. This acception changes nothing, that for most people it is no fun, and never will be fund and none of will ever think in his own life: "Hm, i´ve got some time left to do things that are fun to me.... oh, lets clean the windows, that so much fun!"

That means, that if speaking is no fun for him, as it isnt for me in most situations, he wont ever talk without a need to do so. It is enduring, it is complicated, it is hard... and just like you either, he wont do enduring, complicated, hard things out of fun. Thats pretty normal for all humans.

So if he is already understanding you, then let him see, that you understand his situation and that you dont want to force him to talk out of fun. Try to find situations where speaking really helps him and the misadvantage of not speaking would be greater than the misadvantage of speaking. If someone forces you to do something terrible, when there is actually no need to do so, you would say, the person wants to torture you for fun. If someone forces you to do something terrible, to prevent something more terribble, then the person is helping you.

You have to find this situations, where your son yourself thinks that he would benefit from talking. So he has motivation on his own, to practice. And dont overdo it. So i can talk, and I do if i must or would have a great misadvantage from not talking. Still I avoid talking situations as much as I can, because the one hour talking without need in the morning, means for example being endured and tired in the afternoon. And when I come into an situation in the afternoon, where I have a great misadvantage out of not talking or that leads me to a melt down, because I have wasted all my energy in the morning without use, then I will regret it. I have limited energy, so I have to save my energy, so I have some, when I get into a situation where I really need to talk. For example: When I get into my company in the morning, I try to sneak into my office, avoiding others, because the torture of greeting everyone would leave me confused for about half an hour. Advantage: None. Misadvantage: Have to stay half an hour longer in company. So you have to find out, how complicated it is for him to talk, to now how great his benefit has to be, that he is himself interested in talking. If its not that hard cookies may be enough. XD



The problem is, if he stims that much, then he is under stress. If from school or whatever, I dont know. But somethings really making him weird in his head, so he need to stim, to calm down himself. The problem is, as long as he is confused, teaching him something want have a big effect. Its like if you receive the information of a close relative having died in the morning, and in the afternoon I want to train you speaking french. -.- Wont work. As long as he cannot concentrate on outside things going on, because he is still stressed, he cannot concentrate on you trying to teach him to.

And as other have mentioned, talking is for you so normal, that there could be a problem for him, he maybe doesnt even know. So I know of a HFA who just had the problem that noone told him that he needs to move his mouth in different ways to get different noises out of it. So NTs are so focused on looking into each others face, that this is something everyone explors on his own. But if a face is a meaningless nonsense for you, you dont focus on it, so it can happen to you, that you dont understand the link between different mouth motions and different noises coming out.

And I dont know, if it makes the situations better for you, but as you can see, having problem to talk doesnt mean that person dont want to communicate generally. Maybe writing will be more easy for him.

HisMom, you made a very difficult, but good question, which in a sense is in the very core of autism. Therefore I wanted to share few thoughts.

The difficulty to “reach” an autistic child isn't in my opinion solely a question of language. I have normal verbal abilities, but still I am in a sense the same “yogi” I was at the age of your son.

What if you’d start to approach “the issue” with your son from the perspective of interaction instead of language. Try to create happy nonverbal interaction between the two of you – e.g. try to get him to throw a ball with you, interact in a tickling game, ride a horse in your lap, clap hands, play an instrument, "sing" a song or make a puzzle with you. In those situations talk to him like you would talk to an abled child, casually, interactively, but without any pushing or pressure to answer. Try not to think it as a learning situation, but as time with your son – as interaction (whether he is doing "the thing" or not).

I understand that it must be mentally very difficult for parents, when a child in a sense “rejects” you. I can sense this puzzlement in the stories my mum tells of my childhood. But I can assure you, I don’t reject a person, you in you, as I turn my face away like you’d automatically pull a hand from a burning hotplate. It is hard for me to understand why it is so - I am as puzzled. But I think it is this emotional bond and interaction you should try to build with your son.

It is a high wall to climb, but on both sides you are working as hard. I know I’d appreciate the effort.

HisMom, have you tried to stim with him while he stims? Use one of the things he likes to stim with yet not the one he's using at the time and stim along with him. It may help bring you into his world.

My gf and i used to do a bikedrive for needy children. A lady who had 5 foster kids was over, one of the children had low functioning Autism.
He could ride with training wheels, and would constantly stop to touch the grass. Yet he rarely spoke. I rode with him, stopped next to him, and touched the grass as much as he did and he spoke to me. The foster mother was so surprised since he rarely speaks (and he doesn't know me). Yet i brought myself into his "world" in a way by stimming with him. Maybe it made him feel comfy enough to speak to me

There was a study that showed that when parents do this ...engage in "joining"...just stimming with their children , the children tend to improve in eye contact and social responsiveness. Johnathan Alderson who is an expert in autism and wrote a book about it was talking about this at a talk he gave in Chapters in Toronto, where I live. He said that ABA is talked about as the only treatment that's proven to work.....but there is evidence that other techniques like this work.....they just haven't been researched as extensively.

Also this would be an easy thing to try......just pick up one of his toys and copy his visual stims.

Cool!

Do you have this study?