What are the problem behaviors? How to stop problem behaviors

What if I say a problem behavior or challenging behavior your child is having , is actually not a problem behavior. A behavior is only a problem behavior if the answers of any of the 3 questions are yes.If the answer is yes , can we stop it?

The three questions are

1) Is it physically harming himself ,herself or others?

2)Does it hinder his, her or others' learning of functional skills?

3)Does the behavior indicate a lack of skill?

Behaviors can happen due to at least four reasons. They need to avoid or escape from tasks, to get attention, access to edibles , toys or activities or automatic sensory relatedness. Can you stop these needs? Until we fulfill the needs or channelize these needs, they are never going to stop.

Is it physically harming himself ,herself or others?

A person with mental disability may behave so differently from a person considered to be "normal" . Is that a scale to decide the degree of problem behavior? No. The degree of deviation from "normal" may be a scale to define how disabled they are,but need not be a scale to decide the degree of problem behavior. Neurotypical is the correct terminology to indicate "normal person " in comparison to the person with mental disability. The differences from neurotypicals is not always a problem behavior. Just because a person behaves differently than others is not a problem. Then what is problem behavior? Let's look into the three questions that define problem behavior.

A lot of times these individuals harm themselves by hitting their head , biting, flopping on the floor, grinding teeth to the extreme of decay of teeth etc. Those are problem behaviors. Because they are harming themselves. Lack of sense of safety like running out of buildings, roads, jumping from tops ,Watching lights holding too close to eye, poking own eyes etc. are also included in this set. Next is harming others like pulling others hair, hitting, kicking, pinching , slapping etc. Screaming too loud, throwing things without bothering the safety of others etc. included in this category called aggression on others.

Does it hinder his or others learning of functional skills?

Let's start with some examples. If a child keeps running all day in a classroom, no eye contact with peers or teachers, is it okay because he is not hurting others or himself? no, because it is affecting his learning time and social interaction time. Also continuously running in the class may be distracting other individuals from the same environment. That's why it will be considered as a problem behavior. So is it like he should stop running and pressure him to maintain eye contact all the time? no. We should consider him to run a little then learn a little then little group activities focusing eye contact, then little rest to be the way he is comfortable. Learning should never be forced, whether a person with special needs or anybody in this world. The activities of learning should be fun and positive rather than forcing. The decision of the second question is not always black or white. Considering the age , amount of learning, degree of distracting behavior , how it affects the individual all of these factors needed to be considered here.

Does the behavior indicate a lack of skill?

Now to the last question, it's not that the people with special needs are evil, naughty or undisciplined; they don't know how to get access to something, follow social norms, or communicate what they want. Imagine you only know how to speak in Hindi, and you are kept in China for two days, and they don't follow your body language also, how would you survive? If you want water and didn't get it for hours, won't you scream? won't you roll on the floor, maybe at some point hit your own head? And that's what each individual with special needs is also struggling with. They don't know how to follow social norms, how to access things or trying hard to get their needs done. "

Can we stop all problem behaviors with ABA therapy? Problem behaviors are harmful to self or others, but they are not from wrong motives. They are the way an individual with autism or other developmental delays communicate to the world. Using behavior assessments , particularly functional behavior assessments we find the reason behind problem behaviors. Based on the findings a behavior reduction plan will be developed. These aren't generic plans, because each individual with special needs is unique as much as any other individual to each other. Hence individualized intervention plans are required.

The strategies are basically mainly 3 ways. One ,how to avoid these problem behaviors to occur, Two, how problem behavior can be converted to appropriate behavior and three, how to react to the problem behaviors, in order to reduce that in future.

Let's try an example. Nathan pinches mom every time mom hugs his sister. When he pinches mom turn back to Nathan and says, " it hurts , don't do it". Based on behavior assessment it was found out that Nathan wants attention from Mama, so he is behaving so. In the behavior plan we may have three approaches . One avoids the problem behavior by giving attention before he pinches that Mama can hug Nathan before the sister. Second Convert this behavior appropriate by teaching him to ask " hug me Mama " , and third stop attending after Nathan after he pinches Mama like no turning back to him and expressing the feedback. Nathan wants attention no matter if it is a hug or an irritated look. Often we focus or attend to people when they make mistakes than they do good things, and a person with a disability who lacks consistent communication uses that as the best opportunity to get attention. Well this example is the tip of an iceberg. Behavior intervention plans include many steps in each of these categories, and the implementation of the intervention includes training all members involved in the program including parents, siblings, other members of the remedial team etc. A consistent implementation of a plan for weeks is important to see progress in the individual. Behavior therapists collect data of these behaviors before and during the intervention to evaluate the progress. An individual might have many differences from neurotypical individuals, and many could be problem behaviors, but we may have to consider putting them on a hierarchy of most to least disturbing to functional living of the individual. And the interventions will be focusing on the step by step reduction of the problem behaviors.

So, if a behavior is not physically harming anyone, not interrupting anybody's functional living, and is because he or she does not know something, is it a problem behavior? Let me come to another example Nancy is a girl with autism spectrum disorder. She loves singing songs, but she is scared of crowds. When at a birthday party her family friend invited Nancy to sing a song, she started singing a song but kept jerking her body. What do you think, jerking her body is a problem behavior? Nancy also did not talk to anyone in their party, but read her book . If you are Nancy's mother, what do you think? Is it a problem or not?

Well today I wrote many times about functional learning. Let's discuss what is functional learning and what is not in the next chapter.