The Behavior Plan

The Poor Proof-Reader's Cliffhanger

I apologize!  I did not intend to leave everyone hanging yesterday….I realized I accidentally missed the last few paragraphs when pasting it into the blog!!!  HA!  So much for proof reading!  So below I added what I missed.  And I did have a good post prepared for World Autism Awareness Day which is today, but I’ll don’t want to make this post too long and crazy so I’ll post it tomorrow.  Hoping all of you have your blue on and are celebrating in your own way Autism (Acceptance) Awareness. 

Now…where I left off..

Once the in-home services were formally awarded at the IEP meeting, things progressed somewhat quickly.  The BCBA arrived at our house within a couple of weeks, and after only a few short days, she established a behavior plan we were to follow.  The issue with Coleman and establishing a behavior plan is that there are very few things that he really loves – so finding a reward for good behavior was difficult.  Instead, we focused on what Coleman dislikes, and tried to incorporate that into his ‘getting ready’ or time-out area.  We needed something that would distract him enough away from the aggressive behavior, but also something that he would do – it’s difficult to force someone to do something that they just won’t to do.  For example, sitting in a timeout.  Coleman would sit for a second and then get up, and still be hyper-focused on finishing what he was aggressing on.  You would stand in front of him and literally have to hold him down in his seat, all the while him yelling and remaining focused on whatever had prompted the timeout.  And as soon as he was 'done' in timeout, he would go right back to whatever he had been fixated on and start again. 

In an effort to try something different, the BCBA came up with a unique approach.  Coleman’s OCD makes him dislike greatly when things are out of place, so her strategy involved using that compulsion to complete his "time out".  The plan involved spilling a can of crayons and pegs every time he aggressed.  He had to pick them up and put them back into the can when he aggressed.  It was simple really.  And Coleman hated to do it.  But he hated the crayons out of place even more.   We put the plan into place on a Friday, knowing it was going to be a tough few days.  And it was.  “It will get worse before it gets better” the BCBA warned.  And it did. We were spilling crayons 5 or 6 times in a row, 10 – 12 times each day.   Coleman hitting and yelling and pulling hair every time we picked up with can.  But he did it.  We remained close to home over those first couple of weeks.  Every day seemed longer than the day before.  “Just stick with it” the BCBA said.  And we did.  And just when we began to think we couldn’t take it anymore, that it was so much worse than it was before we started, we quietly noticed that it only took 3 spills of the crayons before he calmed down.   And then two.  And before long, you only needed to pick up the can, and he’d stop what he was doing and say “I’m ready.”  It was unbelievable really.  It sounds cruel, I think.  It was a little cruel, I think.  But we were pretty far down the road on negative behaviors and we needed drastic measures.  The plan was not physically harmful in any way, and having to sit and pick up a pile of pegs and crayons distracted him enough so that he was able to calm down.  The 52-card pickup version of taking a deep breath.  And he learned quickly that hitting or scratching or pulling hair resulted in the crayon spill, i.e. he learned that those actions were not acceptable.   We tried to give him words to use - "I'm angry!" or "That makes me really mad!!" but we would not tolerate the aggressive behavior.  You would be very proud of us and how well we stuck to our guns on this one.  And best of all, it worked.  That little can of crayons helped to change our lives over here quite a bit more than I can adequately express.  And for that, we are all quite grateful.  Especially Emma.