We have gone over escape, attention, and tangible maintained behaviors, now we will introduce you to the last function that is a little more complex. This last one is sensory maintained behaviors. These are the behaviors that are automatically maintained, so the child doesn’t need a response from you to be reinforced.

Some behaviors that may occur to gain sensory stimulation are hair twirling, hand waving, and scratching. These behaviors are not done for any reason other than that it feels good to the client, so it can be difficult to address them and to find ways to decrease the behaviors. These behaviors are also not always harmful and might not need to be stopped all of the time, but if they are getting in the way of the students daily life or education they may need to be addressed.

One way to decrease these behaviors is to provide your child with access to sensory toys and other items that are stimulating. Giving your child breaks or ways to access these items can help lower the chances that they will engage in their unwanted sensory behaviors. Some examples of objects that can replace sensory behaviors are play doh and beads. The goal of doing this is to replace the inappropriate behaviors with more appropriate ones.

In our clinic we keep an array of sensory toys on hand for our clients can use.