Autism and Behavioral Issues

As children age the behavior becomes more difficult to manage so 'early intervention' is a must for handling behavioral issues seen in children with disability.

Challenging behavior should be tackled for many reasons and the sooner it is done the better are the results. It is easier to handle a child who is 8 year old than to handle an adult with behavioral issues, who is 25 year old.

'Medical conditions' should be ruled out before treating a challenging behavior as many a time the cause for a problematic behavior is a physical condition rather than it originating from a behavioral issue.

As we know, there is a lot of rigidity and insistence on sameness involved in children with autism, so the basic goal should be to increase 'tolerance for flexibility' in the child. This helps to bring down many of the behavioral issues faced by parents like tantrums on introducing a change in routine, stubbornness etc.

Problem behavior is either originating due to a biological reason or is a learned behavior. Most of the problem behavior is a result of how we deal with it in previous encounters. Our response to problem behavior previously has a huge impact on future occurrence of similar behavior.

Behavior occurs to fulfill an 'outcome'. Outcome could be positive or negative, for e.g. obtaining a desired object (food/toy/attention), escaping, power struggles, need to self calm etc.

It is essential to assess the function of behavior by following the ABC model:

Antecedent: What happened before the problem behavior occurred?

Behavior: the problem behavior itself

Consequence: What happened immediately after the problem behavior was exhibited?

This helps you understand why a behavior is occurring and helps you avoid repeating strategies which have failed earlier and also avoids you hitting in the dark.

For any form of strategy to be successful it is essential that is implemented 'consistently' across various setups/environments, with various people and at all times. It is also essential to be 'continuous' in your effort to change problem behavior and not give up mid-way. It is noted that any problem behavior before improving worsens and then tapers down (extinction bursts).

Problem behavior is 'learned'. Learned behavior can be changed by altering the events that occur in the environment before or after the problem behavior has emerged.

It is always better to handle behavioral issues when it starts off but it’s never too late. The earlier it is managed the better would be the prognosis. We need to work on the 'communication gap' that has formed over a period of time and strive to enhance communication. A lot of behavioral issues emerge due to inability to communicate effectively and hence all the more important to work on building positive communication channels.

Our aim should be to help  the child move from dependence to 'functional' and 'vocational independence'.