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All of us communicate and show our views and feelings through our behaviour. Autistic children and young people may use their behaviour to share their needs, wants and views if they find it hard to communicate or interact.
If a child has learned that their behaviour gets them what they want, they will likely continue it. This can be challenging as their behaviour may impact negatively on others.
Understanding behaviour that challenges
Challenging behaviour is a term often used to describe when autistic children do things that are a challenge to them or the people around them.
This behaviour may include:
- hurting others or themselves
- damaging or destroying things
- mouthing inedible objects
- doing things that are socially inappropriate
What we think of as challenging behaviour can be different from person to person. You might want to consider if your child’s behaviour is challenging just to adults, for example, is the child upset or just the adults who are finding the behaviour difficult.
How to address the behaviour
It is important to try to identify the causes of behaviours. You may want to think of the following questions:
- What is the child achieving by the behaviour? What result do they get?
- Is the behaviour meeting or avoiding a sensory stimulus?
- Is there a pattern to the behaviour? Does it occur in a particular place with a certain adult or at specific times?
- What was happening just before the child displayed the behaviour? This can sometimes help identify the cause or trigger. If you do not know the cause of a behaviour, it is a good idea to keep a record over several weeks to see if there is a pattern.
Knowing your child and analysing what they are telling us by their behaviour means that we can put in place strategies to help manage that behaviour.
This may mean:
- teaching new skills for communication or self-regulation
- giving them sensory input before they start to display the behaviour
- giving more appropriate alternatives to the behaviour
- adapting the environment and communication of people around them
- implementing behaviour strategies for autism
Resources to help with behaviour
You can get more information on:
- behaviour (National Autistic Society)
- positive behaviour support (British Institute of Learning Difficulties)
- challenging behaviour (Challenging Behaviour Foundation)
- Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA Society)
- autism (NHS)
We have gathered common strategies for supporting behaviours:
You can also visit Zones of regulation for more information.
Find the strategy that is at the right level for your child.
Videos to help you understand your child’s behaviour
Autistic children or young people might experience difficulties with:
- understanding what communication is about
- understanding other people's verbal and non-verbal communication
- developing or using speech
- understanding things like irony or sarcasm
Watch the video for ways to support an autistic child or young person’s communication and tips to consider when communicating with them:
An autistic child or young person may find it difficult to interact with others. This could be:
- recognising why interacting with others might be rewarding
- understanding their or other people’s feelings
- understanding the impact of their words or actions on others and accommodating the needs or wishes of others
Watch the video for ways to support an autistic child or young person with interactions:
Autistic children and young people sometimes find it difficult to adapt the way they think or act in different settings. Any last-minute changes to their everyday routines can be upsetting.
Watch the video learn why changes and flexibility can be challenging and how you can support them with it.
When they reach adolescence, autistic young people may find it more challenging as their life becomes more complicated and harder to predict or understand.
These difficulties usually happen when understanding the subtleties of social situations. Watch the video to find out how to support an autistic young person during adolescence:
An autistic child or young person may have strong interests in specific topics. They could also develop strong fears which may not always have an obvious reason.
Watch the video to learn about why they may have special interests or experience fears and how you can support them: