Behavior and Interventions

Behaviors

Students with autism may display destructive or disruptive behaviors. They can range from being very severe (dangerous, aggressive, self-injurious, or destructive) to being more mild (repetitive, scripting, or disruptive). Mild behaviors may not pose a safety issue, but can be a disruption to the learning environment. Flannery & Wisner-Carlson say to focus on correcting the behaviors that cause a disruption to the learning environment (2020). Not all behaviors will disrupt (such as tapping a pencil quietly), so address the ones that impact learning.

Many teachers or support staff may see behaviors as being oppoisitional or manipulative. Bryan & Gast state that this may not be the case. There can be a variety of reasons that a student with ASD may display challenging behaviors. The graphic below lists some of these reasons.

Functional Behavior Assessment

When a student with ASD is displaying challenging behaviors the IEP team needs to determine the function of the behavior. This can be done through a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA). FBA's are a systematic approach to collect information about the interfering behaviors and how to identify replacement behaviors that serve the same function. The IEP team uses the information collected from the FBA to create a hypothesis of the function of the behavior and then choose interventions to test the hypothesis. The interventions are used to teach and promote appropriate responses and appropriate behaviors (Wong, et al., 2015).

The difficulties and challenges that students with ASD face may be manifested through inappropriate behaviors. These behaviors may continue if they are unintentionally being reinforced and are not likely to decrease without interventions (Rahn et al., 2015). Each student with ASD needs to be addressed with their unique and individual needs to decrease unwanted behaviors.

Some behaviors may be addressed through the child's needs being met. Smith, et al. stated that the 5 areas of need identified by the Ziggurat Model are:

Sensory differences and biological needs
Reinforcement
Structure and visual/tactile supports
Task demand
Skills to teach

The first four areas may address many of the behavioral concerns of the child, but Smith et al. emphasizes that they still needs skills to be taught. Improvements in behavior still require skills to teach. Even though a student may display growth, it does not mean they have acquired the necessary skills for their long term outcomes (2010). It can be encouraging to see a student progress positively in their behavior, but a student with ASD will continue to have skills to learn in order to support their ability to generalize those skills to multiple settings.

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