Resources to Support Challenging Child Behavior

What are some strategies to reduce or extinguish vocal and motor self-stimulatory behaviors that interfere with learning and community inclusion?

I have a 4 year old grandson with Autism and he is non-verbal. Recently he has been knocking things over and breaking them, pushing anything he can push (furniture in particular) and climbing on everything. We aren’t sure how to discipline him when he does these things. He will not listen and he continues to do it even though he knows he shouldn’t. We’ve tried to speak firmly but calmly. We have tried speaking a loud “NO”. We tried putting him in “time out” but he thinks it’s a game. We don’t know what else to do that will make him understand that he can’t do these things. Any suggestions would be helpful.

I am going to visit my non-verbal, six year old grandson. I only see him once a year in his “space” but he knows me from Skype. I always try to approach him gently until he acknowledges me. What are some tips on making this process easier for him? I only have one week with him and want to love him to pieces while I’m there.

I have several students in my classroom who seem to get very anxious when we’re going on field trips. I’ve tried explaining where we’re going in advance, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. What can I do to help them feel more comfortable on these outings?

My son has issues with receptive speech. When I tell him something, like this morning I was trying to tell him we would have cheerios for breakfast and eggs for lunch, all he could hear was he wasn’t getting cheerios right now. I kept repeating “we will have cheerios and then eggs after” but he still was not hearing me and continued to cry and scream. I then put him on the table at eye-level and validated him by saying “I will get you cheerios” but I couldn’t explain to him that we would have eggs after. My son will be 4 in May and this is probably the most frustrating thing we deal with on a daily basis…

How can I get my student to do work in a subject that he dislikes? Every time he sees math on his schedule, he tantrums and rips up the paper.

One of my 4th grade students has high functioning autism and is included in regular education most of his day. His teachers are complaining that his “talk outs” during class are becoming much too disruptive. We are looking for a positive reinforcement procedure that might work better than his current system, which is a basic star chart that he doesn’t like.

I am a family member of a teenage girl with autism. She regularly walks around repeating the same phrases over and over again, much to the dismay of her peers and family members. Repeating it back to her or saying we heard her does not stop it. How do we reduce this? Is this a form of echolalia? Ex: Her cousin is coming to pick her up for an appointment. “I have an appointment at 10:00, my cousin is coming at 10:00 to pick me up, at 10:00 we are leaving for the appointment…” Help!

Some students in my class never follow directions. They just sit, or don’t put away materials and get what they need next. How can I help these students?

I work with clients in a residential facility.  When any of the boys (ages 8-11) is told to take a timeout (2-3 minutes) an escalation usually occurs (cursing, hitting staff, screaming) increasing the time for their timeout. How can I best use time out and reduce the amount of escalation?