Autism: Dealing with Behaviors

Autism follows a person through life. Intervention can help in all areas of the child's life, including behaviors. When dealing with behaviors, it is important to be firm and consistent. Just like all other areas of the child's development, autistic children tend to benefit and respond better to repetition and consistency.

It is important to start early. Start as early as possible so the child's education is founded on the appropriate behaviors and the idea that inappropriate behaviors are unacceptable. If this rule becomes broken too often and there is not consistent intervention and prevention of inappropriate behaviors, over time, the child may begin to realize that he or she can get away with the inappropriate behavior or may think that this is an okay way to behave, and it may very well just get more severe as the child grows older, wiser, and stronger. However, if the behavior is tackled from day one and the child is taught more appropriate ways to act, the inappropriate behavior will have a better chance of fading with time.

Now, of course, keep in mind, a child with autism learns more slowly than a typically developing child. This means that, yes, inappropriate behaviors can fade and the child can learn to replace them with more appropriate behaviors; however, you must keep at it. Children with autism often have difficulty attending to tasks, following directions, understanding what is being asked of them, and remembering/maintaining what they have learned. Therefore, they may appear to have learned the replacement behavior and may do very well with it one day, but may forget what they have learned the next day. This is why repetition for a long period of time is so important in order for autistic children to learn and maintain the appropriate behaviors.

Some children are so severely autistic that even as they become older and with extensive training, they still tend to present with inappropriate or aggressive behaviors. This is part of autism, and with some kids, it will always be a struggle for them. However, appropriate behaviors should be reinforced and taught on a consistent and daily basis. The child may not ever completely lose the inappropriate behaviors, but they may become less frequent and/or less intense with consistent intervention.

I work in a school for autistic children, and many have advanced and shown an obvious growth in behavioral maturity. This has come with consistent intervention, modeling, teaching, and reinforcement of appropriate behaviors amongst the staff members, and for many, at home with their parents as well, which is best because it helps the child to generalize the appropriate behaviors outside of school too. They all still display some of the typical autistic behaviors (e.g., stimming, tensing, aggressions, repetitive behaviors, silly/awkward/inappropriate social behaviors/interactions, lack of or inconsistent eye contact, requiring prompts to express themselves/express themselves with appropriate or correct language, or maintain the topic of the conversation); however, I have seen major growth in many of the students' abilities to independently decrease these common autistic behaviors, and increase appropriate and less stigmatizing behaviors as they have grown and have been consistently trained on a daily basis.

These may seem like simple behaviors that typically developing people take for granted, but for a child with autism, these are everyday struggles that can take a lifetime of work. The more the correct and appropriate behaviors are reinforced and the inappropriate behaviors are ignored and/or replaced with an appropriate behavior, the more help to the child. The goal is to help the child decrease inappropriate behaviors and increase use of appropriate behaviors to help them fit in more with their typically developing peers. This can be a lifelong task, but with support and consistency, you can help the child grow and make progress.