Hi... sometimes it is a matter of role playing and others it is simply they are a few years behind in that stage, but will get it a few years after the others. School, I mentioned in your other question, I posted there. I also have a website, http://chat1autism.wetpaint.com/ I hope it can help :)

Luv and blessings,
Kris

PS: If you don't already know, I am diagnosed high functioning autistic

My son is 3..knows all that stuff too, will pee on command but will not tell me. Any ideas??? I don't like rewards because we are doing RDI and that is too ABAish...u know?

At 4 my son was not pooping in the potty. We tried EVERYTHING. We even took his diaper off and he pooped on the floor which totally irritated my husband. The next time we watched for clues that he really needed to go and my husband set him on the toilet and hovered over him like a soldier ready for the pooping war. He would not let him get up until he pooped. Of course, my son thought the end of the world had come and cried and cried. But sure enough after about 10-15 minutes the boy pooped and laughed and smiled as we all cheered it down the sewer. He never had an accident or fear of pooping again. We never even had to ask him if he neede to go.

This si s very critical issue in my opinion. My nine year old took a very long time to potty train, and still uses a "good night" at night. Also still has to be told that he's wet and needs to change. Strangely, he never seems to wet at school, only at home. My oldest, who is not diagnosed with AS actually took the longest of my three boys to potty train. He was still having accidents in preschool (we had to remove him), and continued right up to just before kindergarten after which he still had accidents, but never at school.

Every child (AS or not) is unique and so there is no one "right" way to handle it.

M opinion though, is that regardless of whether your child is AS, but even more so if he is:

DON'T make a big deal about it! Doing so will only serve to focus attention on the "problem", and make him feel inadequate. I made that mistake with my oldest, and all it did was mke the problem worse. It wasn't until we began to treat each incident as if it was really okay, and just an accident that we began to see changes. We began to ask HIM whether he wanted to be potty trained, and whether he preferred to be clean. We asked him how we could help. No, he didn't always have answers, or even understand, and many of his suggestions were self serving (pay me money - ha ha). But as we dept feeding him ideas of ways to help, he would evaluate them, and tell us, "no that wouldn't work," or "That might help, let's try that."

Basically, we tried to LET him have the power, and tried to help him (and at the same time us) understand what his own motivations were. This is an approach we still use. He is now eleven, and his younger brother (the good night wearer) still wears good nights. We decided not to press it. We congratulate him highly when he wakes up dry, and say nothing when he doesn't.

Hope this helps, but like I said, every child is unique.

there is a lot of talk about this in the autism group

Oh, my...the potty issue.

My daughter is very intelligent. She is almost 4 years old. She is beginning to read, and is very academically oriented. However, Potty Training is NOT happening for her. She is diagnosed HFA. Little sister (not even 2 years yet) is already starting to potty train. I, in extreme frustration, discuss with my husband (also HFA) if this is normal in his family. He said that he wasn't fully potty trained until age 14. His sister not until age 10. His nephew not until age 7. I am beginning to see the trend. Not that it made me feel any better, but it told me that perhaps this was an issue out of my daughter's control and that we would be working on this awhile. Her brain and body don't communicate so well at times, and she doesn't know she needs to go potty until she is actually in the process of going.