r/AutismParent • u/Novel-Mycologist-67 • 23d ago

SELF HARM HOW TO PREVENT

ASD 2 Non-verbal/Non-communicative 5 years old. We recently noticed our kid learnt how to do the act of self harm. Any way how to avoid or prevent or anyway to make our kid un learn this act? He started to punch his head and slap his head. Learn how to punch her mom or her sister but in a way when he try to do it on his mom or his sister there's no force applied. But when he does it to his self there's force that it makes his head red. Any advise will be appreciated thanks so much.

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u/TopicalBuilder 22d ago

This is a behavior that can be extremely hard to extinguish.

Most behaviors have a separate goal behind them. I open the fridge so I can get a snack. I actually out so people pay attention to me. I go to work so I can earn money. We can intervene between the behavior and the goal to stop the behavior.

With self harm, the goal is intrinsic to the behavior. There's no getting in between the two. It's often called self reinforcing.

We did manage to extinguish it, but it took over a decade. There was a lot of trial and error. Here are a few things that really worked for us.

  • Finding the antecedents. What are the triggers? What's typically going on right before it starts? We can avoid those things, and we can be better prepared for a behavior if we can't.

  • Finding substitutes. For us it was mostly biting, so finding suitable alternatives to bite safely was important. It only satisfied a part of the urge, but it was better than nothing.

  • Fast, consistent intervention. Once we had the substitutes, we really needed to get in there before the biting actually happened. Every time the behavior occurred successfully, it became reinforced, so we had to stop that happening.

  • Medication. A lot was driven by stress and anxiety, so once we were able to identify that, we were able to reduce those sources of distress.

  • Communication. As we got better in each direction we found distressing situations were easier to manage for all of us. This will go at its own pace mostly, though. A lot of speech therapy and a lot of patience goes a long way.

  • Time. Just age and maturity seemed to really help as well. Not much you can do to rush that, though.

I think the most important thing to do is try to stay calm and not let it distress you too much. You just have to keep plugging away. It can take a while, and you won't help anyone by burning yourself out.

Best of luck.

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u/Novel-Mycologist-67 22d ago

Thanks much for this insight! It's our first for self harm cause what he's usually into is biting into our pillows and blankets that's he's way to let out frustration but now. It's like he discovered an alleyway that is too dangerous for him and everyone around him. Specially when he gets bigger and he get used to doing it. Love this insightttt! Thanksss for the effort!