Dear Users,
this is the first time I write, and I am clearly pretty desperate. I don't expect you to solve my problems, but I'd really need some good advices.
My son is 8 year old level-2 autistic, barely verbal (he can easily name things, but little more than that). We went trough different specialised therapies since he was 2, but we seriously introduced ABA just 7 months ago. He is a big boy: he commonly wears dresses for 12 y.o. boys. Despite his major learning and social problems, he has always been nice and flexible, but over the last months he has become non-cooperative and aggressive. He got unexpected meltdowns which breaks out without any noticeable reasons. He often awakes on the middle on the night screaming as hell, and since we live in an apartment, we got tensions with families living around us.
We always got sleeping problems, and melathony is not enough. We tried so much, but it didn't work. We uses for some years - under medical prescription - antihistamine, but now it's clearly not working anymore. Being little verbal, it's really difficult to explain him things and to help him stop screaming in the middle of the night.
I know this story is quite generic and it lacks details, but I don't know what to do about our life. I am a single parent - my ex-partner is very cooperative, but we don't live together - and I am wondering if ABA and school is 'too much' for him; if it'd be better for him to leave the city and moving to the country; if I have to find a better/stronger drug; if he is simply growing up and there is not so much I can do in order to avoid a growth in aggressivity; if there is any medical problems and he is feeling pain, but how to investigare since he is not able to descrive in any way his pain?. We tried so many things over the years (diets, doctors, therapies), but things improved a little bit over the years, but the last year has been pure nightmare, and I am really desperate. I got the feeling he is suffering so much.
Thank you so much
A parent