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From Chapter 9, You Finally Know the Function of the Behavior: Now What?
For Escape-Maintained Behaviors
- What is the individual with autism escaping?
- Is the demand too boring?
- Is the demand centered around non-preferred materials?
- Is the demand associated with a certain type of stimulation?
- Is the demand social?
- Is the demand specific to a certain person?
- Does the demand go on for too long?
Again, you will create your intervention around the answers to these questions. For example, a behavior that occurs because a task is too boring might be addressed by making the task a bit harder, using more preferred materials, and tackling goals in a more preferred format (e.g. playing a game rather than completing a worksheet). You might teach your child to appropriately request new tasks and consistently reinforce appropriate requests at first. Problem behaviors should not result in escaping the demand.
In some cases, a behavior might be reinforced by removing a stimulus or a person that you do not want removed. For example, one child might exhibit a problem behavior to escape or avoid taking a bath. However, you cannot just teach your child to request to skip her bath, as she needs to be clean. In this instance, you might try to isolate the variable that is aversive to your child. For example, does she especially dislike the water running in her face during shampooing? Then having her wear a visor might solve the problem. Does she dislike the washcloth? Try using a scrubbing puff.
Similarly, a child sometimes uses a problem behavior to avoid contact with certain people, such as a sibling or a specific instructor. Nevertheless, escaping these people permanently is not an option. For this situation, use the same approach used in our bath example above. Try to identify what it is about the person that the child finds aversive. Is the sibling's presence associated with less attention from Mom? Then perhaps you should really be intervening based on divided attention. Is the sibling associated with any positive activities? If not, perhaps pairing the sibling with the child's favorite treats and activities will help. Sometimes some idiosyncratic variable is responsible for avoidance of certain individuals, like the smell of someone's perfume or the sound of their squeaky sneakers. Once identified, these variables are simple to address.
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