You could do roll playing and teach him things to say to this boy. Give him sentences and "lines" for dealing with him. Offer him suggestions of how he can feel when the bad behavior he is observing affects him directly, and what to do (how to ignore it) when the behavior doesn't affect him directly. I think that sensitive kids are confused by seeing others act in ways they wouldn't and spectrum kids are such mimickers.

My daughter copies bad behavior and so I simply say to her, for example, "don't copy bad behavior" and she sees that I see what she is doing, and she stops. I often tell her...just because Jim throws the ball in the house when I tell him not to, doesn't mean that you should. You have good behavior. Don't copy Jim."

Good luck :)

We have this problem. For us, the solution is multi-faceted & long-term. To start, his teachers are very careful to place him in quiet classrooms with well-behaved kids as best they can. There are certain kids they will never place him with & that's in his file. If he does end up with a kid who misbehaves a lot, the teacher makes sure my son is seated far away. He has "break cards" for decompression when he needs them at school.

His anxiety eased a bit when he went off some foods he ended up being allergic to. Tryptophan (5-HTP) also helped tremendously. Miraculously, actually. And, he works with his therapist often on this anxiety. She has different exercises, like having him visualize a big cloud that sucks up the anxiety & replaces his thoughts with more positive ones.

And finally, we work very hard at home to make sure we are not making black & white statements about the behavior of others. We talk a lot about challenges, and how no one gets to choose the challenges they get. For some kids, those challenges include having trouble following rules. He's 6 & he gets it now and finally produces these statements himself.

Sorry I don't have a simple answer! We've been working on it for quite some time & it does improve with effort.

@A MyAutismTeam Member His teachers put all this in place before the IEP. They were extremely helpful from the beginning. The principal took a little more coaxing - as is probably the case with your rule-follower, my son was an angel in school. It was only after my son ran away from school that the principal was on board, because he could no longer call it "behavior at home."

We noticed that words "self harm" are absolutely magical in getting this kid what he needs. Safety issue = liability for the school.

We have an education consultant that fights a lot of these fights for us, but even she couldn't get much done on an official level before my son ran away. Until that point, the teachers were our best resource.

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A MyAutis...

Who is his school psych? Either the school psych (IF someone familiar with autism... not all have the skills in that area), or the speech therapist, can help you work with your son regarding the fact that some people have difficulty following routines, including rules. Talk about how behaviors cause rewards and consequences, and that some people break rules without thinking about outcomes. Agree that it isn't fair, and it is wrong, but that the kid being a problem is also learning things and the adults around him are working on it.

With the regular ed teacher, encourage him/her to make direct verbal statements to offenders in addition to non-verbal re-directs so that your son can perceive how adults are intervening... many autistics feel that others get away with all sorts of stuff, because intervention is done below their perceptual threshold. Point out that this is the lesson your son is currently learning, and that lesson sets him up for failure in the workplace unless he can see that rule-breaking outcomes are indeed applying to everybody, and not just him. The special ed teacher should be a strong component of these lessons for him, but if he/she is not versed in autism or good with your child, that won't help. If you document enough that autistic children are not a staff member's strength through concrete examples, you can ask for a staff change. If it is refused, ask administrators for the same level of documentation as you have provided, about why this person is a good fit for your child.

Melt-downs at home are not uncommon... many young people with challenges (not just autism) do well in school, and then melt down at home because they are tired and have been trying all day. Work the need to stim and/or cry into your home schedule right after he gets home from school... perhaps half an hour of your son's favorite physical activity (never mind social perceptions about the preferred activity - if he likes to spin, or swing, or something give him alone time with a spin-seat, a swing, a punching bag, or whatever is his need, and let the yelling and movement commence...). Let him know that the feelings are ok, and that you are proud of him controlling his behaviors when he's in public. Gradually work in the idea that family is also like the people in class, and if he needs to melt down, private is the place to do it. Many successful autistic adults have private alone time scheduled in to decompress without judging eyes or ears around.

@sweethart ... the way to get through to school personnel about the meltdowns at home is to phrase them in terms of how they affect his behavior and academic performance at school. Emphasize you are looking for ideas about what you can do at home, not adding home services (the schools are mandated to do home supports only birth-age 3, after which home supports become the responsibility of parents and insurance companies... have fun with that one...).

Autism has been found to be related to a low or non-existent number of "mirror" neurons. It is a physiological issue. Mirror neurons are the part of the brain that helps infants imprint cultural/social behaviors at a young age (linking in to the deal with adults "cooing" over babies and getting right in their faces to link facial expression with the emotion of cuddles and acceptance). This is why autism is so difficult for non-autistics to understand... social/emotional response is programmed in infancy to a reflex level through the mirroring response of those neurons. It is not perceived by adults as learned behaviors and emotional responses (even though it is indeed learned).

Autistics can be imprinted for emotion in infancy, but unfortunately the "cooing" behavior by adults is often a sensory overwhelm, and social interaction becomes imprinted for pain, rather than pleasure. Non-autistic parents take the responses as rejection of them, rather than for what it is... a response to pain, and are baffled by the increased crying when trying to comfort their baby... and then doctors say it's colic. Sigh. Once you know fussiness=sensory overload or underload, suddenly everything calms down if you balance the sensory right...

Also, autistics see details where non-autistics see "the whole picture," and see the whole picture where non-autistics only pick up on a few details. Think figure ground (like the pictures where you can either see a vase or two people facing each other). That is why so many innovators, inventors, and such tend to have autistic traits, or be actually diagnosed.

The problem is that to survive in the artificial construct of human society, not perceiving the "whole" of non-verbal and social communication, combined with lack of infant imprinting for body language linked to emotion, causes major difficulties for autistics because humans are designed as a species to survive in communities.

I explain it to my son, and my autistic students, by looking at our lack of claws or fangs, our slow speeds, lack of armor, lack of camouflage, etc. We survive by working together in social groups, and that structure is built around mirror neuron imprinting and social communication.

So, autistics must learn to do intellectually what others do on reflex, all while being around people who cannot begin to sympathize with the autistic experience because it means deconstructing deep reflexes that happen without thought in most people. It is other people's demand that their mirror neurons be stimulated in a way that makes them comfortable, NOT the autistic, that causes the problems. After all, non-autistic people are not pressured to control their need for emotional feedback, like the autistic is pressured to control sensory and task oriented needs.

Once an autistic understands that other people's need for emotional stim (as opposed to sensory stim) needs to be met in order to get them to work toward set goals (a project for work, playing a game using the correct rules, etc.), then social scripting becomes something worth working toward.

Hope this helps!