My older brother has autism, and lately, he's been doing this thing where one minute he'll be the happiest person on earth, and then literally minutes later, he slump over, put his thumb in his mouth, and stop talking. Often, he'll just stare at my mother, sometimes invading her personal space, until she asks what's wrong. From there, it sometimes take a very long time for him to tell us, and sometimes, he answers so quietly that no one can hear him. When we finally, finally, finally get him to tell us what the matter is, it's almost always something small: he wants to know whether we can go to a particular restaurant for dinner, for example, or he'd like to go to the pool instead of the beach. Usually, the request is not a big deal, so my parents say OK. If, however, we don't give in for one reason or another, he will be quietly upset for the rest of the day and it's very hard to talk him out of it. My brother doesn't throw loud fits, thankfully, but he can be damned unpleasant to be around when he quietly mopes, stares at you, and refuses to speak.

Basically, my parents are becoming increasingly frustrated (I am too, but I don't have to deal with it as much as they do), but they don't know how to remedy to problem. To give some background, my brother is in his twenties but in most ways, he's very much like a 5 or 6 year old child. I know that it sounds like we're feeding his pouting by giving him what he wants, but it's not that simple: he doesn't make connections the way most people do. If we don't give him what he wants because of his pouting, he won't come to the conclusion that pouting doesn't work. He'll just pout for hours and hours and hours. It doesn't seem to bother him, but for me and my parents, it's chafing, especially when we're trying to do something nice for him and he refuses to appreciate it because one tiny thing is out of place.

Can anyone think of a way to deal with this problem? Anybody have a similar story?