# Toilet training a speech delayed, possibly autistic 4yr old



## Arcanegirl

I need some toilet training advice, especially from an additional needs point of view. We have been training for a few weeks now and my nearly 4 year old son still comes home from nursery with 1-2 bags of wet clothes. Its not often he has a fully dry day. He doesnt tell us he needs to pee, but understands what it is and what the toilet is. I feel stuck with a mountain of washing unsure what to do, and aswell the easter holidays looming where we will be going away for a few days. I dont want to be spending all the holidays revolving around toilets and washing.
He is speech delayed and suspected autistic.


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## smurff

My daughter is nearly 4 and is very delayed and it looks like she has autism also and not alot of vocabulary. I have given up trying to potty train, we've been trying years now. She knows what potty is for and she sees her younger brother using it but she refuses. She will hold and hold and hold herself which is dangerous, as soon as I put nappy on her she wee's, I have just got to be patient and trust that when she is ready she'll use it. She goes to a specialist nursary for a few days a week and we have been told not to worry and let her take the lead and not try to force her. I let her for a few hours a day run around with no nappy on and I put the potty near her, fingers crossed one day soon she'll use it


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## Button#

My DS has autistic traits (we're not pursuing a diagnosis yet) he also has a speech delay. We've been trying to potty train and he's really keen but he just doesn't really know when he needs to go. We've practised the routine, used pecs etc but he's not able to recognise and act on the need to go. He was 4 last month.


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## Reid

My son's coming up 5 with asd so when I trained him he was non verbal. I started train him when I felt he was ready he'd become aware of when he needed to go or had went which started with him pulling off his wet pull ups. So we let him run round with just top on with potty to hand I also took him to the toilet with me and his dad as with him being non verbal the best way for him to learn was to show him. It dose take alot of time amd I think it's half the battle if there ready you could maybe give your son a break and try again in a few months or try visual prompts such as pecs card xx


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## Arcanegirl

We chose to break for two weeks and enjoy our holiday, then go back to it.


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## AP

We found leaving it down to Alex honestly did the trick, she had been influenced eventually by her friends and we had an open door policy at home so she could pretend. It paid off.


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## lusterleaf

I feel your pain. My son will be 4 in August. He is non verbal. We have tried to introduce him to the toilet but he wants no part of it. We attended a potty training workshop at his school and the psychologist who ran it said that they have to be physiologically ready to be potty trained. So she said to keep a chart and check him every 1/2 hour to see if he went... if he stays dry for 2 hours at a time then he is physiologically ready to be trained. He did stay dry for long periods of time at school but when we put him on the toilet at home he wants off right away. Sometimes we will try to bribe him with the I-pad, to sit on the toilet and he will get it.. but he just sits there and when he pees he has no idea what he just did.. I think it is going to be a long road for us!


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## susan_1981

My son is a bit younger - will be 4 in July - and I think his nursery think he is on the autistic spectrum. I think he's shy. But he's always been a bit on the later side of hitting milestones and we are in the process of being referred. His speech at 2 wasn't that good at all but then almost overnight, it just seemed come on so much. He does speak quite well now, although definitely not as good as a lot of kids his age.

We had a nightmare with his potty training. He hates change so it was a nightmare to start but then he was ok. The pooing was never ok. Very, very hit and miss and more miss I'd say. I used to send him to nursery in pull-ups to be honest as I just didn't want them to have to be changing him if he was having accidents as he's only there 2.5 hours a day and all the other kids are toilet trained. 

The breakthrough for us - not telling you have to have another child to do this though ha! - was potty training our 2 year old. I don't know if it was to do with this or if it just clicked, but he literally hasn't had an accident for maybe 2 months now and he was having accidents pretty much at least once a day.

I remember posting on here about our issues with the potty training and people telling me that maybe he wasn't ready and to put him back in nappies but - aside from the 2 hours when he was at nursery in a pull-up - I just couldn't undo all the work I'd put in to get him dry. He's very much a child of habit. He doesn't like change so I knew if I stuck him back in nappies, he would have gone back to not being dry at all.


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## Arcanegirl

We are still going with it, he is aware what pee is, where to go. he can even do a poo in the potty but as soon as he has pants on it all goes out of the window. He completley forgets to link that feeling with taking himself or communicating with us (not that he does for the toilet anyways). Nursery are taking him out of habit now and at home i try to remember to take him every 40-60 mins. 
He also struggles with moving from one activity to another so that isnt helping either. 
Im sure we will get there one day. Im at a point of rehoming most of the cloth nappy pile as we just arent using them, I wont turn back now.


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