Techniques on how to encourage your child to stick out

The behavior of trying to escape a situation in all children is common, but especially so with autistic children who have a lot going on and little to no attention span.

In applied behavioral analyses therapy (ABA) avoidance techniques are tackled head on, to build up the child’s tolerance to accept and even enjoy certain situations—such as sitting down to read a book.

A child won’t be allowed to escape a situation (since this will re-enforce that escape is preferable to getting through to the other side) so what does the therapist do to make sure the child feels they can make it through that moment?

ABA Techniques: How to Encourage a Child to Stick it Out

A lot of now vs then techniques may be used. Sometimes autistic children have a hard time understanding that this moment won’t be forever. Timers are set up to show this will end and posters explaining now vs then.

Rewards are also great. Rewards such as music, and toys when they finish a task can help a child get excited to finish, instead of unmotivated and blah.

Replacing behaviors is another tool. Instead of your child running away and hiding, the therapist teaches them to ask for a break. If they ask too often, it is lined up with the other techniques and tolerance built up.

For older children the work you are doing together could be too hard, do they understand it or getting too frustrated by how difficult it is? Maybe everyone needs to step back and look at whether this is a reasonable ask.

For older children, help him/her discover their why, what positive thing they will get from learning or ‘surviving’ this task? Talk out the positives and help them view the task from a new light.

If the amount of time it takes is too overwhelming, a therapist may cut the work into parts, doing some now then taking a break and some later.

Our therapist uses awesome token systems, which are Velcro tokens of their favorite characters. Every time they complete one step they get a new token and they love it!

The Therapist Doesn’t Expect Perfection

The effort should get rewarded more than the outcome.

If your little one tried really hard but got the answers wrong, this won’t be penalized. For e.g. If we’re teaching a child to do the dishes, and stick it out, but they leave mess on a couple of cutlery, oh well! The point is they stuck it through and should be rewarded. Everyone makes mistakes and perfection isn’t the outcome we want here, it’s getting through the situation.

The therapist will always praise your child as they take steps through a non-preferred task, they deserve it. It is difficult to do anything when your world is full of noise and distraction, sometimes they just want to do something easy; but as we all know we can’t always do this as adults.

This is Something We All Do

Often ABA is just common sense. I bet you ask for help, know why you want things, take breaks and reward yourself for getting through boring tasks too! For instance,

“This meeting will take 20 minutes, I’ll learn some valuable things and when I go home and take a bubble bath.”

“I would like to be healthier for my family; I can ask my friends for help and have a special meal on the weekend. If I lose 10lbs I can get a new wardrobe.”

The procedures your ABA therapist uses isn’t alien, these are things even non-autistic people need to learn to optimize their days! And they set your child up to conquer the more uncomfortable aspects of later life, like boring work, meetings and chores.

Why your child is acting a certain way

Every child, anywhere, regardless of autism, acts a certain way for a reason. We don’t do things out of nowhere. Honing down those reasons are the key to helping a child overcome a behavior that won’t serve them in their adult years.

Let’s look at some common reasons people engage in certain behaviors so you notice what makes your child act the way they do!

Sensory

Sometimes we do things because it feels good to do them. Even though soda is bad for us, when we drink it the taste feels worth it, or the energy it gives us feels good. Sometimes we know we shouldn’t do something but we do it anyway because it makes us feel something we crave.

For an autistic child they may involve themselves in sensory stimulation, like flapping, rubbing their hands on things and spitting. This behavior is self soothing; they do it because it feels good! You may see it occur more when the child is frustrated, bored or even excited.

Escape

If you could escape from a painful situation without consequence, instead of facing it head on, would you? Most of us would!

Autistic children are known to bolt (they call it eloping now, officially) they run from situations, they hide under tables and do anything they can to escape doing something. Sometimes that something could be as simple as putting their plate in the sink. It’s not always because of doom and gloom circumstances.

A client of ours loves to use this behavior, he has several places in the house he knows is hard for adults to get to and as soon as you ask him to do something unpleasant (like chores) off he runs to hide under the bed.

There are other ways to escape situations like violence and yelling.

Children do this when they don’t want to engage in something. Maybe that something is boring, scary, annoying or too hard for them.

Attention

Yup, people do things for attention. This is a difficult one for some people to understand because it has such negative connotations wrapped around it. It shouldn’t, ‘attention seeking’ is just communicating that you want someone’s attention in the wrong way.

This is probably my middle child’s favorite reason to act out. He is a show star, he is loving, cute and by golly if he can be center of attention he will find a way! His autism (low empathy) means he often pushes children, hits them or bullies them so he can take their attention from them. It’s not about the child being a ‘bad kid’, this is just a child that doesn’t know how to say, “Hey I want a connection with you right now but I don’t know how to do it.”

Children do this when they want social interaction, or they want you to connect with them.

Tangibles

A few of our clients are obsessed with electronics. When it comes to trying to take them away the term ‘out of my cold dead hands,’ comes to mind. Sometimes children act out because they want something, plain and simple. They just don’t know how to communicate that want or they are terrified if you take it away they will never see it again.

This is the way that an ABA therapist looks at your child’s behavior, and a great thing to do for yourself as a parent. Sometimes putting meaning to situations helps us cope, and also gives us insight into how we can help our child in that moment.

Parent Training: Is your child's behavior getting worse?

How do you know whether you’re experiencing an ‘extinction burst’ or if your child’s behavior is just getting worse?

What is an Extinction Burst?

To understand what I mean by this, I’ll give an example. Let's say you ask your child to do something and they start hitting you. You've learned that not allowing escape is a great intervention so you ignore the child hitting you and repeat your request. At this point the child may start hitting more or harder (i.e. behavior just go worse).   

Why does this happen?

Because it used to work for them! This is called an extinction burst.

When you start to ignore the behavior all together they will up the ante and try to go back to the way it was before. Because that was easier for them than listening to you.

This doesn’t make your child a bad person in any way; in fact it makes them pretty smart! They’ve figured out how to get what they want in this world, and it’s wonderful. They can problem solve like this. Increasing the bad behavior is actually a clever thing to do. If you did something one way, and it worked, you would keep doing more of it to get the same reaction too!

When a behavior is done for attention, and we ignore the behavior it will get worse. But then it will start to get better, because your child will realize this is just too much work. Great!

But what happens if it stays the same? And doesn’t get better at all? When do you draw the line in the sand and try a new tactic?

What if an intervention isn’t working?

There will be plenty of data and charts to show whether your child is going through an extinction burst, or the behavior hasn’t changed at all. If the behavior hasn’t changed at all the reason your child is doing the behavior may need to be looked at again. Maybe the therapist was wrong, and they did it for another reason. If this is the case, the charts will show it and the data will help them change tactics. Some other ways the therapist could change the intervention to the behavior is;

-        Changing the length of time they ignore the behavior/child

-        Expand the plan to other places where the behavior may occur more

-        Have someone else also back up the intervention

If you feel a part of therapy isn’t working for your child, you can always speak to your therapist about it. They will have the data and charts to confirm or deny your experiences. They should work with you, not against you, to help your child better function, learn more and live a more productive life.

ABA therapy steers autistic children to work through sensory overload until it's no longer an issue

Many children with autism suffer from sensory overload. This could be sensitivity to noises, sensations, lights, textures, temperature and more. The issue with these sensory problems is they impede things your child needs to do.

We work with a boy who has autism and he hates people touching his finger-tips. Therefore, it is almost impossible for parents to cut his nails because he will scream and thrash around. But he also uses his nails as weapons to hurt himself, so cutting them is necessary. It’s a catch 22 and there are a lot of times this happens for our autistic children.

Take for example a potty; if they are scared of how it sounds or how it feels to sit on one, they won’t want to relieve themselves. It will be impossible for them to learn how to potty train. They may not like the way a hairbrush feels or a shower sounds. It hinders their life in a way you don’t always expect; sensory issues can stop your child from being able to care for them self.

That is why Applied Behavior Analyses (ABA) is so important. The therapist can use ABA as a way to run programs that eradicate this sensory issue for good. The name of one technique is systematic desensitization. This is where, a child is exposed to the stimulus on purpose and taught relaxation techniques.

For my son and his nail clipper issue it looked like this:

-        -Nail clippers were used on other people

-        -Nail clippers were brought close to him

-        -They brushed the nail clippers over his fingers

-        -They used the nail clippers to cut one nail

At every step this boy screamed and cried and fought, but eventually he could cope with that step. It became normal to him and he calmed himself.

Dealing with things like that alone is scary, especially seeing your own child in that level of fear or pain. An ABA therapist helps to steer them through these issues until they are no longer a big deal.

Parenting Styles: Techniques can influence an autistic child in many ways

When it comes to Applied Behavioral Analyses (ABA) therapy consistency is key. This is true for all parenting styles; Autistic children are no different from every other child in the world. If they can find a way to get what they want, then they will utilize it.

For instance, if a toddler wants a lolly-pop and you say no, then they ask somebody else and they say yes, they may ask different people until they get candy because it worked before. It’s important that all parents and those raising a child (because it takes a village) are on the same page.

An ABA therapist in effect helps you to raise and teach a child who doesn’t respond as well to traditional teaching methods we as caregivers see in our own families and mainstream media. Because consistency is paramount, it’s imperative you keep constant communication with your therapist. Moreover, all parents involved are on the same page. I say this because one parent, one caregiver, or one daycare/school can undermine an entire week of ABA therapy if they aren’t clued in to how everyone is reacting to a behavior in a child.

It’s the two steps forward one step back issue. If you want ABA to run smoothly and quickly, allowing anyone to take the child a step back will make the process much longer.

If your child attends a daycare, goes to school, has separate households and more than one set of parents, every single person needs information on what techniques are used in certain situations.

ABA is a very effective but easily undermined therapy. This is why having a therapist you trust enough to implement all of their ideas, will make your ABA journey smoother. This is why communication across all platforms will ensure ABA works as well as it should.

If you ever feel that ABA isn’t getting the results you expect, you need to investigate and ensure that everyone is on the same page, and has followed through with the techniques correctly before changing them up or ending ABA all together.