How deal with aggression & more?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
How deal with aggression & more?
3
Sun, 08-05-2007 - 1:50pm

I'm so frustrated. Owen (age 6.5 AS) is getting to be a big boy now so is getting stronger and heavier. He seems to be having more episodes of aggression, specifically squeezing the heck out of his little sister when she bothers him or even hitting her. This is happening when he is feeling extreme aggitation, frustration or hyper-silliness. He also bites his shirt like crazy when in these moods and even bit me this week. *sigh* I don't know what to do! Obviously, I stop the behaviour, have him apologise and try to talk through not doing that but this keeps happening.

We didn't do ABA or much OT since his dx and are doing a social skills group in the fall. Does ABA or OT address these behaviours? Anything else that worked for you? Any and all suggestions are welcome.

THanks,
Pam

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-2006
Sun, 08-05-2007 - 3:30pm

Hi Pam, First I am no expert in this whole thing but I plan to get my kids into some play therapy to help them adjust to their dx-s, one being ASD and another Tourettes.

Right now they are on Risperdal for the rages, but I'm hoping that with the play therapy, eventually we can take them off the medication. This is just my own personal feelings about this tho, and other's may come in with some other helpful information.

Good luck :)

Lainie

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-13-2006
Sun, 08-05-2007 - 11:03pm

Pam,

No great advise here, only tons of hugs and empathy. As Lainie knows from another post, my DS (8, AS) has been raging out of control lately. It's to the point where I can't leave him alone in the room with any of his siblings. He has NO impulse control and very low frustration tolerance. We have been struggling with the question of medication for some time now, and have finally come to realize that we need to do *something*. He is currently in a social skills summer program. The teachers say he's absorbing information and learning coping strategies and techniques, however he is unable to access that information in a state of agitation. DH and I are thinking that some type of medication will give him that "moment of pause" in order to recognize when he's angry, take a step back and use those strategies he is learning.

This is such a hard thing to deal with. I keep reminding myself that DS isn't aggressive because he wants to be... he is not yet able to handle his emotions or control his body's response. Social skills training has helped to give him the vocabulary and the techniques. Now we need to find a way to make that connection when he needs it most.

Melissa

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-07-2003
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 10:09am

I don't know 'cus I'm in the same boat. The therapist did suggest this past week that we look at ADD medication for ds. Not only is it supposed to help ds focus better, but it's also supposed to help with impulse control (which I hope includes impulse control when he's upset). I've got an appt with the developmental pediatrician, but that's not until December! I'm thinking of trying to convince our regular ped to prescribe something before then.

Over the past couple of months the therapist has also been trying to work with ds on utilizing "calming down techniques." So far we've had a hard time getting ds to remember to implement the techniques, though. What we did was create a chart of ideas that ds came up with that he could try to do when he was mad instead of yelling or injuring people. He included things like "collect leaves, hit a pillow, read a book, etc." We printed out the chart of ideas. After he tried an idea, he was to put a check-mark that he'd tried it. At the end, he crossed of the ideas that didn't work and added some new ones to try.

Later, we added some monetary incentive for attempting to utilize a calming down technique. I was allowed to remind him of his chart. We've had nominal success with adding financial incentive.