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14 year old boy with autism
System
Posts: 521 Scope community team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Hi, my name is mfmb!.
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I appreciate it's really different when you're dealing with it as a parent and not as a staff member but I hope there might be a bit of useful info. The first thing I always ask if we're seeing this behaviour in college is, does the young person have any private time at home? Sometimes there isn't enough opportunity for private time for masturbation etc at home and then it can start happening in settings where it's not welcome or appropriate.
The other thing I would ask is whether there's any sensory needs. When it happens in public, what else is going on? Is there a specific public setting it happens in, and is it because the young person feels overwhelmed, stressed, excited, etc?
We do a lot of ongoing work about public and private, looking at places, body parts, and activities and encouraging students to make connections between these three key elements. We may use discreet PECS cards to prompt or remind students where they are if behaviour starts happening. Another thing that might work is using sensory distractors - sometimes this can be effective in the short term to support the student to manage themselves in a public space, but not always! In that situation it's a case of directing them to somewhere more discreet if it's not possible to halt it.
There are going to be occasions where it's not possible to prevent a behaviour from proceeding and in that kind of situation it's about maintaining as much privacy/dignity in the moment as we can. It's also sometimes the case that a student may become aggressive if someone does try to stop things - the same would apply really, although it can be really challenging.
I think it might also be a good idea to talk to the school and see what work they are doing around it and if it happens there, too.