AboutSharon A. Mitchell Expertise Sharon can help with parenting and educational concerns. She has worked in teaching, special education and counselling for over twenty-five years and gives workshops to educators and parents on working with kids with autism spectrum disorders. Sharon speaks from both the education and parent points of view, having a son with Asperger's.
Experience Sharon is a special education consultant with a school district and autism consult for the province's Department of Education, giving workshops and individual consults. She is also the parent of a son with Asperger's who is away at university. Together they have a website at http://www.autismsite.ca that offers strategies for home and school. Sharon's Master's thesis looked at the long-term outlook for persons with high functioning autism and Asperger's.
Organizations
Website at http://www.autismsite.ca and sits on Autism Today's Panel of Experts (www.autismtoday.com)
Publications Co-author of Amazon.com bestseller, The Official Autism 101 Manual
Education/Credentials B.A. in Psychology,
B.Ed. in Special Education,
M.A. in Educational Leadership, Ph.D. Candidate in Autism
Expert: Sharon A. Mitchell Date: 7/11/2008 Subject: 6 year old autistic boy
Question I know this is going to be a question that is quite old. I just found this web site. The only people I have had to go to are his teachers at school and they are learning along with me.
My son is obsessed with running water. I know this is a very common thing with Autism - but do you have any suggestions on how to get his attention doing something else?
Answer It's nice that you and your sons teachers are in this journey together. It really helps to feel part of a team. Since you say the teachers are learning along with you, I assume that your child has a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. If that assumption is wrong, please let me know and we we could look at this another way.
It's common for kids with autism to be obsessed with something. The particular obsession may come and go; while water seems to be his obsession right now, this may switch to another interest in a while.
To a certain degree, obsessions aren't all bad. There are some successful adults in the computer field who have been obsessed with computers most of their lives. If at some point you can turn an obsession into a future career, the focus on the obsession can be turned into a plus.
But sometimes the obsession is so all-encompassing that it's hard to get the child to pay attention to anything else. This means that he'll be missing some of the learning time he needs to develop his other skills.
In my experience, it's very difficult, almost impossible to remove a child's obsession. If you absolutely forbid access to the obsession, the upset might be huge and last for a long time and your son might cling even more tenaciously to what he wants.
Rather, you may have better luck in limiting his access to running water. You and his teachers could employ the "First.....then....." strategy. First, he must complete this task, then he gets so many minutes of water time.
Or you could ration his water time by clocks or timers. Every half hour, he gets five minutes of watching (or playing in) the water. You'd have to adjust the times to whatever is reasonable for your child. You could gradually increase the time intervals or the amount of work he must accomplish before he gets his water time.
Rather than attempting to remove his access to water totally, you could try to find a substitute. Just plain removing an obsession may not work, but finding a substitute may.
The substitute would need to fill some of the same purpose that your son finds in the water now. This takes some detective work on your part. Does he like the sound of the running water? Is the appeal visual - he likes the way the water drops dance around as they hit objects? Does he like the temperature? The way warm water feels on his hands?
Once you figure out what the appeal may be, then you can start to find appropriate substitutes. A word of caution though; whatever you substitute could then become his obsession. So, make sure the substitute is socially acceptable, age appropriate and something that could endure for several years.
If he likes the feel of water on his hands, you could try offering him hand lotion. Does he like the feeling of a towel rubbing his hands dry?
If it's the sound, would a small table-top fountain in the room help be reassuring to him?
Is there a medical reason to curb this obsession? Are his hands becoming chapped from being in water so often?
If he enjoys putting his hands under running water, you could try offering him various other objects for his hands. Small hand fidgets, squeeze balls, scraps of fabric (try satin, ribbons, corduroy, fake fur, etc.) may be appealing to him.
If you have access to an Occupational Therapist, they're great at helping determine the possible sensory appeal the obsession has for your son and in coming up with acceptable substitutes. If there is no OT available, you can play detective yourself.
Sometimes, a child will cling more tenaciously to his obsession when he's upset or unsure. The more calm and sure he is of his routine, the more he may feel he can let the obsession go or at least spend less time on it.
Kids with autism relish routine. When you have trouble making sense of your world, it's hard to predict what may come next, how it might affect you and what other people will expect of you. That's why routines and schedules are so important. A visual schedule let's the child know what will happen next in his day. And a visual schedule, whether in words or in pictures is better then just telling the child. Besides, teaching a child to rely on a schedule rather than on an adult telling him what to do helps in his independence. You can find out how to use visual schedules and more on why they're so important at websites like:
Sometimes, when obsessions are very intense, and resistant to all efforts to curbing or changing, you may want to seek medical help. In these cases, the obsessions may be similar to those seen in medical conditions such as obsessive/compulsive disorder and be helped by medications. As a parent, medications for a small child are the last thing you want to try. But on occasion, when all else has been tried, they can have a positive effect on the behaviors of some children.
But I would first suggest you try limiting his access to and time spent with water and substituting something else in the place of running water. If none of these suggestions work, write me again and we'll brainstorm more ideas.
Sharon A. Mitchell, B.A., B.Ed., M.A.
www.autismsite.ca
