My ASD Child

"Any tricks for getting a very stubborn 4 year old high functioning autistic child to do what he is told. He truly has a mind of his own. For example, if our requests don't make sense to him, he refuses to do what we ask, which usually results in a mother-son tug of war." One quick suggestion would be to use a  "token economy." This technique seems to work best for kids with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger's. It's a system where the child earns tokens as a reward for desired behaviors. A predetermined number of tokens are then "cashed-in" for a privilege the child desires (e.g., a favorite snack, time for playing video games, etc.). A token economy is flexible and can be easily tailored to suit the individual needs - and desires - of the youngster. Token economies that use money tokens seem to be the most successful with kids on the autism spectrum in increasing their ability to delay gratification, and lessening the ris