What is avoidance behavior
– When a conflict arises between oneself and others, one chooses to avoid it rather than resolve it on one’s own.
– Children with autism often engage in avoidance behaviors in unfamiliar situations, difficult tasks, and completely new tasks.
-Avoidance behaviors usually take the form of problem behaviors (e.g., crying, kicking, etc.).
How to Address Avoidance Behavior
1. Analyze the causes. 1 Why does the child avoid?
a)Motivation: confused about the assigned task, the child does not understand why he/she is doing the task.
b)Difficulty: the task is too complicated and the child does not understand it.
c)Duration: the task is too long and the child is tired and bored.
d)Environment: the surrounding environment makes the child feel uneasy.
e)Authority: Parents are overprotective and spoil the child to establish authority.
f) Goal consistency: family members do not share the same goals.
2. Treating the symptoms I. Interventions
a) Develop training based on what the child is interested in
– For example, if the child likes blocks, then block-related training games will be more reinforcing than stuffed toys.
– Differential Reinforcement
When doing difficult tasks, use things of interest to assist the child in accomplishing them.
For example, if your child likes blocks and drawing is a difficult task, tell your child ahead of time that he or she can play with blocks after completing the drawing. This will promote the child’s progress.
b) Controlling the difficulty of the task
-If the task is too complex, split it up to maintain the training effect.
-For example, if the child is asked to categorize different shapes, let the child categorize 1-2 types first, and then proceed to the rest of the task after a break.
c) Give breaks at regular intervals
-Make sure the child does not get tired and bored
-Generally practice naming and pointing tasks for 2-3 minutes before giving the child a break.
-Enable the child to learn to express breaks on his/her own
With language: Have your child say “play,” “rest,” “take a break,” etc. to express it.
Without language: develop a gesture or action for the child and give the break when the child expresses the action.
d) Controlling the task environment
– The task environment should ideally be one that is familiar to the child, with no possibility of any unexpected factors arising.
-Creating a structured home environment, increasing the child’s visual aids, and making the task readily apparent can motivate the child to do the activity.
e) Establishing management authority
Parents need to make sure that they establish authority and practice what they preach. Don’t back down because the child is crying.
f) Unity of purpose among family members
In the process of the task, family members should have consistent goals for training, consistent rewards and punishments, not one party to adhere to but one party to reduce the standard of the task, etc., so as to effectively reduce the avoidance behavior.
For autism, parents must detect and intervene early. Intervention training can promote the child’s functional development in various fields; enhance the child’s language, social, intellectual and other aspects of the ability, is the most direct and effective method of autism children’s rehabilitation, parents should adhere to the child’s intervention training!

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