• Replies 2 replies
  • Subscribers 67 subscribers
  • Views 1877 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

How to stop my autistic brother swearing

NAS37998

Hi, my brother is 15 with limited speech. He’s obsessed with Spongebob and has been for many years and he came across these videos on YouTube where Spongebob clips are edited with swear words being shouted out. 

My brother has been copying. He mumbles the words under his breath or he shouts them out loud just like they do in the videos. I’ve tried removing YouTube and blocking it from the devices but he gets so stressed and he has meltdowns because he wants me to ‘fix it’. When I say don’t say those words, they’re ‘bad words’, he doesn’t stop, he just repeats the words ‘bad words?’ 

He doesn’t understand the meaning of the words and saying that they’re ‘bad words’ doesn’t mean much. He knows he shouldn’t be saying it but he says it anyway.

Does anyone have any advice?

Parents Reply Children
  • in reply to Plastic

    That's unlikely to be successful if the cause is echolalia, which is what the OP seems to be describing (e.g. the phrase "bad words" also being echoed). It's like the ticcing of Tourette's Syndrome - the part of the brain which handles semantics (the meaning of things) doesn't get a chance to step in, regardless of whether or not the person is able to understand  how their tics might be interpreted by others. It would be analogous to expecting an autistic person to stop having sensory melt-downs by telling them off them for having "tantrums".