Positive behaviour: what it looks like for autistic children and teenagers
Positive behaviour in autistic children and teenagers is about acting, speaking and responding in ways that help with learning, staying safe, getting along with others and developing well. It usually includes things like speaking or behaving kindly, cooperating, resolving conflict effectively, and following instructions that help them learn or stay safe.
For autistic children and teenagers, positive behaviour can depend on their strengths and interests. It might look like reading on their own at lunchtime, playing tag with others in the playground, sitting quietly at their desk, stimming when their routine changes and so on.
Like all children, autistic children and teenagers can sometimes struggle to behave positively. For autistic children and teenagers, this can be because of changes to routines, sensory overload, difficulty understanding or managing feelings, or difficulty understanding social cues. These issues can lead to challenging behaviour.
Encouraging positive behaviour in autistic children and teenagers
Autistic children and teenagers behave best when they can be themselves, are healthy and feel calm.
Your autistic child might need your support to learn positive ways of engaging with the world around them. You can support your child and help them learn by working with their strengths, building their skills and adjusting their environment so it supports them.
This might involve:
- making sure your child can enjoy their special interests and routines
- checking that your child’s environment is calm and comfortable
- helping your child learn to manage their emotions
- working on your child’s communication and social skills
- helping your child develop practical skills
- helping your child stay healthy.
Special interests and routines
Incorporating your autistic child’s special interests, routines or rituals into their day can have a positive effect on your child’s mood, motivation and behaviour.
The environment
Your child is more likely to behave in positive ways if their environment is calm, comfortable and predictable.
You can make small changes to your child’s environment to help them feel more relaxed and better able to learn, understand social cues and follow instructions. For example, putting dim lights in your child’s bedroom or going to the shops when it’s quiet might help if your child is sensitive to too much light or noise.
If the environment still isn’t ideal for your child, headphones, fidget toys or stimming might help your child calm themselves or feel a sense of control.
Social stories and visual supports can help your child understand changes in their environment, like a new route to school or a different teacher.
Emotions
Your child might feel strong emotions like anger, frustration, embarrassment or anxiety when they’re asked to do something they don’t want to do or feel they can’t do well. Strong emotions can also happen when things don’t go as planned or expected.
When you help your child learn to recognise and manage strong emotions, it can help them stay calm. In turn, this makes it easier for your child to follow instructions, cooperate and so on.
Communication skills
Communication skills can help your autistic child understand and respond to rules, expectations and social cues. These skills can also help your child express their needs, wants, interests and strengths in ways that other people can understand and relate to.
You might be able to encourage positive behaviour by working on the following skills with your child– communication skills, social skills for autistic children, social skills for autistic teenagers and conversation skills.
And if your child has limited language, augmentative and alternative communication systems might help with positive behaviour by making it easier for your child to communicate.
New skills
When your autistic child has the skills to do what you ask them to do, they’re more likely to cooperate or follow instructions. They’re also less likely to feel stressed or frustrated because they can’t do something.
This means that helping your child learn new skills can be part of encouraging positive behaviour. But it’s important to take your child’s stage of development into account when you think about what you can reasonably expect from them.
Healthy lifestyle
When autistic children and teenagers are physically well, they’re more likely to behave positively. Their mental health and emotional wellbeing also affect their ability to behave in positive ways.
These articles explain how to make sure your child is getting the sleep, food, and mental and emotional support they need for positive behaviour:
- About sleep
- Healthy eating habits for children
- Healthy eating habits for teenagers
- Good mental health for children: 3-8 years
- Mental health in pre-teens and teenagers
Strategies to guide autistic children and teenagers towards positive behaviour
Sometimes you might need to use specific strategies to encourage positive behaviour in your autistic child.
Give effective instructions
The way you give instructions strongly influences whether your child will understand and respond appropriately. You can read more about giving effective instructions, and use these tips to make instructions work well for autistic children and teenagers:
- Give one instruction at a time. Your child might feel overwhelmed if they’re asked to do too many things at once.
- Make sure your child has the skills to do what you’re asking. For example, if your child can’t do up buttons, they might struggle if you ask them to get dressed.
- Make sure instructions are clear and concise. For example, ‘Please take your shoes off the couch’ is clearer than ‘Watch your shoes on the couch’.
- Use pictures. For example, use a picture of handwashing when you ask your child to wash their hands.
- Give your child time to process the instruction – for example, 10 seconds.
Have clear rules and expectations about behaviour
Rules let children know how they’re expected to behave. Rules work best when they say what to do, rather than what not to do. For example, ‘We knock before going into each other’s rooms’ or ‘We speak nicely to each other’.
If you have a rule about what not to do, like ‘Don’t hit’, make sure your child knows what they can do instead to express their needs or emotions.
Offer choices
When children have choices, they learn to make decisions and think for themselves. A good way to give your child choices is to offer a limited range of options – 2 is good. For example, ‘Would you like a cheese sandwich or a Vegemite sandwich?’ Or ‘Would you like to wear this skirt or these jeans?’
You can give your child the opportunity to make choices every day – for example, what toys to play with, books to read, clothes to wear, snacks to eat, parks to play at, or projects to work on.
Use praise
Praise is when you tell your child what you like about their behaviour. When your child gets praise for behaving positively, your child is more likely to repeat that behaviour. Praise works best when you tell your child exactly what it is that you’re praising. For example, ‘Thank you for staying calm when you didn’t win the game’ or ‘Thank you for putting your bowl in the sink’.
If your child has limited language, they might not understand the positive words you’re using, so you could give your child a hug, high five or thumbs up instead.
