New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline - Ministry of Health

Part 3: Education for learners with ASD
Part 3
may play in causing or maintaining behavioural
problems. Many challenging behaviours may
have communicative and social functions
for the child or be an attempt to control their
environment. Once the function of the behaviour
has been established, the child may be taught a
more appropriate behaviour which has the same
‘pay-off’, or the environment may be modified to
eliminate the ‘triggers’ for the behaviour.
Some common functions of behaviours are:
• the communication of needs and wants
• social attention
• social avoidance
• escape from difficult or boring tasks or other
aversive situations
• access to tangible items and preferred
activities
• generation of sensory reinforcement or
stimulation 96 .
The steps in a functional assessment are:
• describe the problem behaviour in detail
• identify the times and circumstances
(contexts and triggers) that are regularly
associated with the occurrence (or nonoccurrence)
of the behaviour
• identify the consequences that maintain the
behaviour
• develop hypotheses regarding the function
or purpose of the behaviour and collect
observational data to support each hypothesis
• design an intervention, supported by
the assessment, to provide an alternative
behaviour 96 248 251 .
Effective assessments involve interviews with
people in the child’s classes or family, as well
as direct observation of the behaviour in its
usual context 251 . This will provide important
information about past patterns of behaviour
and skill development. It is also important to
consider the possible effects of any co-morbid
conditions such as epilepsy 11 . An ecological
inventory of the environment may also
help identify sensory or human triggers of
behaviours. Behaviours maintained by sensory
input are more difficult to change 96 . Cognitive
and sensory overload, and difficulties switching
attention and processing information ‘under
pressure’, are common triggers for individuals
to ‘shut down’, which is often seen as noncompliance
25 .
This assessment and analysis may lead
teams to develop hypotheses about causal
relationships between environmental changes,
skill acquisition and reductions in problem
behaviour. This analysis will require input from
people who know the child well – particularly
parents and teachers – and may help focus
attention on what to do before or between
bouts of problem behaviour as well as the
skills needed by the child 251 252 . For example,
if the functional assessment reveals that the
inappropriate behaviour serves the purpose of
escaping a task, a positive solution could include
a reduction in task demand to something
manageable by the child as well as teaching
functional communication so that the child can
signal the need for a break.
Reviews of the research on the outcome of
functional behavioural assessments show that
they more often result in the choice of positive
procedures than punishment procedures, and
they are more likely to result in significant
reductions in behaviour 96 248 . However, the
research warns that in some cases where
assessments were conducted, interventions were
designed that were not consistent with the actual
assessment information. This highlights the need
for education to effectively link assessment and
intervention 248 253 .
Research has shown that positive behavioural
interventions and support:
• are effective in significantly reducing
problem behaviours
• have doubled effectiveness when preceded
by a functional behavioural assessment
• were able to be effectively carried out in
community settings by the children’s parents
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New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline