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.
Along with obsessive masturbation, smearing feces is one of the behaviours 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), chandelliers, 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 colourful 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 behaviour 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 behaviours go.
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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!!