Expert: Ettina - 11/12/2008

Question
This is a 5 year old boy with autism. He likes to tease or provoke other kids and adults. He likes to make constant noises with his feet. I understand that this is "normal" with people with autism. My concern is that this boy goes out of his way to position himself in front of the person and then looks at them with a smirk on his face. We had try to ignore, show visuals (quiet face), tell him "quiet please". Is this "normal behavior" for a child with autism?

Answer
It sounds like he is probably a fairly sociable kid who doesn't know how to get positive attention from people. I would advise giving him lots of positive attention when he is behaving well and perhaps teaching him ways to initiate interaction.
Ignoring is the usual recommendation for attention-seeking, but it only works if the kid has other, better ways to get attention. This is because that method does not deal with the child's underlying need for interaction.
Attention-seeking like this is actually less common in autistic than in neurotypical kids, because many autistic kids have a reduced desire for interaction. However, there is a subset of autistic kids with normal, near-normal, or even increased desire to interact, and these kids often don't know how best to go about it. In addition, some people are 'attention-seeking' for a specific purpose, rather than simply because they like attention - ie, they may be trying to communicate a need.