What can be done to help an autistic child control angry outbursts?

Answer 1

Our Son has Autism as well. He was so out of control until he was around 8 yrs, that we thought he was never going to adapt in any setting or with his own peers. After years of working with him in social settings, occupational therapy,counseling, and so on we realized that these alone or together was not going to work for him. We didn't want him on medication. Not just because of the bad press it receives, but because he had a reaction to a drug they gave to him at birth when he was having a seizure. He almost died from the reaction. After that, we were afraid to have him take medications. As he got older, it just became to heartbreaking watching how the other kids had nothing to do with him. He was hyper at times, so I looked into his diet. I found that he cannot have anything with red dye or #5 yellow dye. Read labels, it is amazing how many foods, especially drinks have these in it! Also,things weren't good with his peers. He never understood how to have a conversation with others. We tried believe me. When he did decide to talk, his conversations we always things that were exaggerated or so far from reality that other kids just could not relate to him. That is when we knew that we were doing him no justice by at least not trying medication. If he even had a chance, how could we deny him that? We agreed to try him on medication. It took a few, but we found one that helped. Concerta. His Neurologist prescribes it for him because the dosage is high. He now is in the 7th grade in a Catholic school. Although he still needs his down time, he is socializing 110% better with his peers. He has a girlfriend. We receive compliments all of the time about how kind and considerate he is to others. I am not saying that he no longer has Autism. He does. He now is on the High Functioning end, where as before we really thought he would be in Learning Disability classes the rest of his life. Please e-mail me if you would like to talk. Good Luck

Answer 2

First off, are you sure that the outbursts are a symptom of anger? Many children with autism are not actually having an outburst that is caused by anger, but by some sensory need that is not being met. The child should be evaluated by an occupational therapist to see what the specific triggers are. Children with autism tend to resist change, so transitions (getting the child from one place or activity to another) can be particularly stressful for the child. You need to consider whether or not the child needs some kind of sensory input to help them calm down. Do they crave deep pressure? Perhaps a firm massage before asking them to transition could help. Without the chance to observe this child's particular reactions and behaviors, it is hard to recommend solutions. Try your best to anticipate the things that will make the child agitated.

Answer 3

Does this child have an occupational therapist? It's most important to know what the issue is that created the angry outburst in the first place. Was a food offered that was revolting because of texture/smell/taste? Are there itchy tags or seams in his clothing? Is the noise level too loud or overhead lights? Was there a sudden change in schedule or a deviation from what is normally done every day? In order to control a behavior you have to know what has caused it and solve that. OT's are in my opinion the most necessary (after parents) component in the care of an autistic child.

Answer 4

By doing a functional behavioral analysis. Part of the problem is finding out what is causing the outbust. Document each time it happens. There might be an anticedent you are not seeing and a pattern you are not seeing until you document this. It could just be plain old frustration. Are they non-verbal autistic. If so, you may want to get them a simple communication board that has things like, hungry, happy, sad, bathroom pictures on it they could use to tell you what they need. You may also want to teach them a few signs such as hungry, more, thirsty, bathroom to help them communicate. If you find out is something environmental you must remove the thing that is causing the outburst. If they are higher functioning you may want to put them on a behavior management plan. You must find out the problem, teach them the appropriate behavior for the problem, and reward the appropriate behavior. When they finally get the appropriate behavior down, you must slowly wean the reward and make the new behavior part of them. Hope this helps. It would help us if we knew more about the problem and his funcitoning level.

Answer 5

The anger is out of frustration. They want something and can not communicate the need. Something is upsetting them. This could be anything from a smell to what color someone has on.They could be hot, cold, hungry, need to go to the bathroom. It could also be stress. My son has Asperger Syndrome and from the time he was months old until he got out of school he would rage regularly. The stress was too much for him. Kids teased him. His clothes weren't the right texture. Name it and it could set him off. Once a leaf blew past the window and he became terribly upset because it interrupted him while he was watching a cartoon. When the child is angry, if the child is small enough sit with the child. Put one of your legs over his/hers and wrap your arms around them and squeeze. Hold them like that until they calm. Don't squeeze very tight just enough to make them feel safe.

Answer 6

Have you looked at the child's diet?

Many parents of autistic children have claimed that cutting out refined surgar and "white bread" type carbs have dramatically improved the behaviors of their children. However, no studies have been completed as of yet to support this.

There is a Parents of Autistic Children support organization: http://www.poac.net/

And searching on "autism" and "angry outbursts" may lead you to more information.

Answer 7

If your child has been identified with autism, then he should be served by both the public schools and an agency acting on behalf of your state's Department of Developmental Services (usually referred to as a Regional Center). There are two different paths you need to follow here, but they converge, presuming this is a school-aged child (you didn't say.)

1. Start with the public schools for school-aged children because that's where he is all day. If the outbursts are occurring at school, too, they are disrupting the learning environment and preventing your child from benefiting from his educational opportunities. Request a Functional Analysis Assessment be performed by a qualified behavior specialist so that the IEP team can develop a Positive Behavioral Intervention Plan for your child.

The purpose of the assessment is to devine the ABC's of behavior: Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence. The antecedent is the trigger - the thing that consistently sets him off. You have to figure out why the behavior is occurring.

Inappropriate behaviors don't happen without a good reason. The only reason any person has for engaging in any kind of behavior is that it is the most successful "tool" in their "toolbox" of coping skills. That doesn't mean it's a great tool; it just means that's the best thing they've got to work with. So, you've got to figure out why your child thinks this particular "tool" is necessary to achieve whatever it is he's trying to achieve. The first place to start is identifying what is consistently going on when the behavior happens. That's the "why" question.

Then you identify the specific targeted behaviors that consistently come up. You usually pretty much already know that going in or you wouldn't be doing an FAA.

Then you identify the consequences the child is able to achieve with the inappropriate behavior. What is it getting for him? What is he trying to accomplish by acting that way? A great many behavioral problems in children with disabilities result from diminished communicative abilities. They can't get the words out to express their needs or feelings and that makes them frustrated, so they blow up.

It could be that there is something in the environment that is irritating to him to such a degree as to cause extreme discomfort. This could be sensory in nature and could be something that most people wouldn't even notice. Children with autism can by hypersensitive to certain types of environmental stimuli that vary from child to child.

You've got to figure all of that out, first, before you can decide what to do about it. Some people take particular issue with ABA programs, but specifically for behavioral intervention, I've not seen anything that is more structured, predictable, and consistently successful than ABA, so long as it's done right.

2. If your child is a pre-schooler then you would start with your Regional Center. Otherwise, if your child is in school, you would invite your Regional Center caseworker to the IEP meeting during which the FAA results are discussed and the Positive Behavior Intervention Plan is created so that he/she is familiar with the findings and the team's decision as to what to do about it.

Consistency is the key and you want Regional Center to know what is happening at school because your next step is to ask for a behavior program at home funded by Regional Center. But, the behavioral approaches used at home have to be consistent with what is being done at school, so interagency communication and collaboration will become critically important here.

Regional Center will like outsource the behavior program to a private contractor who is qualified to deliver that type of program. You will need to make sure you've signed releases so that the home/community behavior specialists can communicate with the behaviorists and special ed staff working with your child at school to develop a consistent program across all environments.

If you don't have consistency across all environments, what your child will learn is how to be really manipulative. If he can get away with inappropriate behavior in one setting and not in another, he could fail to truly acquire the positive replacement behavior and the only message he'll get out of the whole experience is that he has the power to freak certain people out, which isn't in his long-term best interests or anyone else's.

The other part of this is parent training. It doesn't matter what all the specialists do if, after having done it, they leave you and your child to your own devices and you become the one he learns he can freak out by throwing a tantrum. You will become his puppet and the outbursts will be his way of controlling you. That's just wrong and doesn't benefit anyone. Your child will not be able to appreciate how much he is hurting himself by doing that, much less see things from your perspective, so you have to own the situation and know just as much about how to handle these behaviors as any specialist working with your child. Parent training can be made part of your child's IEP as well as your Regional Center service plan.

Good luck!!!!!

Answer 8

Sitting the child down, and talking to him/her. Also, give them something to attract their attention from the outburst, such as computer game or a doll.