Potty Training Help From Other Parents Of Autistic Children...

Return To HOME Page

Since potty training is such a huge issue for our children, as parents write and explain "how they did it", I will share these experiences with you here in case the experience of other parents provides your answer.

The reason I could see this working is because, based on the need for "order in understanding everything", I could see an autistic child wanting to "put it somewhere, where it belongs"... in the "garbage" or "bucket"....so, I think these are definitely worth a try.  

In just the first two example... there is a common thread that worked... parents REMOVED THE DIAPER/PULL-UP, etc.  

If you just can't bring yourself to do that, you may want to try putting a removable "insert" in your child's underwear to make him understand the concept of "garbage" a  little more (that's how I'm planning to "start tackling this issue again")... something such as a sanitary napkin may provide a great "liner" for this particular function... it would help make the "mess" easier to clean if the child poops in his pants and would certainly help "solidify" the concept of "this is garbage" and "this garbage goes into the potty garbage". :o)

Where ok with the parent, I provided their personal email in case their suggestion works for you and you want to thank them personally.  Parents who provided suggestions and find they are getting  "overwhelmed" with thank yous (wouldn't that be wonderful!!!), can have their emails/names removed from this section simply by contacting me and asking me to do so.  I want to thank all parents for sharing their experience with others!

1.    From Heather Thorpe:     www.Thorpeheather@aol.com

What Heather did was to let her son go "bare butt" outside when she knew her son was due for a bowel movement.   She put the potty nearby in the yard.  Eventually, her son just "had to go" and so, he sat down on the potty, and went.    

I'd recommend putting a long t-shirt on your child to cover his bottom if you do this...just so that neighbors don't complain to authorities that a naked kid is outside (some will do that - so save yourself the trouble).  

2.    From Karen H.

"We had gotten into a terrible habit of giving him a pull up to poop in for 2 years.  That was tough to break. Finally I said no more pull-ups and he started going in his underwear so then I let him run around in the house without underwear and named the potty insert which is removable the "underwear bucket". He grabbed it held it under him and while half standing pooped into it. His reward was 5 president stickers (Presidents have been his passion since
age 3). So we did that for 1 week. Then we made president pictures with each one saying a different statement about poop.  On a visual schedule I showed on top: poop in underwear bucket 5 president stickers poop in toilet president saying

That afternoon he sat on the toilet and when he actually did it his eyes grew big with HUGE smile and he said "I love pooping on the toilet and splash it in the water". He then received 1 president saying and was so proud. (The stickers got old because he already earned each president so the 1 new president with a saying was like gold to him)."

I'll add more suggestions as I receive them.  :o)

Return To HOME Page

Copyright 2002-2008 All materials I provide on this site including several key words and phrases are copyrighted materials.  All rights reserved.  Please see Use of Materials for more on this issue.  For general comments/questions, contact me at mj@autismhelpforyou.com 

Things have a tendency to disappear on the Internet, but I can often find where the information has been moved or find replacement links addressing the same issue.  There is a lot of information provided on this site and any assistance with broken links is most appreciated.   My site has now been hacked twice.   If you get bounced to sites for online drugs, etc., report this to me at once using the above email as this is a result of hacking on my site.  This had nothing to do with me and/or my site.  Read more on hacking issue.

DISCLAIMER - The statements here mentioned and/or found in my materials have not been evaluated by the FDA or any other government agency or person in the medical field or in behavior therapy and are not meant to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any illness/disorder and/or behavior.  This information is not intended as medical advice or to replace the care of a qualified healthcare physician or behavior therapist.  Always consult your medical doctor or behavior therapist.  All information provided on this website is for INFORMATION PURPOSES and to GENERATE DISCUSSION ONLY and should not be taken as medical advice or any other type of "advice".  Information put forth represents the EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and OPINIONS of a mother based on her experiences and research and provides information as it relates to one family's journey with autism in hopes that other families may benefit from this experience and/or research.  The creator of this site is not responsible for content on other sites.

DISCLAIMER - PART II - Now... for those of you who think "mother at home researching" means "uneducated person with unfounded information"... I have 10 years of university... 3 degrees... and over 30,000 hours of research into these areas.   For anyone who thinks my research is "unfounded"...  read the RESEARCH FILE posted on my home page... with its over 1,000 references ... for your reading pleasure... because... quite clearly... you haven't read it yet!    

Autismhelpforyou.com   Breaking The Code - Putting Pieces In Place!©