Wild Mood Swings

Things have been very rough with Andrew lately. He has PDD.NOS. He is in second grade but follows a first grade curriculum which is at times too difficult for him. Yesterday, I follwed him through his day, simply observing and not interacting, to collect data on his progress. It averaged out that he spends only about 56% of the day attending to what is happening the rest of the time is spent being emotional, impulsive or lost in his own head. It was strange to sit there with a stop watch timinghow long he could focus on an activity. I was surprised to see how little of his time in school he actually engages in learning or interacting with others.

Today, he probably spent less than 56% of his time engaged. He stims orally so often that his lips and face around his lips are chapped and bloody. At one point he picked his nose and wiped the boogers on his desk. I made his get up, use a tissue and wash his hands. While he was washing his hands, I used a Clorox towel to wipe his desk clean. In the few seconds it took me to put the towel in the trash, he was back at his seat rubbing the wet desk on his raw mouth! He went to the nurse and she gave him some Vaseline. When I was in charge of Andrew's behavior plan, he had a water bottle to drink from when he needed something to do with his mouth. This year, his teacher decided she wants complete control of him and did away with most of my interventions and replacement behaviors. She believes that just being really strict with him, saying "put your hands down or leave your mouth alone" anytime he touches his mouth, will stop the behavior. She is my supervisor and his Autistic Support teacher so I don't argue. But I am so sad when I see his poor face. I wrote a note home to his parents about my concern for his face, hopefully they agree. The teacher will not be in tomorrow so I think I will bring out te water bottle once again.

Aside from the oral stimming he has been crying and injuring himself for attention. I was afraid he broke his hands today when he slammed both down on the desk. It was such a loud slam and he screamed like crazy after it happened. It is so difficult to ignore attention seeking behaviors like these. After he slammed the desk, he flipped it over and started throwing the contents around the room. I calmly said " throwing tantrums is preschool behavior, second graders clean up their messes, take deep breaths and calm their bodies down, so they can do things with their friends". He used to have tantrums that lasted for hours, but I learned that they can easily be prevented (in his case) by simply saying they cannot happen. He heard me, cleaned up the mess, started to cry, I took some deep breaths, he copied them and calmed himself down. I then smiled at him until he smiled back. This took about 3 or 4 minutes. He gave me angry eyes, I smiled and pointed to my mouth, his teacher smiled and pointed to her mouth. The two of us just kept smiling until he smiled. Then he was able to get up from his desk and join the other children.