We have finally gone over all of the functions! This flow chart will help break down each of the functions and how to respond to them. Check out any of our other blogs to see each of the methods in more detail!

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.

Now that we know what behaviors related to tangibles are and how to prevent them lets talk about how to stop them when they start to occur. One of the most important things to remember is that if you give the child the item they are begging for you will just make it more likely that these behaviors will continue to occur.

The first method that can be used to stop these behaviors is to give the child the item that they want after they start behaving appropriately. An example of this would be letting a child have their toy after they ask for it correctly. If the toy they want is being use by another child or is somewhere that they cannot reach you should not let them have their toy until they ask nicely if they can play with it.

The second method is to stay strong with telling a child no or ignoring their inappropriate behavior. For example, if the child starts crying when they can’t have their toy because it’s bedtime, don’t give in and let them have their toy. This will just teach them that they can cry to get their toy after you say no. Make sure you are sticking to what you originally told them and not giving in.

Here at the Husky ABA Clinic we have lots of fun toys to play with, but we always want to use our strategies we’ve shared with you over the last few weeks to make sure our clients know when and how they can get access to play time.

Last week we introduced you to behaviors that can occur when a child wants access to a toy or activity, this week we will give you ideas on how to prevent these behaviors. It may be difficult to stop these behaviors correctly because many of them can go away if you give the child what they want, but we want to make sure the child doesn’t learn to cry every time they don’t get their way.

The first method that you can use to lower the chances of these behaviors happening is to give the child reminders on how they can appropriately ask for items that he or she wants. If you notice that your child is starting to grab for items or get upset that they don’t have access to a certain toy you can say something like “if you want to play with that toy you can ask someone to get it for you” or “You can ask your friend for a turn if you want the toy.” These reminders will help them understand what they need to be doing to gain access to the items they like.

Another method is to give your child choices of items that they want and give them a chance to earn them. Don’t just give the child toys because they are engaging in unwanted behavior and you want it to stop, let them have their fun items when they are doing what they should be. You can ask the child before a task what they want to be playing with after, and then follow through and have them complete the task to get their toy.

Check out our blog next week to find out how you can stop the behaviors when they start to occur!

Now that we have introduced you to escape and attention-maintained behaviors it’s time to go over behaviors that are caused by access to tangibles. Tangibles are any items or activities that are highly preferred by a child.

A common example of this that you may have experienced once or twice is when you’re in a store and your child really wants a new toy, but you tell them no. In response to hearing you say this, the child may fall to the ground and start crying to try to get access to the toy. If you or someone else eventually gives in and gets your child the toy you are reinforcing their unwanted behaviors, or making it more likely to occur again in the future.

Another example of this type of behavior is a child who hits anyone that tries to take away her iPad. The child wants to keep playing, but you are trying to fight off their physical aggression and may even give in and just let her play for a bit longer. This once again, is reinforcing the behavior of hitting in order to get more iPad time. These behaviors can be tough to deal with at times, but there are some strategies that we have to help.

The purpose of any of these behaviors is to gain access to a preferred item or activity, which may or may not be something they already have access to regularly. The more you give the child access to the items they want or give in to their behaviors the more likely it is that they will continue to behave in ways that you don’t want them to. Follow us on Facebook to find out next week what you can do to prevent and react to these behaviors!

Now that we have learned about attention-maintained behavior and possible ways to prevent behaviors we need to discuss ways to stop the behaviors when they do occur. The most important thing to remember when trying to stop the behaviors of a child is to avoid putting all of the attention on what the child is doing wrong. Instead you should tell them what they should be doing or only give them attention when they are following the rules.

One way to handle attention-maintained behaviors is to give attention to someone who is following the rules. This can be done in a classroom setting with other students or at home with another child. To do this successfully you need to ignore any attention seeking behaviors form one child and look for ways the other child is following the rules. For example, if you are playing a game with Joe and Jane and Jane is screaming you may look at Joe and tell him that he can go first because he is sitting calmly and waiting for his turn. Jane should be able to see you reinforcing Joe for his behavior so she can learn from your interactions. Seeing that she can get attention by following the rules should increase the chances that she will stop engaging in unwanted behavior so she can get attention.

Another method to stop the behaviors of a child seeking attention is to use something we call functional communication training. The goal of this is to teach the child a new verbal behavior that will replace the unwanted behaviors they are currently engaging in. An example of this is to teach a child who screams when they have to do homework on their own to say, “can you check my work?” when the child wants an adult to come over to him or her. Another example is if the child is hitting their peers to get attention you can teach him or her to ask their friends if they want to play. Giving children a new way to communicate with those around them can greatly reduce the number of inappropriate behaviors you see.

Children who are looking for attention should not be punished, but they should be taught what they should be doing instead. Here at the Husky ABA Clinic we want children to be able to get attention, but we want them to get it through the use of socially acceptable behaviors.

Make sure to praise your child when they are following directions

Our last post was focused on behaviors that occur to get attention and what they may look like for your child. Attention maintained behaviors, like most other behaviors, can be prevented in some cases. Although these strategies may not work for every child, they are a good starting point for addressing the behaviors you are seeing at home.

One way that these can be prevented is to stay close to your child. This can be as simple as sitting next to them while they color or work on homework. If they are looking to get attention, having you near may be enough to keep their unwanted behaviors to a minimum. This can also help with the second strategy to prevent these behaviors, which is telling them when they are doing a good job.

Praising your child can also help stop unwanted attention seeking behaviors. If you are near your child, you can watch what they are doing and praise him or her when they are following directions and doing what they are expected to. For example, if they are quietly reading in their chair you can give them behavior specific praise and say, “You’re doing a great job reading!” This shows them they can get attention for doing what they are supposed to and lowers the chance that they will start to cry or yell to get attention.

Check back next week to find out the Husky ABA Clinic’s techniques for stopping the behaviors if these preventative strategies don’t work!

Last week, we talked about the escape function of behavior. Now, we’re going to talk about behaviors that occur to get attention. These behaviors happen when other people are around and can give the child attention, good or bad. They can start to because the child doesn’t know the appropriate way to ask for attention, so they do anything they can to get adults or their friends to look their way. It is a normal and healthy desire to want attention. Time with a favored adult or friend can be extra valuable to children who have attention-maintained behaviors, but it is the adult’s job to teach the child the appropriate ways to get that attention.

An example of this is behaviors that happen at school, but not at home. Some of these include talking back and fighting. These are all behaviors that they know the teacher, or their peers will react to. The child may make noises out of nowhere or make inappropriate comments when they are in class, since doing so will get their peers to laugh and give them the attention they are looking for.

At home these behaviors may start happening if parents or caregivers spend time on the phone or computer instead of with them. A child may start to yell or whine until someone comes to check on them or looks their way. These behaviors can sometimes stop if the audience is removed, but the behaviors can also get more intense to gain attention from anyone else who is around. Tune in next week to learn more about how we handle attention-maintained behavior at the Husky ABA clinic!

So far, we have described avoidance behaviors and talked about how to prevent some of these unwanted behaviors. While your child is learning from your preventative strategies, like giving choices or changing the way you give the demand, your child will likely still engage in challenging behaviors to avoid some tasks. It is nearly impossible to stop every behavior from happening, so this week we will describe the best way to  react to unwanted behaviors related to avoiding certain activities.

When responding to avoidance behaviors it is important that you do not give the child what they want unless they do what they are supposed to. For example. don’t let them watch tv until their spelling homework is done. You should wait them out, which may be difficult. A child’s behavior may get more intense if you don’t respond, but this is normal. If you give in and let them have their way, like letting them get out of doing their homework or cleaning their room, they will just be more likely be behave badly in the future.

Another way to respond to a child avoiding a task is to continue giving them the instructions of what they are supposed to be doing. Keep telling them that they need to be doing their spelling or picking up their toys, so they know what their expectations are. If they do start to work on what they are supposed to make sure you are providing behavior specific praise, like saying “thanks for starting to clean up, I like how you put your toys in the toy box!”

At the Husky ABA Clinic are graduate and undergraduate clinicians are using all of these strategies. Tune in next week to see a video of our clinicians in action!

In our previous post we discussed the escape function of behavior.  We also reviewed what it may look like when your child is trying to avoid or get out of a task they have been asked to do. One way to handle these behaviors is to change what you do before the behaviors even start. If you set the tasks up in a certain way your child may be less likely to get upset about the work. Here are some examples of how you can do that.

One way to prevent escape-maintained behaviors is to give your child choices. Choices can be delivered in a variety of ways. For example, if your child working on homework, let them choose which pencil they will use, or which chair they will sit in while you work. You can even ask them which task they want to do first, for example “should we start with reading or math tonight?”. Finally, they can choose what they want to work for, like having some TV after their homework or getting to play outside for a while.

Giving them these choices will help them feel involved in the selection of activity and can prevent problem behavior. Choices also allow for the child to feel in control of what they are doing without you completely giving in to what your child wants. Although they are choosing where they sit or what they start with, you will still be able to have them accomplish what you wanted them to.

Another way to prevent avoidance behaviors to be clear and concise with the task you are asking your child. Instead of saying “can you clean up your room” say “please clean up the toys in your room.” This will make it easy for them to understand what they will need to do and keep them from being overwhelmed by too big of a task. These should be framed as a directive, so they know it’s not a choice, but something they need to be doing. If they do have a choice of what they are going to do make sure they know they have to pick. For example, “we need to clean something today, you have to do either the bathroom or your bedroom. “This still incorporated choice, but also lets them know they have to complete one of the tasks.

Here at the Husky ABA clinic we aim to use preventative strategies to keep behaviors from happening, but we also know that they do occur sometimes. This is why next week we will be talking about how to respond when these behaviors do happen.