Good morning, my daughter Audrey she finished Pre-k and daycare in June and since then she has been biting her nails. Now its to the point where one finger is bleeding. I know why she is doing it, right, its because she has anxiety? And I was hopeful when summer school started it would stop. But the biting continues and I’m afraid the bad habit is getting worse. I keep swatting her hand away saying audrey no yucky, when she was bleeding she said “boo boo okay” to me. I tried giving her a pop it bracelet to wear but she took it off before the bus came today and grandpa didn’t put it back on. I’m afraid now she’s sitting on the bus for 40 minutes biting her nails. I hope someone can help me 🙁
Answer:
Thank you for your question! This is not necessarily anxiety for Audrey. While for some people nail biting is caused by anxiety, for children with ASD it could be a self-stimulatory behavior. Did anything in particular occur in June before the nail biting started? Did her teachers say if it was occurring in school prior to June? Let's try to get to the bottom of if it is anxiety, what could be bothering her. In the meantime, there are a few interventions we can try here. Give #1 & #2 a try for a few weeks and report back to us! If you do not see a decrease in nail biting then we will discuss details for #3. Good luck!
1. This is not necessarily ABA, but my 4-year-old is a nail biter and we recently started using Onyx "Stop the bite" nail polish. We got it off Amazon for very cheap. It has a "uniquely bitter taste" according to Amazon and it has worked wonders for my daughter. She actually loves getting her nails done so you can do normal nail polish (if she's into that) and then use the "stop the bite" as a top coat. Or just use the "stop the bite" as the one coat. We apply it every day or two before it wears off and eventually after a few weeks you can start doing it less often because the goal would be that Audrey would no longer want to bite her nails because of the taste and thinking the taste would still be there.
2. I think the pop it bracelet is a great idea as a replacement behavior, but like you said everyone needs to be consistent with it! Try pairing it with reinforcement. Every time you see Audrey playing with the bracelet praise her (nice job playing with your bracelet!) and you can even pair it with an edible reinforcer (M&M, goldfish, whatever she is into). Getting an M&M every time she plays with her bracelet is way more fun than biting her nails and hurting herself so we should see an increase in motivation for the reinforcement.
3. The final thing we can try, but I want you to try #1 & #2 first would be a timed schedule of providing a reinforcer every certain amount of time that she does not bite her nails. For example, every 5 minutes that she does not bite her nails she earns X (preferred snack, screen time, etc.) and you would say, "Nice job not biting your nails!"
Thank you for your question! This is not necessarily anxiety for Audrey. While for some people nail biting is caused by anxiety, for children with ASD it could be a self-stimulatory behavior. Did anything in particular occur in June before the nail biting started? Did her teachers say if it was occurring in school prior to June? Let’s try to get to the bottom of if it is anxiety, what could be bothering her. In the meantime, there are a few interventions we can try here. Give #1 & #2 a try for a few weeks and report back to us! If you do not see a decrease in nail biting then we will discuss details for #3. Good luck!
1. This is not necessarily ABA, but my 4-year-old is a nail biter and we recently started using Onyx “Stop the bite” nail polish. We got it off Amazon for very cheap. It has a “uniquely bitter taste” according to Amazon and it has worked wonders for my daughter. She actually loves getting her nails done so you can do normal nail polish (if she’s into that) and then use the “stop the bite” as a top coat. Or just use the “stop the bite” as the one coat. We apply it every day or two before it wears off and eventually after a few weeks you can start doing it less often because the goal would be that Audrey would no longer want to bite her nails because of the taste and thinking the taste would still be there.
2. I think the pop it bracelet is a great idea as a replacement behavior, but like you said everyone needs to be consistent with it! Try pairing it with reinforcement. Every time you see Audrey playing with the bracelet praise her (nice job playing with your bracelet!) and you can even pair it with an edible reinforcer (M&M, goldfish, whatever she is into). Getting an M&M every time she plays with her bracelet is way more fun than biting her nails and hurting herself so we should see an increase in motivation for the reinforcement.
3. The final thing we can try, but I want you to try #1 & #2 first would be a timed schedule of providing a reinforcer every certain amount of time that she does not bite her nails. For example, every 5 minutes that she does not bite her nails she earns X (preferred snack, screen time, etc.) and you would say, “Nice job not biting your nails!”