NappiedB said:
I completely agree with you, but I doubt that’s what happening. As much as it would be nice, and make life a lot easier for parents of kids with disabilities, at the end of the day diaper companies are looking to make profit and I doubt that market is big enough for them. For example, in the UK, Tesco make bigger diapers for kids with disabilities. Had this been a huge and profitable market, other supermarkets would have followed suit (which they haven’t). This leads me to believe that these larger sizes of diapers and pull ups are down to late potty training. Which like I’ve said before on here isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just noticing the trend.
The two groups are not mutually exclusive. For example, when I was growing up I had level two autism (I am now level one) and I was also dealing with the effects of a right hemisphere stroke at or near the time of birth. The stroke was a result of complications from a premature birth. I also have a very mild form of cerebral palsy and a slight curvature of my spine.
As a result of all of this I was toilet trained (very loosely speaking) when I started kindergarten just over a month before my sixth birthday. When I say say “loose speaking“ I mean that I would use the toilet if someone put me there or reminded me to go (e.g. if someone saw me doing a “potty dance” otherwise I would just go where I was without any real discomfort and with absolutely no embarrassment. By this point I was no longer in diapers during the day (aside from a few sick days at home here and there).
Only about six months earlier on a good day I was still not asking for a toilet if I needed to “go”, but I was able to answer yes or no questions about whether I needed to “go” if someone saw me doing what looked like a “potty dance“. If I did need to “go” I would generally say “yes” head to the toilet and use it. If didn’t need to use the toilet I would say “no” and go back to what I was doing before. If I didn’t want to use the toilet for any reason I would say nothing and simply stop doing the ”potty dance” and use my diaper (which was inside my underwear but not taped in place (this was back in the 1980s before pull-ups existed)) where I was. I only reached this toilet training level by age five-and-a-half when I was in preschool. I never lied about having to go (or not having to go) at that age because being as far along the autism spectrum as I am I didn’t understand the concept of lying until after age seven (when I was in first grade) after my parents explained it to me.
This only came up because one time not long after I turned seven my sister broke the cuckoo clock in the front hallway of the house that I grew up in while she was playing with it. Afterward she lied and said that I broke it. When my father asked me if broke it and I said “no” he asked me if my sister was lying about it. I asked him what that meant and (presumably) from my tone of voice and body language he could tell that I really didn’t understand the concept of lying. He then explained it to me. Later on after he ran around the block for a while to blow off some steam (as it were) he asked my mother if she ever remembered me lying about anything and she confirmed that she could not remember any examples.
From the age of four to at least the early fives (or sometimes a bit older) my mother would deal with any of my potty emergencies (e.g. on walks around the neighborhood or trips to some of the local parks) using either cueing noises or verbal permission. Whenever I did the “potty dance” or looked uncomfortable she would have me sit on her lap (sometimes with a diaper on, sometimes not) and wait for me to do what I needed to after giving either verbal permission or a cueing noise. After that I would usually have lunch, a snack, or even just some fruit juice to drink while sitting on her lap. At this stage I would sometimes use the toilet at home but I was really more “ECed” (where EC refers to elimination communication) than actually toilet trained.
At almost seven years old (just before starting first grade) I was socially far enough along to fairly consistently ask for the toilet when I needed it. I was still having accidents at this point but not as many. It would be another couple of years before accidents started to embarrass me. For me sensitive skin and occasional diaper rashes were my primary motivators for becoming toilet trained. At the most social considerations played a minor role in this process (if any) (at least early on).
The bottom line is that I was a late toilet trainer and it was caused by a combination of several disabilities.
I know a number of other people (about a half dozen) who were also late toilet trainers. Some started training as early as age four and others didn’t start training until as late as age eight. All but two of them were eventually diagnosed with some type of disability (including ADD or ADHD). I only know two people who might have trained late due to stubbornness (and only one of them seems to have a personality type that would seem consistent with that).
If more people with disabilities were accurately diagnosed in a timely fashion they would be more likely to receive any early interventions that they might need. In addition there would be more of a market for diapers for children with disabilities and diaper companies would then likely make a profit both from these products and from their more traditional products.
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