Frequently, I encounter situations where school teams are working with students with autism who demonstrate significant, physically assertive behaviors towards adults and peers. Many times, these behaviors are demonstrated by students with autism who have limited or no conventional communication skills and by students who have a unique cognitive learning style that makes temporal sequencing and cause and effect situations difficult to process and understand. Many times, when helping staff sort out and make sense of what's happening and how best to respond, some staff members feel that some sort of consequence (i.e., time out, response cost, or some other punitive intervention) is needed and advocate strongly that such interventions must be utilized.
Such interventions typically are not successful with most individuals with autism. In terms of reducing aggressive behaviors with students, we need to focus on why the behavior is occurring and teaching the students to communicate in different ways. In the heat of the moment (so to speak) we need to see the behavior as emotional disregulation and focus on helping the student de-escalate and keep himself and others safe. Applying some sort of negative consequence in response to the behavior in order to teach him or her to behave differently will not work. Once the student becomes more emotionally regulated, attention can be given to the function of the behavior and proactive strategies utilized to teach the student to communicate in a more conventional manner.
