Autism Support Group

My son is 4 refuses to be potty trained. We do not know what or how to fix the issue. It grosses me out and I work 60+ hrs a week. My husband works 40 hrs a week and nights so we do not pay for child care. So we do what we have to it is so but its not only hard to deal with a child who is autistic but also who acts out. any advise please tahnks

First of all, your son is not acting out. If your son was a "typical" child I would feel differently. Your son is most likely curious and maybe even impressed that HE created it. He's probably very curious about the whole "mystery" of poop. In his mind he may be thinking he created it, it came out of him, why shouldn't he be able to check it out? Plus there's the whole texture thing. Autistic kids are totally fascinated by textures. That's most likely the "why" part of it.

As far as what to do about it, you could try several different things. I would avoid getting upset or punishing him about it because like I said earlier, I doubt he's doing it to "act out". Punishing him would only confuse him. I would suggest a social story first. You can make a social story with pictures you take yourself or a scripted one online. The pictures can be simple, a picture of your son dressed, a picture of him getting cleaned up after he goes poop. A picture of the garbage can you dispose of the dirty diaper, or a picture of the toilet where you flush it away. You show him pictures of cartoon kids that look sick from "germs", pictures of cartoon kids smelling something stinky etc. It can look anyway you want it to look, in a way you know your child would understand. You can help your son with the texture craving by letting him play with things with a similar texture. Things like playdough, or silly putty. You can even make playdough that is eatable if you worry about your son putting playdough in his mouth.