Let’s Stop Calling it ‘the Autism’ – Autism and poo smearing
Now the topic might totally turn you off, but a percentage of so called ‘low functioning’ kids with autism engage in this obsessively, occasionally even into adulthood. In fact Temple Grandin cites herself as having been one of those children, not a feces eater but a thrower and a smearer, which she recalls as being associated with tantruming.
Along with obsessive masturbation, smearing feces is one of the behaviors most cited as one of the horrors of ‘low functioning autistics’. You might try to imagine what it’s like for such families, cleaning feces off their child’s face, eyes, out of their child’s mouth, off the walls, the furniture, the bedding, the awareness it’s all under the child’s fingernails and passing bugs, that ingesting it may even ultimately reduce the health and lifespan the child. But how autistic is it?
Interestingly, those with autism may develop all manner of obsessions, fixations, phobias, euphorias. I would get blissed to the max on seeing pink street lights, red patent leather (pale pink does it too), chandeliers, opaque green fluoro plastic. So is poo smearing ever part of a range of fixations? YES. Like most issues called ‘the autism’, compulsive and obsessive poo smearing has its own name; Coprogenics.
Coprogenics involves the eating and smearing of feces for pleasure and surprisingly, 1% of the human population have apparently engaged in it at some time!
Without boring you with a link off to the Urban Dictionary (a little too colorful for some and hardly a medical resource), here’s a series of quotes from it:
Coprogenics should not be confused with Coprophilia which is a deep love for feces, which might involve the smearing or storage or loving attention being given to feces.
Coprogenics is essentially the eating of feces and digestion of human feces, often seen by mentally subnormal, or else their close relative ‘the genius’. W.A. Mozart was a feces eater, it eventually killed him in this thirties.
Eating feces is not uncommon and it is estimated that 1% of humans have indulged in this activity. Recent studies show that Danish, Japanese and Philippine nationals indulge in this activity, secretly, asian women particularly seem to enjoy eating feces although this is only 1.6% of the population.
So why might Coprogenics be more common in some with mental illness or severe developmental disability? Even some imprisoned, sensorily deprived animals do it.
Is it possible that these things contribute to a reduced level of inhibition to a human behavior 1% of the population may have indulged in with conscious volition? Is it possible that in the absence of cohesive cognitive functions, or in the presence of sensory deprivations associated with severe sensory perceptual or communication deficits that some individuals entertain, even arouse themselves with something as primary as poo smearing, even eating their own feces.
I’ve been to the homes of poo smearing kids. When they’ve got this muck all over them, even in their eye area and mouth, they are generally quite content, sometimes even smiling. Perhaps its about time we looked at how to compete with their motivation toward Coprogenics so that something else might be as familiar, as rewarding, as their own feces.
By contrast, those with severe Exposure Anxiety have employed poo smearing to rid themselves of social entanglement, human proximity, and social invasion of their room and those with EA may also find incontinence can be preferable to the social intrusions of supervised toileting. But these people don’t appear blissed out by smearing and when the EA is countered these behaviors go.
As for when smearing/eating feces has become such a pattern it is an addiction then that is probably beyond the exhaustion and scope of a parent… inpatient psychiatric units goes to work on breaking addictive behavior cycles whether its vomiting, self injury, addiction. So when a behavior has become so compulsive and addictive, it could be worth asking about an pediatric inpatient psych clinic to specifically go to work on this addiction for 4-6 weeks until at least the habit that is so ‘home’ has at least been broken enough to gain some emotional/identity distance from it and have a chance to fill that gap with something less of a health risk, preferably actual toileting.
The simplistic assumption that poo smearers are just stimming, or having sensory fixations with the texture, smell, taste, overlooks the emotional gratification of being boss, having control, keeping the unwanted behaviors as one’s own sense of power/territory. It overlooks powerful motivators like addiction to routine and addictive investment of identity in routine once feces related routines are entrenched. These are then habit, and habits have associated emotional/identity rewards, as linked to biochemistry reinforcements as any amount of smell, texture, taste. We also eat foods that have EMOTIONAL associations, habits, routines, familiar packaging, even if the food is actually not otherwise ‘our thing’. Compulsion versus want, patterning and habit and addiction and identification versus what might emerge as one’s actual want if not driven by habit, compulsion, identification. Illustrating the point, if YOU dished up a feces sandwich for an otherwise fussy eater who also happened to be a feces eater, do you think they’d actually want it if it were YOUR decision they eat it?
–
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
Ever the arty Autie.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com
This post has certainly made me think beyond the “poo painting” we’ve lived with. Our 7yr old “poocasso” has often indulged in smearing and I’ve always tried to not to over react as I’ve considered it to be a sensory issue, a little boy exploring and enjoying the texture, smell and taste of something he doesn’t quite understand is yuck!!. I have to admit there have been times when I’ve been peeved to find him lathered in poop 5 minutes after tucking him into bed and I’ve giggled when I’ve had to try and clean his bedroom ceiling when I’m so short and the ladder’s not tall enough.
But it saddens me to think that the mentally ill or mentally disabled might use smearing to convey their anxiety or loneliness.
Our boy hasn’t endulged in smearing for a while now. I wonder if it’s because he’s no longer seeking the experience or because he has found a new way to express his needs – cuddles and lots of them.
Could poo smearing be solved with art therapy? Maybe poo smearing could be substituted with pottery cause ceramic clay looks like poo?
Could poo smearing be substituted with ceramics or ceramic clay sculpture creation? Maybe it could be substituted with painting?
I suppose further involvement could be freelance 3D Modelling (people always need this in things like Second Life), digital artwork (Although you’d need to find an online gallery you could make your own).
You could become a freelance artist but you’d have to find places to hire and put your work.
In the later version substitute hand art for digital art and get a very large LCD screen/TV to accurately represent the canvas you’d be working on:
http://www.shopbot.com.au/lcd-tv/audiovisual/australia/50
Either that or get a digital projector if and you have your art show that way.
Solving poo smearing depends on its original uses to the smearer. If its about Exposure Anxiety then pretending poo is even more socially inviting, as though its an aromatic gift to the environment usually peeves the smearer to the degree that if the smearing invites more people to hang out with them in their space they’ll usually start avoiding smearing (reverse psych).
If its about familiarity, surrounding oneself with one’s own smell (and many auties find this soothing, including smearing and smelling saliva, peeing, smelling their hands after touching their body parts, smelling themselves, refusing to allow clean clothes, so then the sense of social invasion, the feelings of social unfamiliarity need addressing. ie is this person face blind, and if so, where’s the mirrors to give them familiarity. is this person meaning blind, if so what other materials other than poo need no interpreting…. that sort of thing.
If its about texture, yeah, you can try substituting for clay, paint, even dairy free chocolate (though salicylate/phenol intolerance could still become worse).
If its about sense of one’s own world by doing what is a social taboo, then reverse psych is the answer and shifting to kineasthetic, musical activities in the absence of good visual-verbal processing.
that sort of thing.
its very individual. I work with smearers on an individual basis.
My son did the poo smearing only once. He was way overwhelmed. That was the only time he did it so it must not have been a sensory fix for him. I’m happy about that!
Yes, when overwhelmed I’d bash myself, so one does stupid crap one wouldn’t do in a more emotionally and cognitively together state. But when I’d bash myself I didn’t even register it was my own body, just a thing trapping me, making me exist. And there are kids who get upset they’ve had incontinence or can’t bear the moisture and stickiness and try and get it off so smear.
But there are others love the moisture and stickiness. And I remember similar, where I’d get into the bath with all my clothes on, or when I peed the bed (until I was 9… oh well, better late than never, and Salicylate intolerance is linked with bedwetting) I remember feelings secure just laying it, because it was mine. Yeah, bizarre, feral, very animal, but in my case at the time, ‘that’s autism for ya’.
Of course its certainly not the other picture of autism, the accomplished artist, autism consultant etc. And its hard to reconcile having been that other one, but I don’t want to feel ashamed of it, it was another world, and having been to it gives me great empathy with auties and also with distressed animals, because I was so like an animal back then, especially until I could understand speech (age 9-11). And I think if we’re going to be proud people, equal people, and talk of autism, then if our autism has been really hard on us or others, we shouldn’t hide that, just deal with it, talk openly about it. I don’t want to demonise it or glorify it.
Oh the days of poo smearing, i remember them from my oldest son from 18mths to around 3 yrs. Worst thing was trying to track down a lot of the poo smearing and just going with nose to track it down. We’d often find it inside wardrobes, on retaining walls, the garage, anywhere and everywhere. Thankfully he never did try eating it.
and just shows what a delight these feral poo smearers can grow up to be if they outgrow their feral phase. Your boy is a delight.
I work with people who have ID and mental illness, and have been trying to work out this mystery for the past few weeks. Have you got any hints Donna how to test why someone is smearing if they are unable to provide the answer themselves?
I wrote a book called The Jumbled Jigsaw. It gives you checklists with which to work out what parts of an autism ‘fruit salad’ may be at work with a particular issue. That’s a reasonable place to start.
You have no idea how relieved I was coming upon this article!! About ten or more years ago, I nearly thought I was going insane after getting no where trying to seek help for the concerns I was experiencing with my son. It wasn’t like raising three children on my own was hard enough, I was becoming overwhelmed questioning my sons odd behavior that I could not get family, friends, teachers or the medical profession to believe me. You can only imagine the frustration I experienced over the next 3 1/2 years, which I was already dealing with my sons enuresis/bedwetting issues when he began poo-smearing. Eventually he became a health hazard at daycare with his encopresis issues, which was the last straw before I went insane. I had no other option but to quit my full time job to care for him full time.
It was then, when I focused my time on getting the support/resources I was in desparate need to seek out and due to the puzzling behavior I was dealing with and the frustration I was expressing in seeking help, the mental/health professions felt that I was actually the one that required medication for the anxiety disorder I developed from the frustration I was experiencing!! Then a family member mentioned the autistic traits she felt he showed, which led to more research on the internet and more doctors thinking I am crazy for wanting to put a label like “autisim” on my son. I demanded that he be tested to finally get the diagnosis that was needed to reduce the anxiety I was dealing with. Finding out that the form of autism (Asperger’s) my son was officially diagnosed with was not accepted by the Regional Center, I had no choice but to return to his Pediatrician for help regarding the poo-smearing concern, which only caused the process of seeking help all over because the usual response I would get from the mental/medical professions was that poo-smearing has no involvement to autism but was basically his anxiety reaction to my anxiety disorder!!
I don’t know if I which categorize stumbling across your posting as a miracle and whether or not, poo-searing is definitely something that is tied to autism, I just wanted to respond back to thank you for making me feel less insane for imagining there was some other reason other than my anxiety disorder that made him sear his poo.
Just an update on his condition now at the age of 16, he is doing very well now and other than the his lack of getting out of the house and his bedwetting issue he is seeking help with at the present time, he really doesn’t express anymore of the puzzling behavior issues and I personally believe after the fight I had to go through to get him diagnosed was worth all the frustration I went through!!
God Bless!!
My son just turned three in August, and has been smearing and eating his poo for nearly a year now. He is a wonderful, bright young boy (completely non-verbal still). I’ve been noticing a lot lately that he has been smelling everything in our home… the blankets on the couches, my clothes, toys etc. When I read the post about children who smear their poo do it to have their own smell in their rooms, it really turned a light on in my head! Could this be why my son does this? I am racking our pediatrician’s brain for answers, as well as my son’s many therapists (development, behaviour, language) for suggestions on how to put a stop to this disturbing and overwhelming behaviour. He does it at least three times a month, and always after I put new sheets and blankets on his bed. Our electricity bill is sky-high because of all the hot water laundry I have to do each week. I have tried putting him in special one-piece outfits that zipper up the back, but he is so aware of everything around him that he is able to get out of anything we put on him! He’s so smart! Any suggestions for me and my family?
there’s a section in Somebody Somewhere
http://www.donnawilliams.net/somebodysomewhere.0.html
where my father’s girlfriend changed my sheets and I was appalled… they smelled like her and her house (washing powder fragrance). I was angry and agitated, felt eaten up by HER things, distressed I had to sleep in them. This was part of Exposure Anxiety.
http://www.donnawilliams.net/exposureanxiety.0.html
So could be good for you to get to know those books
If you lower the Exposure Anxiety levels in general the territorial stuff generally decreases on all fronts.
But getting a completely fragrance free washing powder may help
and also when he’s slept in other sheets but hasn’t poo’d in them, take those off and save them, they’ll have his smell… smell like his sweat, hair etc, so he may find those more acceptable than freshly washed.
And if he liked your natural smell, put the clean sheets (though done in fragrance free products) on your bed for 3 nights before putting them on his and that might work.
I’d say also take all the perfumes and fragrances out and look at which plants, foods he likes
what else he enjoys smelling
then find smells that are similar and get those into the room
but don’t go for perfumes
good luck!
Donna *)
Hi..Just linked onto here via google. I work with a 13 year old boy with autism(classic) and he is smearing on a regular basis. He used to go through phases but now it has become constant. He has a ‘behaviour nurse’ who suggested ‘mum’ puts nappies on him (yes, for real) and his school do not seem to be able to help him (they are excluding him from any out of school activities as a punishment!!!! which has had the adverse effect anyway…) The family home has recently been undergoing some quite drastic structural changes and I feel that this is a contributory factor. Each ‘place’ he had to play (computors/wii/ect) have been altered and he now watches tv only and seems disinterested in activities that he was once obsessed with. Could the smearing be a way of showing his frustrations? Also, directly after smearing, he runs to the shower and appears to enjoy this experience also. Any advise would be greatly apreciated as ‘Mum’ is becoming quite stressed..
Thank-you in anticipation.
Hi Bev,
I agree he’s had some confusing stuff going on. I’d really have to work with this boy’s family in depth to understand how much of this is personality/behaviour stuff, how much of it is environmental clash stuff, how much of it is boredom/info processing stuff. But I’d guess its a combination of those three and that no approach is likely to kick this unless it addresses all three.
For example it ensures mum is joined at the hip/could never abandon a teen poo smearer (how helpless/hopeless he’d be
, it also seems to serve a purpose of creating excitment/chaos, though almost routine… he knows the circuit… as in, yay, smear poo, drive mum nuts, now show we’re responsible/sorry and take a lovely warm nurturing shower compliments of mum of such a helpless disabled boy… rather convenient really… have a look at Dependant Personality Disorder and also Borderline where those with the former will indulge infantile behaviours to tie up the carer, the latter they’ll enjoy the chaos of keeping the carer at their wits end hence in both cases defying irrational fears of abandonment.
http://www.ptypes.com/type_passions.html
Not to say that’s he’s thing, but seems the school excluding him, if he ultimately seeks to control mum through this stuff, have armed him with exactly what he wants… great, now he has even more control over mum because its sanctioned by the school – thine mother shalt be entrapped with your behaviour. Anyway, I have an online consulting service if that’s of interest. http://www.donnawilliams.net/emailconsult.0.html
Warmly,
Donna *)
My 7 year old son has gone through several poo-smearing periods. The last was this past summer. For him, it seemed to be a curiosity and sensory issue. It started when school was out for summer and he went through a severe regression and lost almost all of his skills. I knew that for my son, he would lose interest in time, and it was an issue of correcting him and waiting it out. I was in a pickle because it happened when he was going through that regression, and his sensory issues were so bad that he couldn’t wear clothing most of the time. It made it easier for him to do it, but he was in so much pain from clothing that it would send him into an hour-long meltdown and make his self-harming worse. I chose the option that let him be more comfortable, while giving myself the disgust of cleaning up the occasional poo.
Our ordeal was made all the harder by the invasion of Child Protective Services into our lives after a neighborhood dispute. While all this was going on, I was preparing to move after that neighborhood dispute. I’d asked the landlady for a repair in the master bathroom, and her three handymen (all 5 of us live in the same neigbhorhood) suddenly started saying it was my fault on the day of the repair. I smelled a rat and said I was going to consult with other experts before paying. (I eventually found out that it was NOT my fault.) The problem was never a danger to my son because it was behind a locked door, and in a room not commonly associated with children. But suddenly I had CPS show up.
They realized that the original issue (supposedly “unsafe conditions”) was untrue. But they immediately seized on my son’s symptoms of autism as supposed neglect on my part! I had told them about his difficulties and what I did to protect him, and they used this information against us. For example, he tends to wander at night and I lock him in his room to protect him. This is recommended on several autism websites, but it didn’t matter what the experts said. They also knew about his poo smearing and were convinced that it was negligent of me if I “let it happen”.
I told them that all they had to do was research the issues, and they’d see that these things were not my fault and are well-known in the autism community. Weeks into the investigation, the caseworker admitted that she STILL had not researched the issues! So not only was I having to manage a regressed child, but I also had a blind agency on my hands that seemed determined to prove my fault instead of researching my son’s disability. They never alleged that I didn’t clean up the poop when it happened. It seemed to be that they expected it to never go anywhere but the toilet to begin with. (Months into the investigation, a second (new) caseworker finally did research it, but she “didn’t care” what she found and still insisted it must be my fault.)
I was subjected to surprise visits from July through October. The only two times they found problems were during the times I was packing and they said it was “messy”. I had to call off my move because I didn’t feel comfortable packing! But for months, I was constantly anxious over them. We never know when our children will display these behaviors. What if he did it right before CPS came, and I hadn’t had a chance to clean it up yet? My son could have been taken and lost the person who understands him the most! I lived in constant fear.
I had to take him to the doctor and hospital several times that summer for his self-harming and periodic episodes of self-starvation. I did all that I could for my son, and NONE of the doctors had concerns about me. Two mentioned what a great advocate I am for my son. My children’s teachers like me and know I’m a good and responsible mother.
Once while I was still packing, I took time out to prevent my son from self-harming. CPS showed up (surprise, surprise) and were upset that I had laundry out and two pots on the stove (the burners weren’t on). I just stared at them in disbelief. My child was in the same room, and he was pinching himself repeatedly right in their presence. How would any mother just leave the child to self-harm? Is the laundry more important than that? They showed no understanding of the issues at hand.
I’m currently preparing a lawsuit. I’m hoping the statute of limitations hasn’t already run out, and that we can receive justice. It will be hard to strip them of their qualified immunity but I hope I can. They took a difficult time and made it much worse.
I forgot to add…I was right and my son’s poo smearing eventually did go away. He’s also mostly recovered from his regression over the summer and he’s doing very well in school again. He’s thankfully unphased by what happened over the summer, but his sister and I are still distressed. She spent most of the summer at her grandmother’s so she didn’t have to see what her brother was going through, but she came back before school started and CPS came several times after that. She said she hated hearing them say bad things about her mother and she even heard them yell at me over the laundry basket (I wasn’t yelled at for it until two months after it happened, oddly). She said the caseworkers needed a spanking for their behavior and I tend to agree that a legal spanking is in order. It’s inexcusable to refuse to research a medical condition and blame the parents for the manifestation of symptoms for months on end!
Hi Meredith,
Children pick up on the distress of their parents. A parent so co-dependently fixated on the dangers of her child will unintentionally be reinforcing that there is potential chaos and danger all around, ie that all others but her are untrustable, potentially dangerous… which to a child is ultimately the most isolating, disempowering, claustrophobic experience, especially if on top of that part of the carer’s management of anxiety is to lock them into their room so they are incapable of self managed toiletting. I had night terrors, sleepwalked and left the house without anyone knowing. However if the house is made autie-safe, the house alarmed re nighttime escapes to the outside world and child wears a tracker, these bases are covered. Even kids who play in the toilet water and with taps can’t if the toilet is a dry toilet and the taps are either sensor taps or have removable handles, to things are doable, though harder of course in rental. CPS is essential for children in danger, especially autistic children who can’t easily tell what is happening for them. This is not just clearly ‘abusive’ parents. There have been co-dependent parents who have pandered to, fussed over but ultimately done only martyr flag waving about their burdens and responsibilities who simultaneously allow their child to self starve, eat toothpaste and other toxins, live on nothing but chocolate, eat feces etc… anything to stop/pander to a meltdown. But I’ve worked with kids doing the same stuff and trained the parents in alternative approaches which often have some surprising results. Those parents need help which CPS should provide, it should be a liason where CPS professionals direct the whole family to those whose job is to help troubleshoot with the associated issues.
My six year old daughter does this. she is autistic, non verbal. It occurs 6 to eight times a day.
She has always been in diapers. We have tried, and tried, and tried, and then tried some more, and we are still trying to potty train her. We’ve tried it ALL. even going without diapers for several days. Nothing has worked.
For the past few months she has begun doing this poo thing. she smears it, eats it, etc. We watch for it constantly, never the less, turn your back for an instant, and that’s the moment she is waiting for. If she hasn’t had a full on bowel movement, she will dig it out of her rectum with her fingers.
She delights in it, and her joy increases exponentially when she gets to go to the tub to wash. I begin to think that this is a big part of why she is doing it. She has always loved the bath, which is a harrowing experience for us, as she flips, spins, jumps, slips, and slides. We’ve given up on the idea of restraining her, as she becomes very self destructive, and antagonized, and any progress your making with her regresses.
Besides all that, she is a little Houdini, capable of amazing feats escape.
She is a beautiful, joyful girl. This aspect of her behavior is by far worse than anything we have experienced with her. My wife and I are at our wits end. It is maddening.
This talk of exposure anxiety has nothing to do with her. I really think it’s more of a sensory issue, with smell, texture, taste. She certainly seems to enjoy the negative reactions she gets from mom and I (we are trying to hide that as much as possible, though it is difficult). She knows also that every time, she is going to get a bath. I wish there were an alternative to a bath, but it is such a huge mess, there just isn’t any other efficient means by which to clean her.
Though as I type this it occurs we might try giving her a cold shower instead. Not sure that’s a good answer, maybe it might cause her to get sick. ahhh who knows.
I suppose it’s somewhat perverse to say this, but it’s somehow comforting to know that we are not the only one’s dealing with this issue. Not that I wish it on anyone. anyway, you folks KNOW what I’m talking about, and that is some comfort.
Tah
cold showers are actually used to stimulate the immune system. People with immune deficiencies will use it to do so, just as they did in the Roman times with the hot/cold dips at the baths. Want to think about immune problems – try E-Coli… and the variety of death risking heath risks from continually eating shit and leaving others in contact with it.
As for cold showers and scrubbing brush, worked with a boy who did similar and loved the bath… when he consistently got the cold shower and scrubbing brush he found the toilet seems a far better option.
Want to smear shit and risk E-coli etc… then you are actually not asking for the soft soapy sponge, you’re actually asking for the surgeon’s scrubbing brush… don’t like that? Well don’t play with dangerous bacteria and you won’t have to accept the logical consequence… the consequence for E-coli risk is not a soft sponge, its a scrubbing brush.
And one must also think about Exposure Anxiety where someone is excited by the no=yes/yes=no dynamic. Fixating on love of smell, taste, texture forgets the most rewarding link may be the social distance, power, control those are linked to… did I love the smell of urine? No… did I feel deeply satisfied with filling my room with the stench of it… you betcha! And Exposure Anxiety aside, there’s always the ugly word of Narcissism.. which is all about one’s rights over those of others… and those who have it, that’s addictive too.
And there’s always the fact that constipation can have its own solutions including pulling poo out by hand to make room… so address constipation… its called an IgE test for inherited allergies, a hydrogen breath test for gluten/lactose/fructose intolerance, a urine test for undigested proteins and a diet that suits the results together with high dose vit c & psyillium to counter constipation so nobody needs to stick their hand up their butt to make space through pulling their shit out manually. Worth a thought.
I’ve also seen the manual thing in kids with IBS… but why not treat the IBS.
My autistic daughter 6yrs has been eating & smearing for 3yrs. I have reached to a point that i cant handle anymore. Am looking for an outfit that suitable for her!
when a behaviour has become an addiction its probably beyond the exhaustion of a parent… a psych unit goes to work on breaking addictive behaviour cycles whether its vomiting, self injury, addiction… could be worth asking about an pediatric inpatient psych clinic to specifically go to work on this addiction for 4-6 weeks until at least the habit that is so ‘home’ has at least been broken enough to gain some emotional/identity distance from it and have a chance to fill that gap with something less of a health risk, preferably actual toiletting.
I have been interested in understanding. Your information has been helpful
However, this is my understanding. In the formative years of behavioral growth (as I remember my entire life which is or almost a handicap) My mother when she had to change me dipper who’d kiss my belly after she cleaned me and blow tickles on my belly. It was obviously gratifying. So dealing with poo became a plus. Except for the day at two years when I did the poo finger painting on the wall. Even though, through live it has has become a foundation in times of stress. And I have done smearing. it is knowing the difference between fantasy and reality. Although it is a Tool of recovery in my life.
I was really hopping that you received my comment as it is a true story. However,and it took a good while to write it. And when I tried to send it I pushed the add comment and it was gone.
Hi Donna
I was interested to read your suggestions about poo smearing. i teach a 4 year old boy with PDD. He has recently begun to smear poo both at home and at the centre. I need advice on how to deal with this as he is becoming a health risk to other children. Any suggestions would be most grateful
Smearing is not a one size fits all issue. Parents and professionals can use this service to gain an in depth consultation into the unique issues at work with each person’s smearing behaviors http://www.donnawilliams.net/emailconsult.0.html
I have been in the same situation as the lady above with DSS coming to my home because of my ex who didnt want to be sued for child support took a photo of my son is his room in his pull up without my knowledge and claimed he was neglected and locked in his room….And yes he is locked in his room at times for his own safety…He has severe autism and even with meds will not sit for more than 5 minutes at a time….Then later a so called friend came to visit and put her nose where it did not belong …..She happened to drop by unannounced when my son had a smearing and throwing good ole time…lol…She called DSS and here they came again….one visit and never heard from them again same as before…They met all my other children and our family interactions and did not see any problems…They dont even know how to react or what to say…. if not for humor and a good friend and family support system id been coo coo long ago….lol….
My 18 year old low functioning middle child of three autistic children has been pooping on his underwear, squeezing it into a ball and then he will lie on his stomach while ” humping” the floor and holding the underwear in his hands and rubbing it. I don’t know what to do. Please help!
goodness! sounds like fetish to me. Given he’s 18 and I’m assuming non verbal and socially limited, if not with additional significant sensory perceptual deficits, I’m not surprised he’s filling in the gaps with the best most control giving sensory/physical buzz he CAN cohesive process…. the reassurance and turn on of the smell and texture if not possession of his own shit balls and this arouses him enough to use the floor as a masturbatory tool. Could I address this in online consultations? I’ve worked with similar, sure. You can book online consultations with me here http://www.donnawilliams.net/consultancy.0.html
… other choices? try and find someone with awareness of OT, psychology (incl open some awareness as a sex therapist!), sociology (because his connection to community and other activities will also effect this), and autism/severe disability because that’s the kinds of skills someone would need to address this issue.
Hello Donna. My baby brother who is 3 in feburary has been smearing for about a year and a half now. HE got diagnosed with high spectrum/low functional autism last Christmas time.
Early I had to clean him early after he had (as the family calls it) gone digging in his nappy.
Like I’ve read on many other comments. Not only does he smear, he eats his poo and pulls it out of his rectum. He also goes to the toilet in his nappy on purpose so he can go. He tries this at any chance he can get, so we have to put “braces” on him so he can’t get into his trousers, but he still manages to. We have to watch him constantly.
When he finishes, we usually give him a very quick bath or shower.
He must know that its wrong, as he goes out of the room to do it. The situation earlier is that I was sat in the living room with him while the stepdad was out, he left the room, a few minutes later I noticed he had gone quiet, and he is covered. We (the family) tell him not to do it, and tell him off.
I’m worried he’s going to get bullied at school and such. Will he grow out of it do you think? He cannot talk yet
Its really distressing and depressing. I wish I knew why he does this.
Its nice to know there are others to know what I’m going through though.
Thanks
Danielle
18
each poo smearer has different drives for what they do.
your brother certainly sounds obsessed with his own smell, texture, taste in the poo dept
but I suspect its actually giving him security through TERRITORY
some animals when caged do this stuff and if an autie feels they have no control over anything in their life including feeling their soul is owned or controled by others they can reassure themselves with this most basic of rebellion and self ownership.
The book Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage may help you get to grips with this better
http://www.donnawilliams.net/exposureanxiety.0.html
if you feel a consultation may ever be of use, I do online consultations here
http://www.donnawilliams.net/emailconsult.0.html
working together on this we could come up with some trial plans to see if it changes things.
One thing for sure the braces may only further build the feelings of entrapment, loss of control and feed the ferocity and determination to reinstate the self ownership through the poo compulsions.
all the best
Donna