Coplai Research Self-Injurious Behaviorss Assignment

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Apr 29, 2024

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SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIORS 1 Self-Injurious Behaviors Laura Coplai Education Department, Liberty University EDUC 628_D01_202420: Communication, Language and Sensory Aspects for Autism Dr. White April 14, 2024
SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIORS 2 Self-Injurious Behaviors Introduction It is important to understand the various challenges that children with autism may go through. One of these challenges is inflicting harm upon themselves, known as self-injurious behavior. “Self-injurious behavior refers to a series of aggressive behaviors that an individual directs towards themselves that have the potential to result in physical injury, typically in the form of tissue damage” (Steenfeldt-Kristensen, Jones, & Richards, 2020, p. 3858). These types of behaviors could be repetitive or only when something in the child’s environment triggers the behavior. These behaviors could also change over time as well. Self-injurious behaviors can lead to dangerous injuries or life-threatening risks. It is only reported that about 30-40% of children with autism exhibit self-injurious behaviors. Those children with autism who present self- injurious behaviors tend to have a lower quality of life. This type of behavior is important to assess and implement some sort of intervention or strategy. Self-Injurious Behaviors . “Self-injurious behavior is particularly common in individuals with autism” (Steenfeldt- Kristensen, Jones, & Richards, 2020, p. 3858). This kind of behavior includes head banging, biting oneself, pulling their hair, scratching, and hitting hard objects or themselves. Cantin- Garside, et al., (2020) stated that those individuals who are on the autism spectrum are more likely to be hospitalized for self-injurious behavior. The risk factors for many children and adolescents who self-injure themselves including being deficit in verbal and non-verbal communication skills, as well as being unable to process their senses. “It has been speculated that the desensitization to heat, pressure and pain resulting from [autism spectrum disorder] is
SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIORS 3 compensated by gaining bodily awareness through [self-injurious behaviors]” (Adıgüzel Akman, et al., 2021, p. 66). Based on a positive or negative reinforcement, self-injury can be adjusted by changing things within the social, sensory, and material environment. “Early interventions can help prevent severe consequences and alleviate the long-term persistence of self-injurious behavior” (Cantin-Garside, et al., 2020, p. 4039). The children with autism who are experiencing self- injurious behaviors may have an excessive utilization of medication to control the behaviors. Operant conditioning procedures then become important to use to establish alternative, corrective behavior and decrease the self-injurious behavior. Interventions and Strategies When it comes to interventions for self-injurious behaviors, it is important to complete a functional assessment to make sure that there are no potential triggers of self-injurious behaviors. These assessments need to be continuously reevaluated. “Early childhood interventions, such as applied behavioral analysis, can support individuals with self-injurious behaviors and mitigate challenges associated with self-injurious behaviors” (Cantin-Garside, et al., 2021, p. 304). The initial strategy would be to see if psychopharmacological and behavior interventions could help limit the amount of self-injury. Usually, medication and meeting with an occupational therapist is the first step in trying to limit the amount of self-injurious behaviors. If that does not work, then further therapies will be needed. One of the strategies suggested to monitor self-injurious behavior is to have the child wear sensors that record activity beyond the clinician’s office.
SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIORS 4 “Technology may also enable people with ASD to self-monitor (eg, alerting them to recognize emotional states typically leading to SIB, and proactively suggesting replacement activities), offer warnings of self-injurious behavior onset with management suggestions to caregivers, or help caregivers understand children’s behavioral and diurnal trends” (Cantin-Garside, et al., 2021, p. 304). These types of technological interventions could be very useful and are effective for those with autism. Technology could help the clinicians, parents, and teachers become aware of potential escalation for when the child will exhibit self-injurious behavior, as well as the next steps to take. Besides technology use, which is starting to become a major tool for many intervention strategies, another strategy is functional communication training. This is an emerging trend in behavioral research, which has become evidence based. Functional communication training is a “communication strategy that decreases different types of problem behaviors, including self- injurious behaviors and is based on the theory that problem behavior may be a representation of a person’s inability to communicate needs and wants in more socially acceptable ways” (Alakhzami & Chitiyo, 2022, p. 3586-3587). Completely removing a behavior is the ultimate goal of functional communication training, but it is not always possible to complete. Preventing worsening of the behavior and resistance to intervention are the more important aspects of this type of strategy. By implementing functional communication training, “using alternative reinforcement (e.g., preferred items, praise) increased compliance and decreased negatively reinforced problem behavior without the use of extinction” (Alakhzami & Chitiyo, 2022, p. 3594). Another type of therapy would be electroconvulsive therapy if the child is not responding to the pharmacotherapy. This type of therapy is being utilized for those who have agitation and
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