Expert: Ettina - 2/25/2010

Question
QUESTION: I work with a student who has autism and is non verbal. Quite often at school this student will scream at the door and open and close it. What is he trying to communicate? What can I do to minimize this as it is distracting to others?

ANSWER: Well, there's a couple of possibilities. Firstly, the obvious one, is that he might want to go somewhere. Chances are, if he just headed out on his own, you'd run over and stop him, and he knows this, so he's trying to get you to go with him. So one thing you could try, if he's allowed out of the classroom during school time when accompanied by an adult, is to just take him for a walk and try to get him to lead you where he wants to go. He might have a specific destination in mind, or else maybe he's just getting restless and needs to wander. Either way, after walking around a bit, you can take him back to the classroom and see if he's settled down.
Another possibility is that he's not trying to communicate anything by this behavior, but rather just doing it because he wants to. Some autistic kids, while playing, will make happy noises that sound like screaming (but you can tell the difference when you get to know the kid well), and autistic play is often repetitive stuff that the kid enjoys on a sensory level - maybe he likes the way a moving door looks, the way it feels to open the door, or the sound it makes when it closes. In this case, the best solution is to find him another door to open and close that won't disrupt the class.
If you can't stop him from doing this, you could also try working with the other students to keep them from getting distracted by this behavior. You didn't mention whether he's in a mainstream or special education class. In mainstream classes, I've found, teachers often greatly overestimate how disruptive abnormal behavior is to the other children. In most cases, all that's needed is to explain why you think the kid is acting that way (eg 'he wants to go for a walk, but we're not allowed to do that during class time') and the other kids will accept that explanation and ignore the behavior. Some behavior, of course, can't be ignored, but you'd be surprised how much most kids can tune out.
In a special education class, the situation is a bit different. Typically, special education students aren't particularly surprised by odd behavior, because they see behavior like that all the time (and possibly do those sorts of things themselves). So an explanation is usually not needed unless the behavior is unusual even for that class's standards (for example, a severely autistic kid in a class full of LD/ADHD kids). However, many special education students have difficulty paying attention, or sensory sensitivities, which can make all sorts of background noises disruptive. Wearing a hood or headphones often helps with sensory sensitivities, and a more engaging and stimulating teaching style can help with attention problems.

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QUESTION: I'm working as a behaviour interventionist with a 5 year old boy with autism. He is nonverbal. It took almost 3 months but I I now have some instructional control. His agression toward me has began to decrease but the issue I'm having is he is always attacking his younger brother. Hitting, kicking and scatching his face. When he does this he is put in his room till he is quiet and then he can come out. Nothing seems to work. What can I do to teach him it is not okay to Hurt his brother?

Answer
Firstly, time out is not a good punishment for an autistic child. Since they are less sociable and more prone to overload, many autistic children actually enjoy being put in time out - it gives them a break. As a result, while it can be very effective as a preventative and/or crisis management technique, it won't serve as a deterrent.
Most typically developing preschoolers can be quite noisy and attention-seeking, so this aggression could easily be related to overload. The best thing to do in this case is to learn what kind of behavior he engages in when he's getting overloaded (for example, one kid I worked with would scrunch his eyes shut briefly) as well as what behavior from the younger brother is most likely to provoke an outburst. Once you've figured that out, you can start to resolve the problem.
Firstly, you can intervene and put him in time out before he becomes aggressive. That will give him a break from his brother so he can calm down. You can also work on a signal for him to indicate that he needs a break, by prompting him to give that signal when he's overloaded and then taking him to time out.
Secondly, if he's old enough (at least 2 years old), you can work with his brother on learning how to prevent the aggression, by teaching him that his older brother doesn't like when he does X, Y and Z, and by teaching him to recognize signs of overload and back off. You could also teach the brother some techniques to defend himself, such as covering his face.