Josh/2010/behavior/past

This page is an archive for behaviors which were significant for awhile but later vanished.

Groups

As of April 2010, this behavior seems to have vanished completely -- apparently as a result of training by his caregivers at the therapeutic foster home where he lived from early January until 2010-04-19:

Josh tends to have a "group" of things that he carries around everywhere. He sometimes misplaces one or more items (sometimes in the middle of the night), and may become quite agitated once he notices something is missing. Agitation continues until all items are found, though he may ramp down slightly if he recognizes that a caregiver is looking for the missing item(s). He may also remain agitated for a little while after the item is found, working off the stress and anxiety built up while it was missing.

Hitting

The following behavior became notably less severe during Spring and Summer of 2009; as of 2009-10-06, Josh had not hit anyone for many months. He still gets bored on weekends and over holidays, but this has been manifesting itself more in obsessive disassembly of toys and other personal items (cutting bead necklaces with scissors, breaking CDs/DVDs) and "getting into things" looking for something interesting to do.

Josh becomes very unhappy (a mix of sad and angry) when he is not regularly involved in activities he finds engaging. Under these conditions, Josh will become aggressive (hitting self, others, walls, furniture) or try to escape. He has run away from home, school, and afterschool care several times each, and Durham Parks & Recreation consequently said that he could no longer attend their special needs summer camps or afterschool until he has a one-on-one worker to handle him.

As of 2010-04-25, his main response to boredom is to get dressed and indicate (with body language) that he wants to go out, or edge slowly into the office until we do something to prevent it.