Parents and teachers should look closely at the day's routine to see if anything might somehow be rewarding a child with autism for bad behavior.
This study was designed to see if letting children with bad behavior have a snack before a class lesson (instead of afterwards) caused better behavior during the lesson. The authors found that this approach worked very well for a student with autism and severe disabilities. When he didn't receive a snack before the lesson, he was much more likely to hit staff and hit his head. The authors believe that this bad behavior was his effort to stop the lesson and get the snack that he could see on the counter. When the lesson was stopped and he got his snack afterwards during snack time, the snack was reinforcing his bad behavior.
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