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Today I begin on an adventure of poop training one of my students. 

I will call him A. He is 8 years old and non-verbal. And my class is a severe needs class. This is what led me to embark on this challenge:
  • He is able to make himself pee when he sits on the toilet.
  • He poops regularly after eating—he usually poops twice during the school day, in the morning and then after lunch.
  • He doesn’t like having poop in his diaper. He won’t let anyone know he pooped, but after a few minutes, he will start digging. 
  • He gets fed by G-tube so we have control of the timing of his food and water intake. 
  • He is highly motivated by the iPad. He will do ANYTHING for it. This is the golden ticket. He's also familiar with token boards.
My main goal right now is for him to poop in the toilet. Then we can transition him to wearing underwear instead of a diaper which will help him to feel when he’s wet. Baby steps to full potty training.

What we’ve been doing with him all school year is having him go sit on the toilet on a schedule—about once an hour. He is able to pee when he sits on the toilet. Then he gets the iPad as a reward for 5 minutes (Thank God for the timer on YouTube kids). However, he also gets the iPad as a reward after doing work in the classroom. He will also pee and poop in his diaper in between getting taken to the bathroom. I have bathroom tickets that the students give to staff before going in the bathroom. The idea is that that is how they will communicate their need to go in the future. However, A. doesn’t communicate need for the bathroom.

So here’s the plan that I typed up. I’ve scribbled my notes on it today. 



One of the keys that I’m hoping will start to make sense to A after a few times is that he gets 1 star for pee which gives him 1 minute on the iPad and he gets 10 stars for poop which gives him 10 minutes on the iPad. So the visual indication of that is important I think. 



10:00 am. I’m in the bathroom right now with A  squealing in my ear, shoving the iPad in my face and trying to close my laptop. He’s not happy about this. I hope we survive. =/ I think we will. Come on, bowels! Do your thing! Let’s have some poop and then we can get iPad for 10 minutes! Maybe I’ll even do 15!

One thing that is working in my favor is that he definitely does not like watching YouTube for only one minute. I wasn’t sure if he would notice the difference. He definitely is communicating to me that he’s not happy about it shutting off after 1 minute. 

Also, he has not peed on himself at all. That’s good. I’m a little worried he’ll be one of those kids that doesn’t poop until he has a diaper on, but he has pooped in the toilet at least once in his life. I remember that very well. 

The rest of my class is doing the usual morning routine. I told them I’m staying in the bathroom until A poops. They seem to be managing fine because I’ve trained them well. =) 

4:00 pm. Well he never pooped. Until he got a diaper on and got home. So he is one of those... Ugh. Time to do some research and see what's out there about that. Anyone have suggestions?


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