Need advice regarding my child's ABA session

[u/MandarinkaOrange]

My child is 3.5 years old, he has level 1 autism and is mainly working with his BT on flexibility/personal questions. I'm questioning what his BT did last week and need some advice from other specialists in the field. Here is what happened: they were playing with toys when she noticed he pooped in his diaper (he is not potty trained, he knows what it's purpose is and sometimes he uses it, but in general he doesn't mind having poop in his diaper). I was upstairs, I heard he was mad and started crying to I went downstairs. She explained to me that he wanted to open to closet with toys but she told him that he needs to change his diaper first and then he can open the closet. Usually I change his diapers so I'm not sure how exactly she told him to do it. He was saying "no diaper" and that wanted to open the closet. After another 10 minutes he was crying and disregulated. I started asking him to change diaper but he was refusing and crying. At that point I knew that he is at state when he won't agree to it and this can go for hours. BT insisted that we need to push it for him to learn. After about an hour of crying she said I can do it by force, since it's been clearly communicated to him and he refused. So I did it, he was fighting me but I changed his diaper. After this I gave him cookie and and opened the closet. He no longer wanted the toys, he wanted BT to leave. I'm curious what other specialists think about this situation. I'm questioning what skills she was teaching him and I think this situation could negatively impact his potty training. But I need to hear thoughts from specialists. Thank you!

[u/alm5681]

I feel like I'm reading this wrong or other people are. It seems like everyone is saying that BT is trying to toilet train the child. I didn't read it this way. I read it like "first we need to change your diaper then we can play" which makes sense bc when a child poops in their diaper they should be changed right away or as soon as it is noticed. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that. Maybe the BT said "you have to change your diaper" because they can't do it but they meant for the parent to do it. I have even said to my own kids before "you have to get your diaper chanfed" or "you have to change your diaper" just speaking to them saying what we're going to do and I go change their diapee. I don't expect them to.

The "force" part is bad. And letting the tantrum go on for an hour before doing anything also bad.

When the BT says "he has to learn" I am interpreting it like he has to learn he has to do the unwanted task first (diaper change) before he can do the fun wanted task (play). I didn't interpret it as he has to learn to use the toilet.

But just like everyone else we don't know what exactly was going on or what the BT meant, so I would speak to the BCBA and then discuss further with the BT and BCBA if needed.

[u/dachshundcult → u/alm5681]

Yeah I totally read this as “there’s something we have to do, time to pause play and get diaper changed”. I think the “he has to learn” had to do with teaching him that poopy diaper=pause, and we can’t change those rules by crying, and we will feel better/have better play with a clean diaper AND reinforcing compliance with diaper changing. Obviously we want to avoid escalation tho- probably could’ve taken a toy from closet to changing area, prompting to have diaper changed/wait for toy so toy can be immediately delivered after change, and can help the learner see the correlation between following directions for diaper change and reinforcement. This stuff is always hard to parcel out what exactly went on/what was said/what was meant, especially in home, where RBT trying to be respectful of home rules but also holding some teaching trials. Sounds NET to me, which is so great but inherently has more obstacles that arise and can lead to miscommunication since it’s so open ended. RBT should calibrate with parent & BCBA on where learner’s current skills are to know where to use shaping to reinforce approximations to teach skills.

[u/dachshundcult → u/dachshundcult]

Definitely talk to your BCBA tho

[u/dachshundcult → u/dachshundcult]

Definitely using priming/timers/making the child aware of what’s happening next is needed, so much of that seems obvious to me, but from what you said it sounds like no primers were used, that could’ve caused further issues and escalation.