Barkley contends that AD/HD is real, it can greatly affect the lives and futures of children who are identified with it, and there has never been a better time in our history to have this disorder. (Includes a links to .pdf file of full lecture.)

Many times our children (and ourselves) are afraid to try new things. Often it is because of a fear of failure. The chances of success are so dependent on the confidence with which we approach them.

Rules and strategies for working with the authors' autistic son. Premise: Promote positive rules to visually and physically structure away, deconstruct, distract and if necessary personally block from the negative behaviors ever actually happening.

Severe physical punishment is usually forbidden in most institutional settings including schools. Formerly, the rules were less stringent and Ivar Lovaas legally used electric shock to successfully treat institutionalized autistic children.

Response blocking reduced property destruction (and attempts), prevented stereotypy, and increased manipulation of matched toys.

Some people with ASD can be upset by changes in routine. The little girl was upset because her Sunday school was cancelled for a special program in the sanctuary. She cried to the point her mother had to take her outside, leaving her two sisters behind. In the pew to the rear of the sisters, a woman's voice loudly proclaimed, "She's too old to be acting like a baby." This really upset the oldest sister and she had to be calmed down after the service by her mother, who told her that the woman didn't understand and not to let such people upset her. Seeing the fire in the mother's eyes as she told the story, I think the other woman was lucky she held her comment as long as she did.

Background. We measured psychopathic traits in boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) selected for difficult and aggressive behaviour. We asked (i) whether psychopathic tendencies can be measured in ASD independent of the severity of autistic behaviour; (ii) whether individuals with ASD with callous-unemotional (CU) traits differ in their cognitive profile from those without such traits; and (iii) how the cognitive data from this study compare with previous data of youngsters with psychopathic tendencies.Method. Twenty-eight ASD boys were rated on psychopathic tendencies, autistic traits and a range of cognitive measures assessing mentalizing ability, executive functions, emotion recognition and ability to make moral-conventional distinction.Results. Our results indicate that psychopathic tendencies are not related to severity of ASD. In addition, such tendencies do not seem to be related to core autistic cognitive deficits, specifically in 'mind-reading' or executive function. Boys with co-occurring ASD and CU tendencies share some behaviours and aspects of cognitive profile with boys who have psychopathic tendencies alone.Conclusions. Callous/psychopathic acts in a small number of individuals with ASD probably reflect a 'double hit' involving an additional impairment of empathic response to distress cues, which is not part and parcel of ASD itself.

Consultation and technical assistance concerning the full range of behavior problems and challenges displayed by children and youth in school and community settings, as well as other behavioral issues that may affect their success in school.

A skill-based deficit exists when a student has not learned how to perform a given behavior. A performance-based deficit exists when the student possesses a skill but doesn't perform it under the desired circumstances.

We tested the bidirectional relations between behavior problems and maternal well-being and found evidence of both directions of influence. Initial levels and changes over time in behavior problems predicted changes in maternal well-being, and initial levels and changes over time in maternal well-being predicted changes in behavior problems in the son or daughter.

Autistic disorder (autism) is a childhood-onset disorder characterized by marked impairments in social interaction, communication and behavior. Aggression is a frequent reason for psychiatric referral in this population. As such, the clinician needs to be knowledgeable regarding aggression assessment and treatment. This article will provide an overview of treatment modalities, with emphasis on the future direction of interventions targeting aggression in children with autism.

Behavioral approaches to the treatment of early infantile autism are examined and evaluated. Attempts to modify such diverse targets as self-destructive bhavior, tantrums, aggressive and disruptive behavior, self-stimulation, toilet training, eye contact, imitation, verbal skills, prosocial behavior, and classroom activity are presented. It is concluded that although the level of product has been generally less than experimental (or quasi-experimental) in nature, there is reason to believe that behavioral intervention has been associated with real behavior change.

The consumption of nonfood items (i. e., pica) frequently occurs in persons with developmental disabilities. Pica may result in the puncture or blockage of the digestive tract, infestation by gastrointestinal parasites, and can interfere with an individual's daily learning, occupational performance, and quality of life. Twenty-six published studies have examined the efficacy of behavioral-intervention packages (e. g., differential reinforcement of other behavior, noncontingent attention, or overcorrection) on the pica of persons with developmental disabilities. This article reviews those studies and discusses the effectiveness, generality, and acceptability of the various intervention packages used to reduce pica. Additionally, this article highlights the recent clinical advancements that have been made in the treatment of the pica of persons with developmental disabilities.

Timeout in all its various forms is a ubiquitous procedure of discipline used by many parents. Yet, very little is known about the fundamental and functional properties of timeout. For example, should the timeout timer reset when problem behavior occurs during timeout?

Behavioral support plan; priorities; team members; functional assessment; implementation plan.

Children with speech and language disorders are at special risk for developing behavioural problems. Neurodevelopmental immaturity may be one factor underlying both the disorder in language development and the behavioural problems.

People with autism have severe communication deficits, with many functioning at a prelinguistic level. Consequently, it is important for adults to recognize and respond to nonverbal behaviours as communicative.

In short, people have been, and will continue to be biologically different, and the differences which express themselves as social impairments remain very much the product of they age in which they are experienced.

This study aimed to determine whether there were differences in behavioural and emotional disturbance (psychopathology) between children and adolescents with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome. Subjects consisted of 75 children and adolescents with high-functioning autism and 52 with Asperger's disorder (DSM-IV diagnoses). Psychopathology was measured using the Developmental Behaviour Checklist. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) controlling for the effects of age and cognitive level was used to determine whether the groups differed in their levels of psychopathology. It was found that children and adolescents with Asperger's disorder presented with higher levels of psychopathology than those with high-functioning autism, were more disruptive, antisocial and anxious, and had more problems with social relationships. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The results suggest that behavioural causal beliefs, low self-efficacy and low behavioural knowledge may make staff vulnerable to experiencing negative emotional reactions to challenging behaviours.

A combination of brief assessment and treatment evaluation may be a useful component in the provision of behavioral support to individuals with developmental disabilities who present with multiple forms of challenging behaviors.

By establishing a positive routine, and then disrupting it, we create an incentive for the child to communicate in order to re-establish the familiar routine.

Patterns are learned behaviors and cannot simply be changed without the entire system being given time to reorient itself. The unique history of each individual impacts his or her patterns/behaviors.

Present models for providing support have not proven fully adequate to the task of breaking these barriers to social and community integration for individuals who have severe and challenging behavior. In the following paragraphs, we present a model of support that we feel may go a long way toward "Breaking the Barriers."

People with intellectual disability often exhibit severe behavioural problems. Treatment of these problems is frequently very difficult. In The Netherlands, parents, institutes, schools and others can request the services of an independent advisory team with a pool of professionals who have experience with individuals who exhibit challenging behaviour. In this article the methods of the team will be described using a 24-year-old man as an example. The process took almost 7 years. Finally, this man, who had been living full time in one room in total isolation from the rest of the world, fulfilled his heart's desire - visiting the UK by Hovercraft.

The best way of coping with behaviours that could be dangerous to people with autism is improving adaptive skills and fostering relevant dimensions of quality of life. Education is the best procedure of intervention.

This analysis demonstrated that the choice-making condition was superior to baseline and yoked control phases as determined by levels of task engagement and disruptive behavior.

Effective inclusive education for students with significant disabilities requires substantive changes in the structure of the classroom, a different conceptualization of professional roles, and a continuous need for collaborative teaming .

A three-component strategy: description (interview followed by direct observation), categorization (aggregating multiple instances ot problem behavior into thematic groups, each characterized by a specific function), and verification.

Consequences have become narrowly linked with managing inappropriate behavior, and it is the misguided use of consequences for inappropriate behavior that is of concern.

The originality of this particular SIBIS case study is that programmed and systematic effort at establishing conditioned punishment was included in the intervention. Results indicate that a zero-level response was rapidly reached, and that the conditioned punisher (i.e. verbal prompt þ movement towards the place where SIBIS was kept) was sufficient to maintain treatment effects. Continuous assessment after treatment and formal observation session at 7 months follow-up revealed that could be removed from the natural environment of the child while maintaining a therapeutic effect.These results were interpreted as the effects of the explicit pairing between the delivery of electric stimulations and previously neutral stimuli, which were initially ineffective to elicit any response, or to suppress SIB. Close and extended monitoring during and after treatment failed to reveal the presence of negative side effects associated with SIBIS, whereas a number of positive effects were observed.

Use of maladaptive coping strategies for challenging behaviors constitutes a risk for staff burnout. This risk is in addition to that associated with exposure to challenging behavior.

This article provides a description of behavioral support as applied in the context of a family-centered early intervention program for young children with autism.

How do we handle the aggressive behaviors that many children with autism exhibit when they are disappointed or frustrated?

Be creative in your solutions, and don't worry about whether your family's way of coping is normal or not. If it works for you and harms no one, it's all right.

This file includes information about disruptive behavior. Enclosed are several citations from the ERIC database.

Self-management is a procedure in which people are taught to discriminate their own target behavior and record the occurrence or absence of that target behavior.

This study examined the effect of sensory feedback (e.g., flashing lights and sound) on the imitation performance of children with autism and typical children group-matched for mental age. Participants were administered an immediate object-imitation task with six novel toys constructed for this study: three with a sensory effect that could be activated by imitating the modeled action and three without a sensory effect. Although overall imitation performance did not differ significantly between the two groups, the imitation performance of the participants with autism was significantly higher with sensory toys than with nonsensory toys. Typical participants' imitation performance did not differ between the two sets of toys. Both groups played significantly more with the sensory toys during free play, indicating that sensory toys were more reinforcing for both groups. Additional results demonstrated that typical children used significantly more social behaviors during imitation than children with autism, but they did not differ in object-oriented behaviors, replicating previous findings. It is argued that children with autism may be less motivated to imitate by social interaction, but may be motivated to imitate to receive a nonsocial reward (sensory feedback).

The most effective models of intervention for individuals with autism/PDD are those which create learning environments that prevent behaviour problems and enhance skill development.

This study compared the effects of circumscribed interests (CI) to less preferred (LP) tangible stimuli on the social behaviors of three children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Based on single subject design methodology, the CI experimental sessions resulted in longer durations of target-child initiated social interactions in comparison to LP sessions. In addition, latency of participant's initial social bids to peers was decreased when CI were present. The results suggest that embedding CI into dyadic play situations with typical peers can be used to increase the social behavior children with ASD direct toward typical peers. Future research should examine the specific environmental conditions that must be present in naturalistic settings to facilitate generalization of social behavior.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate on-site, behavioral treatment of the disruptive classroom behaviors of a 16-year-old, male, high school student diagnosed as having autism. Method: A descriptive analysis of the problem behaviors was conducted. A number of behavioral treatments, including environmental modification, relaxation training, and self-monitoring, were introduced under the direction of a social worker. Results: Seriously disruptive behaviors were reduced to zero frequency, and the frequency of less severe disruptive behaviors was also reduced. Outcomes remained positive during 1 year of intervention. Conclusion: Descriptive assessment and on-site behavioral interventions are potentially effective interventions for social workers treating disruptive behaviors of clients with autism and related developmental disabilities.

This course analyzes the role of learning in behaviour change. A unique feature is that basic and applied research in behaviour analysis both receive considerable attention.

Given the potentially damaging consequences of aggression and self-injury, there is a need to identify factors (e.g., age, level of intellectual functioning, degree of speech) that may be associated with these two types of challenging behaviour.

A focus group is a group of people with a shared interest who meet to discuss a particular topic and generate information and opinion. Initially developed for use in market research, focus groups have been widely used in research and are often used in health and social care research. There is an increasing use of focus groups within learning disability settings both with staff and with service users. In this study a series of explorative focus groups gathered information from community staff regarding their experiences of stress when working with people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviours.

Keep expectations high. Deal with the child in a consistent fashion and follow through on their requests to him/her. Determine what function behavior serves for the child. Ignore temper tantrums. Avoid unnecessary routine.

Rewards and punishments are not only ineffective at motivating students�and adults, for that matter�but are in fact counterproductive. Students punished for misbehavior -- say, made to stand in a corner for hitting another child -- are likely to become covertly disobedient. Students rewarded for good work -- say, given candy or gold stars for a clever science project -- are more likely to lose interest in the very activity for which they were rewarded.

The first thing I do -- especially if it looks as though the client is about to escalate her responses -- is to divert her attention to something positive that she's done or said in that meeting. The referent must be to something that is very close in time to her outburst. If the meeting has run on for some time, I fish for the most recent example, even if it's small. That is usually enough to stop the ramping up behavior and actually cause a rather rapid de-escalation. The reason this often works is that she actually doesn't remember what she just did during the ramp-up to an outburst, so it's possible to reshape her working memory by providing factual, not emotional information. It's as if we are starting with an almost fresh slate. With that information, she is ready to re-engage people. Since these are stressful or strange situations, that means she is then ready to learn.

The teacher's aide noted that the autistic boy jumped off a bench the wrong way, walked away from a game, refused to greet an aide, cursed at the staff, and reported that someone was spying on him, according to court records.

If the child has a picture schedule at school (this is highly recommended), add the bus, with the child seated quietly on it. Perhaps there would be a final picture from the schedule that the child may carry onto the bus, matching an illustration from the Social Story created for this situation.

Traditional behavioral management views the individual as the sole problem and seeks to fix him/her by quickly eliminating the challenging behavior. PBS views such things as settings and lack of skill as parts of the problem and works to change those.

When selecting behavior interventions for students with disabilities, teachers should ensure that the strategies are developmentally appropriate and take into consideration the student's disability and due process rights.

The examples in the manual focus on family interactions between individuals with autism and their parents and siblings. Such examples were used because they illustrate the community applicability of the procedures.

Changing the way we communicate with children can have surprising effects on their challenging behaviours. Stress the positive versus the negative. Prepare a child for changes. Say what you mean and mean what you say�

Consider your own stereotypic responses and how they might contribute to keeping people with disabilities as non-functional or dysfunctional members of our society.

Examines maladaptive behaviour and looks at methods of teaching alternative and appropriate communication and classroom applications of these techniques

The system of education must recognize the false promise of quantitative evaluation of pedagogy and curriculum and embrace a less Newtonian and more holistic paradigm aimed at identifying risk and preventing failure.

Challenging behaviour can occur across the intellectual spectrum, being particularly prevalent in populations with psychiatric disorder.

The thing for parents and others to do is see what triggered it in the first place. The thing is not to punish the autistic for having the meltdown. Like Lovaas did when he hit a girl because she was banging her head on a piece of furniture.

It makes sense to help each individual become a better communicator. As a result, he or she should become less dependent on using negative behaviors to communicate.

It is a funny thing that, when you are a child, most adults will consider you exceptionally well-mannered if you keep quiet, sit still and refrain from making demands.

People with autism need help to negotiate for favourable circumstances and the opportunity for contentment. They need help with making their environment suitable for their special needs.

The results show the effectiveness of mirroring as a technique for the reduction of socially unaccepted behaviors in high functioning autistic adults.

The keyword for working with this process is consistency. By consistently following a pattern of positive reinforcement, behaviors can be taught that will benefit the child in his/her efforts to meet social expectations.

When 'J' has a fit, spectators assume poor parenting is to blame. They never suspect that he's autistic.

NAPPI focuses on the Assessment, Prevention and Management of confused, unpredictable, and aggressive clients. Use of the SMART Principles enables staff to remain calm, supportive and professional, while utilising highly effective yet non-abusive skills.

All too often, the educational team wants to hold the student responsible for his neurological condition. They erroneously respond to his unwitting behaviors as though they were deliberate.

There's no doubt about it -- understanding a child with autism, or sometimes, is tough. Sometimes you may understand the child, but just don't care. At home, I have a sister who's three, and even though she's not autistic, her behavior is similar to that of an autistic person. And I've felt similar anger that my mother felt toward me when she becomes quite rigid about certain issues, such as having to have a specific toy with her in the car. It's helped me develop a theory of mind toward a parent of an autistic child�to understand it from their point of view as well as mine.

Aside from innate skills, all learning breaks down to repetition and reward. Forget about everything else, start with these two things and we're on the path to success. It's true for learning how to hit a baseball and it's true for learning behavior appropriate for the classroom... Of course, the type of repetition and reward must vary. Visual learners will need visual supports as part of the repetition. The amount of repetition needed will vary between persons and situations. The reward also changes. It's amazing how positively my son has responded to the praise and positive feedback throughout the day. My initial thought was that several hundred times a day was too much and that the tangible rewards purchased by the tokens would become to important. I sure was wrong.

Reducing parental stress may have an indirect beneficial effect on the child's behaviour by improving the quality of parenting behaviour.

These findings provide limited evidence of adverse sociometric responses to both hyperac tivity and below average cognitive ability. However, conduct disorder emerges as the most powerful independent predictor of isolation and rejection.

Increasing quality of life for individuals with challenging behavior is now considered of equal importance with focusing on behavior alone.

In this study, the phenomenology and prevalence of self-restraint in individuals showing self-injury and wearing protective devices and those showing self-injury but not wearing protective devices were compared. A high prevalence of self-restraint in the whole sample of individuals showing self-injury was identified, and self-restraint was more prevalent in a group showing self-injury but not wearing protective devices than in a group showing self-injury and wearing protective devices. Individuals not wearing protective devices showed a greater number of topographies of self-restraint than those who did wear them.

Photographs of representative behaviors.

Detailed outline and flow chart. Establish Setting, Proximity to Child, New Activity, Attention; Take a Turn; Provide Opportunity to Respond; Child Response; Consequence. Sample Prompts to Facilitate Responding; Activity/Toy List; Language and Play

It is not that children with autism do not play, it is more that the way they interact with their environment, materials, and others often do not match or fit with the way other children play.

The Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders endorses the right of qualified educators and other professionals to employ appropriate behavior reduction procedures when such methods are undertaken with suitable planning and adherence to the guidelines offered above. The organization does not sanction the use of corporal punishment, highly aversive, or non-empirically validated procedures for managing problem behaviors of children and youth with behavioral disorders.

The concept of positive reinforcement is defined and illustrated; students then classify 14 examples and nonexamples.

The potential for using functional communication training (FCT) as a means of preventing minor problem behaviors from escalating to more serious ones was investigated.

The very first question after a violent episode should be, "Why was this person's communication prior to violence ineffective at getting his message across, and what can we do to make sure that his prior communication does get the message across next time?" It might involve teaching communication skills. But, equally, it might involve teaching listening skills to others. It certainly doesn't involve a zero tolerance policy.

General concepts for supporting emotionally fragile individuals who display maladaptive patterns of adjustment.

Response-restriction tests permitted comparisons of response allocation under several different environmental conditions and permitted observation and analysis of a;location preferences and response topographies across and within sets of materials.

Parents, take note: There is often a light at the end of the tunnel. Teachers, list carefully the irritating negative behaviors in your students and imagine which ones might eventually contribute to adult success.

Self-injurious behavior often refers to any behavior that can cause tissue damage, such as bruises, redness, and open wounds. The most common forms of these behaviors include head-banging, hand-biting, and excessive scratching or rubbing.

We wish to address the problem of self-injurious behavior in this article by reviewing the reasons why developmentally disabled children engage in such bizarre and dangerous behavior, and by suggesting rational guidelines for intervention.

There exists considerable discussion over the etiology, functions, and treatment of SIB. This is problematic since proposed therapies are often shaped by the hypothesized cause of the problem and are inherently linked to issues of human rights.

The goal of self-management for the developmentally disabled population is to shift supervision and control from a parent, caregiver, job coach or employer to the person him-/herself via self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement.

The prevalence of bursting and aggression was substantially lower when extinction was implemented apart of a treatment package rather than as the sole intervention.

The social problems of autism can be classified into three categories: socially avoidant, socially indifferent, and socially awkward.

To the great distress of parents whose children really are on the autistic spectrum, the condition has been adopted by many other parents on behalf of children who are not ill, just badly behaved. If a child is described as "autistic," nobody can be angry if he or, more rarely, she throws a tantrum at school or consistently irritates the neighbours. Children know that if they suffer from some kind of behaviour "ism", good things result: reduced expectation, indulgence instead of punishment, safety from even the gentlest rebuke. At the first sign of a teacher's impatience, the child can rush home and cry "abuse". Autism, a serious condition when real, is being exploited by others for all it's worth.

The approach addresses the needs for the child with autism to have continuity and order in his/her life. The child needs to be able to predict events and his/her environment needs to modified sufficiently to reduce anxiety.

Staff spend little time interacting with clients and the quality of interactions is often poor. Staff respond intermittently to challenging behaviours, and self-report studies indicate that many of these responses may reinforce such behaviors.

Too often, behavior is dismissed as "inappropriate" without truly understanding the reasons behind the behavior.

Don't take behaviours personally. Whenever possible, communicate on a literal level. Prepare the autistic person well in advance for any changes in their daily routine. Concentrate only on trying to change behaviours which are intolerable - don't worry about the behaviours which are simply odd. Whenever possible, avoid speaking to the autistic person in a loud voice. Don't expect the autistic person to respond to emotional pleas. Try and remain patient when the autistic person throws tantrums. When communicating fo the person, use a combination of visual and verbal cues. Don't assume that they are just ignoring you if they don't respond when you talk to themMaintain a sense of humour!

Many students with Asperger's Syndrome become highly anxious in the presence of such penalties, and often cannot regroup following their application. This is especially true if threats over losing highly preferred items or activities are used.

strategies for supporting persons with challenging behaviors are changing.That change can be best described as a shift from reliance on a small number of 'behavior management tricks' to a comprehensive effort to design adaptive environments.

We believe that violence and threatening behaviours are excessively tolerated in learning disability units. Reasons for this include a staff culture of accepting offending behaviour and an unwillingness or inability to involve the police.

Taming the tiger depends a lot upon language. Reading non-verbal cues, processing nuances of spoken words, and developing an inner voice. For many children, developing this ability is akin to learning a foreign language.

Acknowledge that behavior serves a function, is related to context, and is a form of communication.

Supporting a person with difficult behaviors begins when we make a commitment to know the person. Attacking a person's behavior is usually ineffective and always disrespectful. Consider how you would feel if you lived the person's life.

Stimming is NOT OK when doing functional tasks, but can be an acceptable behavior during downtime. Don't forget to look at teaching more socially acceptable forms of stimulation (pencil vs. string).

if you want to avoid rushing from disaster to disaster, you must have a proactive parenting style. Avoid conflict, redirect behavior, and always be on the lookout for an alternative solution to behavior problems.

Arguing among siblings is as natural as opening your eyes. Some level of conflict is considered a healthy sign because the typical sibling is treating his or her sibling with the disability just as he or she would treat another sibling.

This study examines services to individuals with autism from the perspective of information systems.

The results indicated that the three participants almost doubled their rates of appropriate responding to questions during play situations.

There is little evidence that anti-psychotics have any specific effect in reducing challenging behaviours, other than in cases where the challenging behaviour is associated with an underlying psychotic illness.

Greater intellectual disability; organic aetiology; organic brain damage and temporal lobe epilepsy; sensory disabilities; difficulties in language; poor coping, problem-solving and social skills; poor social support; concomitant psychiatric disorders.

All forms of destructive behavior have serious consequences for people with developmental disabilities and for their families, which can seriously limit their life opportunities.

Suppression of pica was achieved through differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior. The behavior decreased during treatment, increased during withdrawal of treatment and was again suppressed during treatment.

There are no easy and quick fixes to reduce or eliminate severe behavioral problems, which include: self-injury, aggressiveness, severe tantrums and destructiveness. A few fixes may not require an incredible amount of time and effort to implement.

This article reviews the results of a literature search, for self-injurious biting, organized in such a way as to help a clinician who is attempting to develop a specific treatment program for this maladaptive behavior. This is a serious problem with the statistics for self-biting suggesting that 6.5% of all clients with mental retardation and/or developmental disabilities engage in this behavior at least occasionally.

Once the person's social-emotional age is determined, it may be easier to understand why the person acts the way he/she does and then determine the best ways to intervene with the individual.

Provides a basic introduction to the behavioral model. By understanding and applying the behavioral model, you will increase the likelihood of intervening successfully with problem behaviors.

Having a clear understanding of the difficulties associated with autistic spectrum disorders and more specifically how each person is affected by these as an individual is an important step in understanding behaviour.

Within a multiple baseline design, all students showed increases in the percentage of intervals engaged in on-task behavior following implementation of the self-management procedures.

The exhibition of stereotypic and self-injurious behavior (SIB) combined with a lack of work engagement makes it very difficult to place a person with severe disabilities in an integrated work environment. The purpose of this research was to examine use of a positive procedure to increase engagement on-task and reduce self-injurious slapping and stereotypic clothes manipulation by a 46-year-old man with severe disabilities.

The exhibition of stereotypic and self-injurious behavior (SIB) combined with a lack of work engagement makes it very difficult to place a person with severe disabilities in an integrated work environment. The purpose of this research was to examine use of a positive procedure to increase engagementon-task and reduce self-injurious slapping and stereotypicclo the smanipulation by a 46-year-old man with severe disabilities. A single-subject research design was used to examine the effects of the combined DRA-DRO (differential reinforcement of alternative behavior-differential reinforcement of other behavior) procedure in fostering more appropriate behavior. Following 30 years of institutionalization, the man was successfully integrated into community-based employment.

Physical activity offers a variety of benefits for individuals with autism. Following moderate aerobic activity, children with autism may experience increases in attention span, on-task behavior, and level of correct responding.

The use of neutralizing routines is most practical if the initial establishing operation occurs at a point temporally distant from the discriminative stimulus for problem behavior.

Recommends unobtrusive procedures likely to demonstrate improvements in independent classroom performance among students with disabilities, and that result in these students assuming more responsibility for monitoring and directing their own behaviors,

When non-autistic people walk out of their homes, they are "taking a walk" or "walking somewhere" or something like that. When autistic people walk out of our homes, we are... wandering! ... The assumption in all of these cases and many more is that we are just kind of moving around without any point to it. I suppose this should not be surprising, since most of what we do is described as purposeless and pointless. ... Not all those who 'wander' are lost. Or even wandering.

Which Way Did She Go? Wandering in Children with Down Syndrome; Strategies for Coping with Wandering; Ideas for Parents of Children Who Wander

(Intended to) help the adult better understand the frustrations that a child with special challenges face in a very 'neurologically typical' world.

If you were to think of a particular behavior as a 'symptom,' do you think it might change your reaction to the behavior or your strategy for handling it? Or what if you still called it 'behavior,' but called it an 'involuntary' or 'unvoluntary' behavior?

Rebuild your efforts with a person who has had a set-back from a place where they are naturally confident and certain of their ability to meet expectations.

I often tell people I feel trapped in a way, because no matter how gracefully and normal I attempt to move, when socializing, my movements just come out rigid, and or timidly.

Behavior management isn't good enough for someone whose developmental disability is such that they are unable to learn from their own experience.

For children and individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities, often most of what they do is defined from a deficit perspective in comparison to adult normative standards, obscuring the personal subjective experience.

Rather than focusing on incident reports at meetings, share stories and look for strengths, preferences, interests, motivators, fears and frustrations.

School officials claim that their zero tolerance policies must be applied to all children, disabled or not, to be effective. However, the special education laws, which are based on federal law, override local policies such as a zero tolerance policy.