Repeatedly banging their head against the wall, destroying a piece of furniture, or pushing someone else for no apparent reason are all harmful behaviors. Though these undesired behaviors are not unique to children with autism, 44% of children diagnosed with autism have engaged in harmful behavior at some point in their lives, including self-injury, aggressive behavior, and destructiveness.
Harmful behavior can be incredibly disruptive to an autistic child’s daily lives and to those of their families. They never know when your child will act out, how to calm them down, or if they’ll harm themselves or others.
Yet, there is help: Heartlinks. Together, we can examine the causes of your child’s harmful behavior. Then, develop a treatment plan and behavior reduction strategies using applied behavior analysis or ABA therapy.
At Heartlinks, we have helped many families understand the underlying causes of their child’s harmful behavior. We’ve watched our young clients move beyond disruptive behavior and live fulfilling lives using individualized ABA therapy. The once harmful behavior that controlled the life of your autistic child and the rest of their family is either subdued or completely gone, thanks to ABA therapy.
Why Do Children with Autism Behave Differently?
ASD (autism spectrum disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder. There is a wide range of behaviors that fall under the autism umbrella. The way one child with autism acts can be pretty different than that of another.
Yet if your autistic child exhibits harmful behavior, the cause of the behavior can be divided into one of three categories:
- Biological
- Social
- Biological exasperated by social consequences
Biological Cause
From anxiety to painful gastrointestinal issues, the range of biological causes of harmful behavior in an autistic child is wide.
Other natural causes can be sensory processing issues, which many adults and children experience on the spectrum. For sensory-seeking individuals, if their needs are not met or are improperly managed, their individuals might engage in harmful behaviors as a form of self-stimulation.
Social Cause
The social reasons for a child’s harmful behavior can be traced back to their desire for positive or negative attention. They may also be exhibiting this behavior to avoid a particular situation (i.e., recess with their peers) or a specific object (i.e., having to use the toilet).
Another major factor that can contribute to harmful behavior is autism burnout, which occurs when a child becomes overwhelmed by prolonged social, emotional, or even sensory demands. In turn, this leads to exhaustion and difficulty coping. This state can result in harmful behaviors as a way to seek relief, express frustration, or avoid even greater stress.
Social Consequences Can Aggravate Biological Causes
The initial cause of the harm might have been biological, such as physical pain, but it continued due to social consequences.
Therefore, maybe your autistic child demonstrated dangerous behaviors when consuming certain foods due to a gluten allergy. However, once that was fixed, they still participated in harmful behaviors due to the attention they received.
It’s important to remember that the harmful behaviors observed in an autistic child are understood to be a form of communication. Whether your child is non-verbal or has challenges communicating, everything from stimming to tantrums and the most extreme aggressive behavior is your child’s means of expressing themselves.
What Are Common Harmful Behaviors in Autistic Children?
The term ‘harmful behavior’ is a broad term that includes any behavior exhibited by a child, whether autistic or not, that is detrimental to them, others, or their surroundings. There are three sub-categories of harmful behavior: self-injurious, destructive, and aggressive.
Self-Injurious Behavior
Any behavior that results in physical harm to the child is considered self-injurious. Examples of this type include:
- Pinching
- Biting
- Headbanging
- Slapping
- Cutting
- Scratching
Aggressive Behavior
Hitting, kicking, or punching others are all examples of aggressive behavior in children with autism. Unlike self-injurious behavior, aggression is directed at other people. The intention isn’t necessarily to hurt the other person. Instead, it’s the child’s way of communicating their displeasure, anxiety, or lack of understanding of a specific situation.
Destructive Behavior
Breaking or dismantling furniture, making holes in walls, scratching window glass, and even a smashed iPad are all examples of destructive behavior. Unlike aggressive or self-injurious behavior, destructive is aimed at inanimate objects, not people.
What Are the Behavior Reduction Strategies Used in ABA Therapy?
Considered the pinnacle of autism therapy, ABA is an evidence-based and scientifically validated approach to helping children on the spectrum. One of its most important aspects is behavior reduction strategies, designed to decrease the frequency or intensity of harmful behaviors. Whether your high-functioning autistic child’s repetitive body movements, such as hand flapping, have become harmful or you are looking for at-home ABA therapy techniques for parents, behavior reduction strategies can help.
1. Identify the Function of the Behavior
When a child exhibits harmful behavior, the first step is a functional behavior analysis (FBA), a standard assessment strategy that reveals the underlying causes of the behavior. Behavior typically serves one of four functions: attention, escape, access to tangibles, or sensory stimulation.
However, it’s important to note that autism can sometimes be misdiagnosed, particularly when overlapping conditions like ADHD, depression, or anxiety are also present.
An ABA therapy plan cannot be developed until a therapist identifies the context and function of a child’s harmful or challenging behavior. Once that’s learned, ABA therapy’s behavior reduction strategies can be applied.
2. Personalized Treatment Plan
One of the most popular aspects of ABA therapy is that it can be customized to the specific needs of a child on the spectrum, using preference assessments to identify what motivates and engages the child while emphasizing obtaining their assent to ensure their comfort and willingness to engage in the therapy process.
A personalized treatment plan could include many interventions, including speech and language therapy, behavioral therapy, social skills training, occupational therapy, and medication management.
The elements of a child’s personalized treatment plan are chosen based on their needs, weaknesses, and strengths relating to their harmful behavior.
3. Reinforcement
The most popular and vital applied principle of behavior analysis is reinforcement. This critical principle in ABA therapy can be tailored to address diverse needs, such as those of individuals with low-functioning autism, while also accounting for differences in how autism manifests differently in girls and boys.
Simply put, reinforcement involves consequences to strengthen desired behavior. Strengthening a behavior means increasing the likelihood that it will continue to occur. There are positive, negative, and differential within the reinforcement realm.
A reward, whether verbal praise, a favorite food, or tangible items like toys, is specific to the child and the desired behavior. Positive reinforcement occurs when a reward, such as a sticker, verbal praise, or a toy, is given to the child when the desired behavior occurs.
Negative reinforcement is the opposite of positive reinforcement. When the desired behavior occurs, something is taken away from the child. For example, if the child reads independently for 20 minutes, they have removed the demand to complete 10 minutes of math because they’ve done what is asked.
Unlike reinforcement, designed to increase desired behaviors, punishment is designed to decrease undesirable behaviors. However, ABA emphasizes reinforcement over punishment because reinforcement builds new skills and fosters a positive learning environment. In contrast, punishment can (but not always) lead to negative side effects, such as regression.
It’s important to understand the concept of extinction bursts. When reinforcement for an undesired behavior is removed, the behavior may initially increase in intensity or frequency before eventually decreasing.
For example, a child who previously received attention for tantrums due to their food aversion may intensify that behavior when the attention is removed, testing whether or not the reinforcement is gone. Being able to recognize and consistently respond during extinction bursts is critical for long-term behavior change.
In ABA, reinforcement is applied using a variety of techniques, including:
- Modeling: Demonstrating the desired behavior for the autistic child to imitate.
- Shaping: Rewarding small steps that lead closer and closer to the desired behavior.
- Error Correction: Providing immediate feedback to guide the child toward the correct behavior.
- Tacting: Teaching a child to describe or label objects, events, or actions in their surrounding environment.
- Prompt Hierarchy: Using a progression of prompts (from most to least intrusive) to encourage the desired behavior and then diminish the support over time.
- Token Economy: Using tokens (i.e., points or stickers) as rewards that can be exchanged for coveted items or certain privileges.
- Discrete Trial Training (DTT): Breaking skills into small, teachable steps, providing reinforcement with each correct response.
- Errorless Learning: Ensuring the child is successful from the start by preventing mistakes and gradually fading prompts.
- Social Stories: Creating personalized stories to teach appropriate social behaviors and reinforce positive interactions.
4. Self-Regulation skills
Teaching a child on the spectrum about regulating their emotions can be approached in various creative ways. The goal is to show them that self-regulation is more than what to do when undesired behaviors occur. Instead, the emphasis is on preventing these harmful behaviors from happening altogether. Practice is critical when learning about self-regulation skills.
There are many strategies for teaching emotional regulation, including the following:
- Meditative, deep breathing
- Progressive muscle relaxation
- Exercise
- Stretching
- Drawing or painting
Get The Best Out of Your Child with Heartlinks
The goal of ABA therapy is to reduce harmful behaviors by working with autistic children to build the skills that enable them to communicate their needs in the healthiest ways possible. At Heartlinks, to accomplish this, we must realize that each child who walks through our doors has different skills and learning styles. We must adapt our behavior therapy processes and offer a range of ABA therapy services to meet their young needs and reduce their harmful behaviors.
It is a challenge we enjoy and undertake with the utmost care! For more information on how Heartlinks can help your child with harmful behaviors, get in touch with us.