Potty Training the Autistic Child

We did a bag of small dollar toys at the Dollar Store and a sticker chart to record his accomplishments. We put the toys in a dark plastic bag and lifted it so that my son couldn't see the toys inside, and he would get to reach in and pick out a little toy each time that he went potty. We also did the sticker chart that recorded his accomplishments. We hung it in front of the potty, and he would get to put his own sticker on the chart each time. When he reached 10 (I believe), we would let him pick out an activity, such as going to the park, McDonalds playland, etc. Good luck!

i dont have an autistic child but i do have a hard of hearing child and this is what i am doing. I use the sign sit for potty both dirty and wet. it seems easier for him to sign. i use tatoos so get him to sitstill. now his reward for going with your son i would suggest using the flush as the reward. take him every 30 minutes and pottywatches have been suggested heavily to me. but things got chaotic at hme and i put it on hold. we clap and cheer if he potties.lots of hugs. mine has a hard time putting the reward (toy or candy ) to the action and mine has trouble following directions. so you just kinda have to take what you can get and you will probably have to do the same thing. when he has an accident i sign no sit. while i clean it up. learn the sit sign it will save you alot of grief. or while changing his wet pants i sign no sit. if signing doesnt work try pecs or try both one may not take but the other one might. i show the pecs and sign and also say it cause he does pick up some words. if he walks in on me in the bathroom i tell him mama sit and sign it too. but since he is a bigger boy he must be old enough to stand and hit the hole so what about cheerios. have daddy show him how to pee on cheerios and make it a game. we tried that with mine and he is more interested in breaking daddys stream so that didnt work. so you just have to try diffrent things and see what he takes too. good luck

I am no closer to getting Alex toilet trained, Alex is also 3 and a half and on the spectrum. The closest I can come to advice for you is from my sister's experience, Rileigh has Autism and she is no where near high functioning, everyone was amazed when my sis was able to potty train her. Basically she was very patient, never got mad when her daughter had an accident, and was super positive every time she was successful, and for a while successful was just to have her sit on the toilet. She made the bathroom a fun place and admits they spent a LOT of hours in the bathroom, stacks of books that she read over and over, lots of sippy cups full of whatever Rileigh's fave beverages were at the time. Singing songs and doing finger plays. It can be whatever your son is into though...I will say we all agree that the fastest way to learn is to ditch the pull ups and go straight to under wear. It will take time but you can do it = )

Here's a must read article about a really good potty training protocol on the Talk About Curing Autism website:

http://www.tacanow.org/family-resources/potty-training/

Wishing you and your son the best of luck.

Are you getting any help from the school system? Even if he is private preschool, they may be able to refer you to some free public school help and therapists. What do they do for him in preschool?? There should be someone in the school system that can help you with some tips and strategies, as well.

my oldest son is also hfa(he is 8 now). we potty trained at 3.5, it took about 5 minutes, and he has never had an accident. i tried every few months from the time he was about 2.5 years old. the summer he was 3 was when the first Cars movie came out, and he was ALL about that movie! i took MAJOR advantage of that, and bought several packs of Cars fruit snacks, as well as socks, t-shirts, pajamas, toys, etc. One morning, I told him we were no longer pottying in the diaper anymore, poop and pee would be for the toilet ONLY, and every time you potty, you will get a prize from the box... then i showed him the box, it was a large moving box filled with Cars items - he was able to select anything the first day, following that - pack of fruit snack for pee, a larger toy for poop. by the grace of God, that was all the motivation he needed. he NEVER had an accident from that moment on, EVER! my non-autistic son was harder to train, we did a similar Wall-E theme prize box, but since the obsession wasn't as intense, he was a little more "whatever" about it - but he did train, just had some accidents along the way. if he's really into Thomas, and finances allow, make him up a Thomas prize box, you can prob find fruit snacks, candy, underwear, books, little trains - check out the dollar spot at Target, they have different character items from time to time.

Hi S.! Your story sounds a lot like ours!! We also have a child with autism, who looks to be on the "high" end of things. On his third birthday, we began potty training. We used the three day method, and it worked BEAUTIFULLY!! I used to have the program in PDF, but our computer crashed a while back, so we don't have it anymore.

Try going to this site and see what you think.

http://www.3daypottytraining.com/

It's not the EXACT program we used, but it's very close!! Follow it, and you should have a potty trained child in THREE DAYS!!

Here's to your, and your child's success!! God bless, ls

My son is 3 1/2 and has a speech/language delay. We just potty trained him last week. Our speech therapist gave us a book "The Potty Journey: Guide to Toilet Training Children with Special Needs, including Autism and Related Disorders" by Judith A. Coucouvanis. It has a lot of great ideas and a logical, clearly laid out plan of how to potty train. I would highly recommend it. Also, i would make sure his reward is his most enjoyed item, so he's really motivated to get it. My son loves, loves, loves popcorn, so that was his reward. He had a rough first week, LOTS of accidents, and i actually stopped by Thursday of that week because i was so frustrated, husband was out of town, etc. We started again on the weekend and he actually peed in the potty and got his reward. Of course there was lots of jumping up and down, praise, etc. Once he understood the potty/reward relationship, he has been super motivated to use the potty. He was requesting a diaper at times, but i told him he didn't want to pee on Mickey (his Huggies diapers have Mickey Mouse on them) and somehow he got that and hasn't peed in his diapers. He's wearing underpants during the day and we used the same wording with him ("don't pee on Thomas") and he's been doing great staying dry. I wish you lots of luck, S.!! It may take a while but he'll get it. Hang in there!