Published on 12, July, 2020
I have an 8 year old boy who is diagnosed with ASD. He struggles at school with his learning and is below average, he struggles socially and is very sensory with his hearing, smell etc. We are currently going through an EHCP assessment, which has been exhausting in itself. Whilst his behaviour at school is really good, they don’t see any of the challenging behaviour and aggression we are seeing at home. He is very demand avoidant and has no perceptive of danger. His aggression during meltdowns is specifically directed to his Dad who adores him and this is so upsetting to see. We are both exhausted. He does have consequences for this behaviour, but this just seems to enrage him more.
we are having trouble getting him to bed/sleep again at the moment. He has a good routine and is usually in bed for 8:30pm with a story and some relaxation music, but is often up and down until gone 10pn. He never slept until he was 5 years old and he isnt medicated. I do think he has some ADHD traits but school disagree. I also think he has PDA which isn’t recognised in our area.
He is verbal but when we try to talk to him to ask him about his day or what triggered his behaviour, he just shuts down and doesn’t answer. We haven explained to him that he has Autism yet as I’m not sure he would understand.
can anyone offer any advice? Thank you in advance
Hi and welcome to the community.
You might have seen my previous post in the related thread that you replied to. In case not, I'll repeat it here:
Whilst I can't offer any advice based on personal experience, you might find some of the information here helpful:
NAS - Distressed behaviour (perhaps including under "Strategies to try" and "Support for you as a parent/carer")
Challenging Behaviour Foundation - for family carers
NAS - Meltdowns
The NAS also offers advice for helping with sleep-related issues:
NAS - Sleep - a guide for parents of autistic children
Given that your son's school isn't receptive to your suspicions / concerns about potentially co-occurring ADHD, it might be an idea to raise them instead with your son's GP:
NAS - ADHD
On that note, you might be interested to know that recent research focused on adults found that pathological demand avoidance (PDA) symptoms appeared to be better predicted by ADHD than by ASD:
Science Direct - Individual differences, ADHD, adult pathological demand avoidance, and delinquency