Behavior Specialists and Autism: The Basics
Thursday December 21, 2006
People on the autism spectrum often have what are known as "challenging behaviors." The meaning of the term "challenging" varies from setting to setting -- after all, one person's "challenging" is another person's "silly." But in a busy home, preschool, school or other institutional setting, behavior management can become a big issue.
Since people with autism are rarely misbehaving maliciously (or even intentionally), it can be hard to know how to stop difficult behaviors or encourage positive ones. That's where a behavior specialist may step in.
What exactly is a behavior specialist? How are they trained? What is a "functional behavioral assessment," and how might your child benefit from its outcome? Get the basics!
Comments
My son is almost 10, in third grade. He has had “challenging behavior” since he was 3 and first entered public school for speech and language delays. Because his High Functioning Autism had not been properly identified until recently, he had been treated for ADHD, ODD and as Emotionally Disturbed in the public school setting. He didn’t have an “FBA” until 2004, which was performed by his current school dist. and is completely inadequate. It it one page, and does not properly identify the “function” of his behaviors. A lot of assumptions were made that caused inappropriate responses by those working with him, reinforcing his negative behaviors. Our current challenge is to reverse these negative behaviors. The school has a “behavior specialist” who has literally been, well, worthless!
I recently found a book that is current and is AWESOME. If you need to understand Functional Behavior Assessments or want to suggest reading for your school behavior specialist, read this book: Functional Behavior Assessment for People with Autism: Making sense of seemingly senseless behavior. Author: Beth A. Glasberg, Ph.D.
I suspect many schools are not properly prepared to conduct adequate FBA’s, since many do not employ “Behavior Analysts”, who are certified and trained specifially in this mechanism. Getting the proper assessments, and understanding the behavior’s “function”, is key to addressing the many behavioral problems these children can have. As parents, we often don’t understand the behaviors and can be unknowingly reinforcing negative behaviors as well. This is a great resource for parents for changing the way we address behaviors at home, and also for advocating for your childrens needs in the school setting. It contains empirically based references that you can present at your ARD’s. Many of the behavioral interventions schools use may not be empirically based. You can ask “what does the research say about that”, “show me where it says this is the appropriate response for this behavior”.
This book can be purchased through Amazon and delivered to your home if you can’t find it in the book store. I highly recommend it to anyone experiencing difficult behaviors from a child affected by autism spectrum.
In this article, the author indicated that there is no place to find qualified behavioral analysts. There is an orgainzation, the Behavioral Analyst Certification Board (BACB.com) which credentials and lists practitioners qualified to conduct the analysis of challenging behaviors, and to also write treatment intervention plans.
Interestingly, my research and interviews didn’t lead me to BACB.com, but in looking at the site I see that it looks solid. Bear in mind, though, that the likelihood of finding a local behavior specialist with a certification through this organization is pretty small. Schools and agencies aren’t likely to make this certification a criterion for selecting the behavior consultants they hire. Not a bad idea to check it out, but I personally wouldn’t make BACB certification a “make or break” issue in selecting a behavior specialist.
I have been a behavoir specialist for 3 years. I can truly say that it is not always easy to come in and change a child right away. Work can be done with a child all year, but you may not see results until the end of the year or so. The behavior specialist can only do so much, and it is the parents responsiblilities to help and work with. A lot of people expect the teachers/paraproffesionals/ behavior specialists to change everything. They feel that those people are trained to work with their child. Well it is true that those people are trained to work with children, but not specifically your child. Every child is different and you have to get to know that child first, even before you can even reach the child. And parents please stop handicapping your children, because they could do so much more with a little push. The teachers/ behavior specialists are here to help your children. Work with them and watch your children do better. The children that I have worked with are doing a lot better than they were before. Have a wonderful day!
My son is n the 3rd grade and he is doing poorly n school as far as behavior. He is currently dx with adhd which I think is a load of crap he has medicine for this that doesn’t seem 2 work. I’m not sure exactly what to do anymore. The punishments, removing video games, taking play time, etc.. Does not work. To me its like he don’t want 2 do better because it days that he does wonderful and then there’s days that he just don’t care. I’m looking into the behavioral specialist but I’m unsure if even that will work…..