Date: 11/10/2021

This week the Centre’s Interoceptive focus turns to Toileting. 

There can be may reasons why children and young people may have difficulties developing independence in going to the toilet, and why they may continue to have accidents.  One factor to consider is interoceptive awareness. 

Some autistic children and young people may have differences in interoceptive awareness, and this means they register messages from within their body organs in an unusual way. 

They may not detect the messages from the bowel or bladder to say that it is full, or others may sense the pressure on the bowel or bladder but not link this feeling to a need to go to the toilet.  Some may go to the toilet, but not sense when the bowel or bladder has been fully emptied. Any of these factors can then lead to frequent accidents. 

At the other end of interoceptive awareness, there may be children and young people who are hypersensitive to messages from their body, and so interpret early signs of needing the toilet as an urgency to go.  They will then go to the toilet with much greater frequency, and may be anxious about not getting there on time. 

Use this link to find out more from Kelly Mahler OTD, OTR/L

There is also lots of helpful information in this leaflet from ERIC