experience is that regardless of what the delay might be, children do
best the earlier you begin potty training. You may be advised to pick
your battles, which is fair. But potty training often gets put on the
back burner, and then you have a five-year-old in diapers. The reality
is that yes, you are going to make sure your child has the proper
speech therapy or occupational therapy. But don’t just let potty
training go by the wayside. It will get harder with each year.
Megan came to me because she has two boys with sensory
processing disorder. This is a tricky diagnosis, just by nature. Her
older boy started potty training at three years old. It took about a year
for him to potty train, which seemed normal given the diagnosis. She
had a gut feeling to try potty training her younger at twenty-four
months, even though supposedly, he’d have the same difficulties. He
didn’t. He had some issues with needing to take all his clothes off to
poop . . . but she didn’t mind. She was thrilled that it took so much
less time. She credited me for the success, but I don’t think it was me.
I think it was that she started it at the right time.
Whatever your child’s diagnosis, again, look to their other
milestones to get a sense of their learning curve. Children with
autism spectrum disorder tend to really hate transitions—all
transitions. Potty training is one of the big ones. You can go about it
the same way as you would for an extremely fearful child, if that
seems to better suit your child. Depending on your particular child,
you may consider private potty consulting in conjunction with your
occupational therapist.
barry
(Barry)
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