The Stress of Autism and Behavior Analysis

This week the NY Times published a blog about the stress of raising a child with autism. The blog quickly made the Twitter circuit, as if the news that it is stressful to raise a child with autism is news. It seems obvious that raising a child with any kind of developmental disability is more stressful than raising a typical child so why the blog? Because apparently, a new study suggests there is evidence that parents of children with autism were reporting higher levels of stress than parents of children with developmental delays. One possible explanation for this is that children with autism have greater needs in the area of daily living skills, which cause parents to work harder. The study however indicated that it was not the hard work that was causing the higher levels of stress, rather the behavioral problems of children with autism. When specialists provide early intervention to children with autism, there are a lot of choices they can make in terms of what to target first, how to prioritize the list of needs. What this study suggests is that when prioritizing the list of interventions, difficult behaviors should be given priority. To target and treat problematic behaviors, Behavior Analysts perform a Behavior Functional Assessment, a set of processes for defining the environmental factors that contribute to, reliably predict, and maintain challenging behaviors. Understanding why a behavior occurs directly leads to how it can be changed. A Behavior Functional Assessment will allow you to gather information to understand problem behaviors and develop effective behavior support plans.