Masterbation at nursery?

[gezzer]

I Been working in a nursery And been Working one on one with a child with what we believe could be autism but he has yet to be diagnosed.
He has been doing extremely well with my one on one support and his behaviour and language has improved so much since working with him in April when we both started.

but after the 2 weeks summer holidays when he came back he seems to have started "masturbating" he lies on the floor side ways and puts his hands between his legs and starts opening and shutting his legs, he's only done this 3 times since we been back, but his parents every so often don't take him in. This is apparently because his dad has finally found a job and they can't get him to nursery cause its a drive away and no buses.

We have had a person from spring board (special needs professional) to come in and she seems to think he does it because its a relief and feels good and does it when he feels lonely, but the other day when he started it I had been with him giving him lots of APPROPRIATE love and affection reading to him one on one then we started playing with the animals with other children and he started to do it again and i noticed that he was staring at an animal (Hippo) and would get rather upset if another child would take it away.
Also i was told by the Special needs person to distract him see if he would like to join in in my play but he wouldn't so I thought it best to leave him to it maybe he just felt the need, but then the other children were seeing this and one girl in particular seemed to be concerned and trying to distract him by tickling him and getting other children to play with him also (she calls him her boyfriend ) she seems to really care and like him and she just seemed rather concerned about this behaviour as much as I am. I don't know whether to inform the parents of this either, as they do seem to have social services involved but seem to decline any help so it makes me wonder what is actually going on at home.

Can anyone help me in to what I can look into maybe seeing what i can do to help him not feel the need to do it or why he is doing it he turned 3 years old in March and I do know many chldren start doing this at a young age but it seems odd that its just all of a sudden happened after the summer holidays.

[xlarababezx]

aha he was probally bored ?x

[yngdad]

Its not odd. He probably was bored over summer break, and found he has a new "toy" there. My boys do it all the time. They are 3 and 6. Boys will be boys. All u can really do is try to distract him. That's about it. My youngest is autistic and I noticed he will focus on something and play with himself when he is bored. So I take a toy or crayon and papEr so he can color or play at any time. I also try to get him involved with playing with his twin or big bro, that sometimes works. Good luck.