Aspie son hitting himself

The title pretty much says it all. I have an 8 year old aspie son who when frustrated or when he has been naughty will hit himself in the head. Sometimes he hits his head on something soft, other times he punches his head. He started on Risperodone (sp?) last December which had helped. We talked to the doctor and he increased the dosage to .50 mg from .25 mg. The behaviour is continuing. I am not sure if the meds need more time or what. He does suffer from anxiety as well and will be starting with a therapist in the next month or so.

Any ideas? When he starts hitting his head it scares me and that escalates the problem.

It's most likely due to anxiety..
I'm not really sure if this could help any, but maybe make a fun little game for when he gets this way to where he can run as fast as he possibly can, with a goal or record time setting or something? sticker achievements?
quite honestly, i dont realize things like this until AFTER it's been done(tho on other times i can catch it before. like when i'm out in public i've pretty much been able to not cover my ears, but sometimes i still catch my hands going up towards my ears to cover them. and then i feel all awkward and even more nervous).. it's more of an instant full dose of adrenialin/flight scared kind of feeling. and for me it's not always anyone else can see, like i can be in my own little world, and going throughout my memories of the previous day and then something i didn't realize before that my actions or words could of been commonly taken/mistaken as, i go into a quick panic type thing, but usually i am home when this happens, so i usually in an automatic reaction shake my head, and shake my hands (sometimes they pop. it's not an intentional thing tho). growing up people would assume that i would be doing this to either get attention, or self harm on purpose. but none of it was intentional... ... I dont know if it's the same for him or not.

I don't think it is intentional but it is scary for me to see it. I can't wait until his therapy starts. In January he will be in a social skills class for 10 weeks that teaches coping among other things, there is a class for the parents as well.

Autism self injury is often about the loss of control. It can be a very scary and self/mind melting experience. When you lose the control, you get into a state that is angry, scared, vulnerable etc. It's quite different from a simple anxiety attack, it really hits the core of your being.

Reasons can be you did something wrong, messed up, didn't understand, was criticized etc. It might be your own doing/failure or someone else taking control from you.

The problem is really the lack of greyscale here. Either you are in control or out of control. The "cure" is to try to create a greyscale. It can be done on a kid's level too. I assume a therapist will work with this.

Basically it is learning to take a small step back in your mind instead of driving yourself onwards, learn it is not THAT bad, get the panic feeling out of the equation. Even if you cannot in this state even in the beginning of an attack, understand this in that state, you can learn to act like if you did. Act like if it is going to be OK and try to defuse the trigger. No, it is not easy for an adult either but it can be done. You need to learn to learn when you are slipping into that stage, allowing you to focus away from the failure or whatever happened, do something that you have repeated from before so this program kicks in.

The program can include something that you do with your hands, something you don't fail at, if you can stay calm enough for it. In adults it's usually more common it is a mental thing. Although I don't see why it cannot be a hands on thing in adults as well. It can be a thing like building a block/lego house or something. If it is a task causing "order" it might be extra soothing, using the built in defense mechanisms in autism.

Thank you Jimi... that reply really helps me understand what he is going through.