In real life there are always behavior issues with children that baffle many of us as parents. There are various ways each parent tries to handle these trying situations. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Several years ago a family presented one of these situations and looked to me to help them solve it.
PROBLEM: a young child with autism would not sit in his chair at the dinner table without getting up and running around the downstairs several time during a meal.
Here was my thought process as I looked for a possible solution. I wanted to make sure their was no communication problem before looking at other options for the function of the behavior. Does he really understand what he should be doing at dinner? Here were the steps I took to address his behavior.
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I wrote a social story outlining some basics that he needed to understand about his behavior at dinner. The social story went something like this.
When it is time for dinner I come to the table and sit in my chair. I stay in my chair the whole time my family eases dinner.
My mom sits in her chair at the table.
My dad sits in his chair at the table.
My sister sits in her chair at the table.
Everyone in my family sits at the table for the whole time dinner lasts.
I eat my food at the table.
My mom, dad and sister eat their food at the table.
When I sit at the table for the whole time at dinner, my family is proud of me.
I am happy because I sat at the table the whole time
2. I prepared a visual support where the child earned a token every 2 minutes he sat at the table without getting up. When he reached 5 tokens, no matter how many meals it took, then he could have a predetermined reward.
3. The reward needed to be something that was isolated and was only available to him for sitting at the table. I asked the family what were a couple of choices of highly Desired items. They told me a certain cartoon and a hand held electronic toy. I made a visual support of each item and one could be placed on the above I'm Working For Chart. Examples of this would be
And
It was amazing how well this worked. Communication was the issue. The child was sitting at the table for the entire meal within a week. He never had noticed that he was the only person getting up during dinner and running around the house. Once he understood what behavior was expected for everyone and was motivated to follow through, the problem was solved quickly.
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