Autism Therapy: self-management

definition of self-management: Ability to manage emotions and meet a goal without external intervention. The ability to self manage allows the child to keep track of his own behavior such that he is able to stop certain destructive or disruptive behaviors before they start.

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A Brief Report on the Effects of a Self-Management Treatment Package on Stereotypic Behavior
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, by Moore, TR, published in 2009, summarized Jul 27, 2009

A self-management treatment package (SMTP) reduced stereotypy (repetitive movements) in a young man with autism.

SMTP is a type of therapy where the person learns how to change their own behavior. Patients can be trained to be aware of their behaviors and reward themselves when they are able to change them. This case study involved an 18 year-old man with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). The therapy sessions took place in his residential placement center. He learned to control his stereotypy by gradually waiting longer periods without the movements, and reward himself by drinking some of his favorite soda. The time between repetitive behaviors increased from 1 second to 15 minutes.


Effects and Implications of Self-Management for Students with Autism: A Meta-Analysis
Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, by Lee, S. - H., Simpson RL, and Shogren KA, published in 2007, summarized Jul 3, 2007

Children who learn to manage themselves have better behavior and better quality of life.

This article reviewed all of the research that has been done on teaching children with autism to learn self-management. The authors were sad to report that there has not been a lot of research on how best to teach children with autism to manage themselves. They did find that children could be taught to better manage themselves using many different types of rewards: toys/food, coins that can be used to buy toys/food, or points recorded on paper. The reward system should be designed to reflect the desires of the child. The authors suggest that any autism treatment program include time spent on learning self-management.


Pivotal Areas in Intervention for Autism
J Clin Child Psychol., by Koegel, RL, Koegel LK, and McNerney EK, published in 2001, summarized Nov 6, 2006

This article describes key areas of behavior (pivotal behaviors) that underlie other behaviors in children with autism. These pivotal behaviors include: motivation, responding to complicated sensory cues, self-management, and initiating social interactions.

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) can be used to teach many kinds of behaviors, and some researchers have suggested that teaching "pivotal" behaviors that affect many other, related behaviors is the best approach to treating children with autism. The authors begin by describing pivotal response training, the name given to this idea. They then list several important pivotal behaviors, and give examples of how they affect other behaviors. For example, they describe how increasing motivation by careful use of reinforcement can result in big improvements in speech for nonverbal children with autism. In another example, children with autism were trained with ABA to ask the question, "What's that?" This simple training then resulted in improvements in vocabulary and speech in general.


Interventions That Facilitate Socialization in Children with Autism
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, by Rogers, SJ, published in 2000, summarized Oct 21, 2006

This article reviews research showing that the socialization of children with autism can be improved through several different means, and these methods are described. The author begins by pointing out that social difficulties are among the most troubling features of autism, and that improved social skills lead to better use and comprehension of language. In order to improve social skills, several approaches are used. The successful tools for preschoolers with autism are: parents imitating a child's play, pivotal response training, visual cueing, peer-mediated techniques, peer tutoring, social stories, and applied behavior analysis (ABA). The successful tools for school-aged children with autism are the same as for preschoolers, but self-management strategies and video-modeling techniques also work well. For adolescents, the successful tools are: object-initiated interactions, self-management strategies, peer-mediated techniques, and social skills groups. The author concludes that that more research is required to determine which methods are best at which ages.


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    • Synonyms for self-management include: self management, self management strategies, self soothing behavior, self-soothing behavior
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