Seeking or Avoidance?
One of the biggest revelations I had as a mother of an autistic child is that there is that in every situation, there is a reason behind what Gabriel does. It may be difficult to pinpoint it at the time, but given diligence, it can be found. When I realized that, I discovered that aberrant, unwanted behavior could be much easier dealt with if I first discovered the why behind it.
The "why" in nearly every case falls into one of two categories: sensory seeking, or sensory avoiding.
To put it in simpler terms, either Gabriel is experiencing something that he finds unpleasant and would very much like to get away from; or else, he finds the sensation enjoyable, as it is fulfilling him in someway, and he is trying to get more of it.
For example, Gabriel kept sticking his head in any source of water that he could find--dog water bowls, kiddie swimming pools, and even toilet bowls were a temptation for him. After a few moments of dripping confusion, our "a-ha!" moment arrived. We keep our family home much cooler to accommodate Gabe's sensitivity to heat; when we were out and about, in houses that idled much warmer than we were accustomed to, he would seek what was (to him) a sensical and rational way to cool himself off.
In another case, Gabe suffered from a common issue amongst his autistic peers--pica, the consumption of non-food items. It confounded me why he would actively seek to eat chalk and cardboard when good, preferred foods were offered. With the help of my then-OT, I came to the conclusion that he was not eating these things out of hunger, but out of a need for a specific sensory input that chalk and cardboard could fulfill, but (say) yogurt or dry cereal could not.
I will warn you: it won't always be clear cut and easy to decode that convoluted reasoning.
Gabriel started leaving the house. He would run out the front door and down the alley before we could get across the room to catch him, running for all he is worth trying to get as far as possible, as quickly as possible before we could catch him. Locked doors were no deterrent when, through observation, he rapidly discovered their trick; physical barriers had to be mighty indeed for him to be unable to push them away with his not inconsiderable strength.
At first, we thought: Obviously, this is avoidance. Something he is experiencing inside the house is bothering him to the point of escape.
In this case, the important factor that we did not consider as a related matter--that we had recently had a trampoline installed in our backyard--was his reasoning; I just didn't connect the two events. He was running out the front door, not the back, so his physically moving away from the desired object threw me off track. In the end, he was not trying to get AWAY from something, but TO something--his toy, his trampoline.
Another time we struggled: for months at a time, every day Gabriel would get into his diaper and smear his feces. All over everything--my house, my walls, his toys, his person. To a neurotypical adult, this was beyond incomprehensible. I would actively go out of my way to avoid such a unsettling substance to be on my hands, face, and surroundings.
It was revolting, embarrassing, disheartening, depressing, and further proof that my son was abnormal. I could scarcely imagine anything being more horrifying than that time, that disturbing habit that he got into (oh, how soon he topped himself of even that).
Now getting rather confident with figuring out these little oddities' causes, my first instinct was to assume that he was seeking some sensation from his action that he was not getting through normal day activities. My mind poured over the different properties of his excrement, trying to single out the one (to him) pleasing attribute.
Of course, I was completely on the wrong trail. This was not seeking behavior; it was avoiding.
One very distinct characteristic of poop is its pungent smell and ready availability, making it an ideal camouflage to mask the apparently untenable smell of my plug-in air fresheners.
That is part of what makes this process so hard. To us, a floral-scented plug in might be cloying at worst, but we would hardly go through the extravagant lengths that Gabriel did to get away. Being too hot is uncomfortable, but not bad enough to illicit a toilet-bowl head wash.
To him, though, it is akin to pain, and he will do anything to make it stop.
If it is seeking, his body is actually telling him that he needs this thing to survive, like hunger pangs when he needs sustenance. From previous experience, he knows that jumping up and down on the trampoline will help calm his raging, rampant body to a state where he can finally relax, a talent we often take for granted. His pica was a physical need in his mouth to experience the sensation of crunchy and chewy--while you or I would reach for carrots or toffee, he sees that cardboard book or sidewalk chalk as what he physically needs to make himself feel all right.
Why bother with all of this?
If you find the reason, you can more easily correct the behavior. Addressing the behavior and not the underlying cause is a stop-gap at best, training you to predict and prevent rather than ending the undesired action of your child.
With the story before of Gabe's fecal-play, Michael and I became masters at making it more difficult for him to achieve his goal. Beneath his clothes, he wore a wrestling singlet, similar in construct and material to a one-piece swimsuit. Upon arrival at our home, he would be changed and promptly dressed in footed pajamas that had the feet removed, worn backwards so he could not simply unzip without considerable contortion.
It helped the problem, for a while, but the moment he was out of our sight or if we got lax with putting on his deterrent gear, he would be back at it, distressing us to the point of desperation.
The behavior cannot be corrected without the reason--punishing and redirecting cannot fulfill that need for avoidance or seeking that caused the action in the first place.
In each of these situations, Gabe's motivation was the insight that allowed us to fix the behavior permanently.
For sticking his head in water when he was too hot, we preemptively asked hosts to turn down the thermostat a couple of degrees or have a fan going in the room Gabriel would spend most time in. Almost every person spoke to was agreeable, but for those that were unable or unwilling to for one reason or another, we made sure Gabe would be there for only short bursts, wore loose, comfortable, cool clothing like swimwear shirts and lightweight shorts, and when he started to get red in the face, we would take him to the car to let the air conditioner blast him.
With the pica, we did much experimentation to figure out what food could give him the sensation of eating something similar to chalk or cardboard. I don't recommend starting out looking at healthy foods--get him to eat something that is actually acceptable for him to eat, and worry about widening his horizons later. He loved the never-ending chew-chew-chew of the cardboard, so fruit- and meat- jerkies became very good stand-ins, as well as Twizzler candies that had been allowed to dry out beyond the point of (typical) human consumption. The chalk had that incredibly satisfying resistance with the initial bite, which a lot of firmly cooked meats and vegetables are able to imitate.
For the escaping trampolinist, a picture hanging where he could request time outside as well as scheduled allotments for jumping allowed him to feel more secure and less desperate for it. The fecal play, which for nearly a year tormented me, was remedied by simply swapping out the hibiscus plug-in for one that smelled like campfire.
Your life shouldn't be lived as a compromise to your child. They are wonderful and they are such such blessings, but they can't be everything--you are training them every day to go out on their own and leave you, live without you. Teaching them that the world will conform to their needs and wants is a disservice to them as well as to yourself. Instilling the ability to identify triggers and self-regulate, however, is a skill that could benefit every child, autistic or not.
So, find out why he does those peculiar little things that irk you so. Help him, guide him toward ways to get what he needs, let him know that even without words, you can hear him, and together, you can make it back to okay.
