Behaviour Is Not Random:
“She just sort of freaked out”… “The behaviour happened totally out-of-the-blue”… “I don’t know what happened, he just started hitting himself for no reason”. These are examples of the type of explanations I have heard from parents, therapists, teachers and support staff when asked, “What happened?” The principles of behaviour tell us that behaviour does not just happen out-of-the-blue. Behaviour is not random and we can always find an explanation.
Over the years in my practice this has proven to be true time-and-time again. When take this into account, it actually forces us to come up with sound explanations of why certain behaviours occur. For this post let us consider self-injurious behaviours (head banging, face slapping) and autism. For the most part, breaking down the situation into its building blocks A=Antecedent B=Behaviour and C=Consequence, gives us a better conceptualization of what leads to problem behaviour.
Let us look at an example of a child with an autism where the target behaviour is head banging. You leave your non-verbal child with your partner while you quickly run out for a 30-minute errand. Your partner is fully aware of your child’s challenges. By the time you come back your child is banging her head on the ground at high repetitive rates. You ask your partner what happened, and the response is “one minute she was sitting watching her show, the next minute I turn around and she is doing this”. I will break down this situation in a manner to help you better understand how problem behaviours can arise.
A=Antecedent
This is what happens right before the behaviour occurs. This can be anything from a request to a sudden increase in noise. Basically this is the trigger that causes the behaviour to happen. Sometimes however, events may happen prior to the antecedent, which make it more likely that the antecedent will trigger the problem behaviour. For example, typically a request or a sudden increase in noise does not cause the behaviour to happen, but a certain event happened before this and thus causes the likelihood of the problem behaviour to increase. What do I mean by this? Say for example you had an argument with your partner the evening before or even earlier that morning. This “event” has now set the stage for an increased likelihood of something as simple as a request or noise increase to trigger the problem behaviour. Whether your child was present during the argument or you have unknowingly been reacting different to her all morning, she is now “on-edge” because of this setting event. This means that both the antecedent and the setting event are relevant in explaining why the problem behaviour has occurred.
B=Behaviour
This is the target behaviour. In this situation, head-banging.
C=Consequence
We have a tendency to think of consequence as something negative. behaviour happens then a negative consequence occurs. Well…no, consequence is just the reaction to a behaviour. This can be anything including a hug or consoling the child, a verbal reprimand, or helping the child make a request for what she wants by presenting her with her communication device.
In the example above after you have analyzed all possible reasons, it turns out your child was up early because of the argument and had an early breakfast and therefore was just hungry after you left. Typically she would request for a snack on her communication device, but because of the setting event (argument) the trigger of a sudden increase in noise (dog barking outside) made the problem behaviour more likely. Once you analyze all the events surrounding problem behaviour, it becomes easier to avoid, manipulate and/or manage the triggers, thus being able to control the problem behaviour in the future.
I have broken down the ABCs in this way so that next time a challenging behaviour presents itself and your are attempting to explain the situation to another person, you force yourself to describe it in this way. Think of what happens right before; the trigger or antecedent, what happened within the last 24 hours which could possibly make your child more sensitive to typical situations; the setting event, and think of how the behaviour was handled, the reaction to the behaviour; the consequence.
–Deborah Vincent
