I need help with something

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Hello, I am an Instructional Aide I work in a class room with developmentaly delayed children. Currently there are 5 children in our class. One is autistic, he is the sweetest little boy in the world, and also smart. But he likes to push or hit the other children sometimes he will put his hand on their face and push them backwords. I know he needs something when he does this, but I'm not sure what it is. I usuall stroke his back and talk to him calmly when this behavior occurs sometimes it works some times it doesn't. Does anyone have any suggestions that I can use to help him understand that he is hurting the other children when he does this? Any advice you have to give will be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

Oh yeah, when he does this say to him "Hands to self." don't say..."Don't hit" because whats the last word he heard???? Yeah he heard "Hit". And then walk him over to a timeout chair. Set the silent timer and when the red disappears he can get off, just ask him, "are you ready". remind him again...hands to self or nice hands. Also when he's on a time out try not to look at him, this could be a ploy for attention. Do you have a token sytem set up? We do for one of our autistic children. When he stays in circle ( instructional time, last about 20 - 30 minutes and no they do't just) anyways when he stays there for one minute he gets a star, 4 stars =special toy to play with. He's 4 and this has worked wonders. We set the silent timer for 1 minute and then say "Toy is finished" take the toy and set the token up all over again, 4 stars = playing with special toy. So for your little one try this. Playing nice = 1 star. 4 stars = what? what would he like? Lavish the praise of nice hands on him when he does have his hands to himself. Remind him of how nice he is, what a good friend, ect........I know alot of people say, "Oh don't call it a time out call it taking a break". NO......I hate that. A break is when you are overwelmed and need some space. When they hit, they are wrong, they did a naughty thing. And they learn.....the ones I care for have. But they need more praise and recognition for the good things they do. Less focus on the bad, huge focus on the good. Our behavorial specialist taught us alot with our kids, she amazing and the little ones love her.

great ideas, paula....just remember, though, that any intervention done with this child needs to be written up within a behavioral support plan~most school systems are afraid to move without a plan to back up the reason why they are doing such interventions with a child....

Paula I really do like to hear from you, you give me hope for our educational system. If "time out" works for your kids by all means stick with it. With Z we found that time out meant keeping an eye on the clock so he knew when to get up again. We call it "calmdown and control time." He is expected to use that time to think about why what he did was wrong, how he can avoid the same behavior next time and what he should have done instead. If he cannot answer these questions himself his time is extended until he can with help if necessary.

Keep up the good work.

But why is it that the aspie child is always considered "in the wrong"?

Thank you so much Paula and Ster. We do document everything that goes on, but I didn't document why we do some of the calming down steps. I will let you all know how it's going.

There needs to be an instruction and consequences that hitting/pushing is wrong. I like the first response about telling him hands to himself and having him go to time out for a few minutes. After he is calm and time out is over disscus with him that pushing and hitting are innapproprate and try to get him to articulate his needs. Keep an eye on the other kids as well to see that they are not somehow provocing this behavioral response (this can even be unintensional). Do not start rubbing his back and comforting him immediatly after the incident wait a few minutes because if he pushes someone and is than instantly rewarded he will start to associate the inappropriate behavior with the comforting and increese the pushing. You'd bassically be positively reinforceing the adversive behavior.

without knowing this child, it's hard to say whether or not speaking to him during an episode would be effective...........sometimes a visual cue instead of a verbal cue is better ( if we're staying with the hands to self idea, then a clipart or Boardmaker photo of a red hand to signal stop, hands to self might be an idea)

I do try to watch the other children, because they will and do sometimes pick at him. I try to tell them that it's okay to give him a hug, but only while he is in a good mood and only if they ask him first. Some of the other children get jealous of the attention I give him and will purposly approach him if he is aggitated. If this occurs the child that provoked him is the one who gets scolded because they approached him during calm down time.
Our little feller(we'll call him "Sam" here) was much better behaved today. There was only one time that he lashed out at another student. This was directly after transition from speech therapy back into our room. He doesn't transition well. Any advice on transition would be greatly appreciated!
He also loves superheros and today I made copies from a color book and told them if they finished their work they could color any page they wanted. They worked like little elves. "Sam" actually wrote two pages of work, and very neatly I might add. I was so thrilled. He's very smart, but he hates to write and is sometimes nonverbal.
I could go on with questions all evening, but I'd better go for now. Ya'all are great thank you so much for all the advice I do need it.

transition becomes easier if there is an accompanying activity that is part of it. Like instead of coming straight into the classroom, stopping in the washroom and washing hands, or taking a drink from the fountain. maybe a lap around a landmark in the yard.
At home, I used to have Pop do a specific number of jumping jacks.
It's very hard to get them at school to direct this or even remember that it's a common problem.

Pandora all the children I work with are special needs so noone is just blaming the aspie child. As for transistions, we give the children a heads up, and they also have the schedule where they can see it. Some have the little books with velcro so when it's time to leave they change their pictures themselves and go to the next project. But we always say for example clean up in 5 minutes, then clean up in 1 minute, which I do with typical children. But the little books with the schedule that they can change when it's time works really well. And also when he goes back to the room give him alittle bit of time with something he likes if it's possible and then back to what he needs to do. Yeah Stir one of our children was tantruming badly, throwing toys and stuff around the room...no she's not on the spectrum, everyone went to the playground but her when she tantrumed to keep them safe untill she was calm. My boss picked up the picture of someone sitting quietly in their chair and showed it to her, not speaking to her or engaging her except to show her that picture. She began to clean the room while screaming, sat in the chair and calmed down. And all the children liked their extra playtime for their wonderful behavior. Which we made sure they knew.

In the light of this, there is another way to verbalize the rule. You can say: "Hitting is forbidden!" That way, the last word he'll hear will be "forbidden", associated with the act of hitting. (Why not say "not allowed"? Because then the last word will be "allowed".)