Aggression in autism. Let’s talk a little but about aggression and specifically aggression and children on the Autism spectrum.  We know that aggression is a big problem and there are many medications out there that can help with aggressive behavior, Risperidal being the most common.  There are a couple of things I want you to be aware of though with respect to aggression.  Trying to troubleshoot, or categorize the type of aggressive behavior can help understand what could be triggering it.  Is it continuous aggression that happens throughout the day?  Is it more situational aggression?  Is it intermittent aggression?  Or is the aggression specific towards one family member or one particular sex?  Continuous aggression many times can be associated with brain chemistry imbalances and sometimes that needs to be treated medically.  But many times there can be some underlying biomedical problems that are happening like pain, inflammation, digestive problems, even bacterial imbalances in the digestive tract can lead to chemical imbalances that promote a child to become more aggressive.  So continuous aggression can be indicative of an underlying pain issue, digestive problems or bacterial imbalances.  Your child could be having headaches.  If we are looking at intermittent aggression, many times that can be related to a food sensitivity.  The gluten and casein free diet we know helps many children on the Autism spectrum.  If a child has a sensitivity to wheat or milk and they get that food, it can cause them to be aggressive because it causes an imbalance in their body or just doesn’t make them feel good.  There can be other food sensitivities as well that can lead to aggression.  Sometimes doing a food sensitivity profile to determine what kind of immune reaction your child is having is important.  Situational aggression many times comes down to particular places or people that your child is around.  For example, you child has situational aggression at school.  There may be a child in their class that is bothering them.  Maybe their environment has changed, a new aide or a new teacher, something that has happened that is triggering that situational aggression.  I have had a few situations where the child is only aggressive towards a particular family member or a particular sex.  One example is the child that was only aggressive towards women.  It turned out that the child was aggressive to the women in his family and yet he was not aggressive to the males in his family.  Sometimes it is just purely behavioral problems at play.  So aggressive behavior we know is quite common.  But, if you try and break it down into categories you can understand it better.  Is it continuous aggression?  That can indicate some type of pain, inflammation, medical problem, etc.  Is it intermittent aggression?  Maybe it is related to a food sensitivity.  Is it situational aggression?  Maybe it is something that only happens at school or in a particular environment.  And, is your child only aggressive towards one particular family member or towards a particular sex?  We know that aggression is a big problem and can be treated and can be dealt with.  Once you are able to break it down a little more, it gives you a little more insight about what to do.

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