keep blinking,
keep shaking his head,
keeps spinning,
keeps fiddling with his fingers,
keeps looking at the rotating items,
repeatedly ask the same question,
keeps holding the items in a fixed order Place,
only wears the same clothes,
only eats the same food,
can only walk the same road when you go home, and you will scream when you change the road,
only use toilet when you go to the toilet, squatting toilet can't accept
Getting off the car must close the door, and others can't close it...
All of these are manifestations of stereotyped behavior of autistic children. What's worse is that as long as the child's stereotyped behavior is violated, the child will have various emotional behavior problems.
The stereotyped behavior of children with autism has always been a problem that bothers parents. If you want to change your child’s stereotyped behavior, we can start from the following aspects.
What is stereotyped behavior?
Above behaviors are all manifestations of stereotyped behavior. If the next definition is necessary, then we can say:
Stereotyped behavior is a kind of repetitive, fixed, and undefined behavior. Usually, when this behavior is interrupted, it causes strong emotional conflicts. According to the different stereotyped content, we can divide stereotyped behavior into the following types:
1, stereotyped actions
, such as repeated shaking hands, repeated finger play, repeated shaking of the body, and self-injuring of the head.
This kind of stereotype is the simplest.
2, stereotyped thinking
For example, building blocks must be built into a line, counting must be from 1 to 10 and cannot be interrupted. Telling stories only tells the same one, and you must follow the same path and go home.
This type of stereotyped behavior has a certain degree of thinking order.
3, stereotyped language
Simple is like repeating the same sentence (has the nature of talking to oneself), singing the same song, complex is like expressing it only, everything is open, picking up an apple is also called opening, and drawing is also called opening.
This type of stereotype cannot flexibly use language, especially in the weak sentence organization ability.
4, stereotyped rules
For example, the competition only allows oneself to win and cannot accept other results;
Or, KFC must eat chicken nuggets, if not, it will crash;
Or, after playing the game skillfully, refuse to change any rules.
Ordinary adults will also be stereotyped, such as shaking their legs during meetings and playing with phone lines when using old-fashioned phones~
Among ordinary children, babies under 1 year old will have simple and repetitive stereotyped actions to a greater extent, but as they grow older and their abilities improve, stereotyped behavior usually disappears.
In children over 2 years of age with autism and developmental delay, they are more likely to be accompanied by stereotyped behavior. Among them, the autism spectrum is the most children. Among children on the autism spectrum, their stereotyped behaviors are manifested in order from low to high in intelligence: stereotyped actions, stereotyped thinking, stereotyped language, stereotyped rules, etc. In other words, children with severe and low-function autism are more manifested as stereotyped actions; children with medium and high-function, more manifested as stereotyped thinking and stereotyped language; children with high-function and children with Asperger are more manifested as stereotyped rules.
Why does there be stereotyped behavior ?
Every behavior exists, and has its reasons and significance.
For stereotyped behavior, the essential reason is that the damage to the brain nerves themselves is unknown.
From a practical point of view, it can be divided into the following reasons:
1. You can do nothing
Stereological behavior usually occurs when there is nothing to do. If children are fully involved in other projects, they generally have less stereotyped behavior.
2, sensory stimulation
Boring, and doing some rigid actions can bring sensory pleasure, so these behaviors are strengthened by themselves.
There is nothing more powerful reinforcement than getting pleasure.
3, get attention
Some stereotyped behaviors are not reinforced by themselves, but by others. For example, as soon as you start, children can get attention from their parents (being beaten and scolding is also a kind of attention), or get what they want (others giving them is also a kind of attention), and this stereotype will be reinforced by others.
4, Intelligence Disorders
Stereologic behavior is a low-level psychological development function. In other words, many children aged 4 or 5 may still have their mental power at 1 year old, so many stereotyped behaviors are preserved.
So, in the long run, only by developing intelligence can we essentially overcome stereotyped behavior. Otherwise, a stereotyped behavior will be eliminated. If intelligence cannot be effectively improved, other stereotyped behaviors will be replaced.
However, there are new contradictions. Intelligence is not the boldness of people, but the greater the product you want. A child with an IQ of 30 can increase his intelligence to 40, 50, or even 60, but it is difficult to increase it to 100. This is also why many older and even adult autistic patients can only live a strictly structured life. In any case, in the early stage, there were still many miracles that could be improved.
How to interfere with stereotyped behavior?
1. Don’t let your child be idle alone
When a child is alone or bored, he will use his own stereotyped behavior to pass the time, which will aggravate the child’s stereotyped behavior. Therefore, in daily life, parents should use a structured schedule to plan their children's whole day and let their children do different things at different times to fill their children's spare time and reduce the occurrence of stereotyped behavior.
2. Find alternative activities and divert attention
When a child has stereotyped behavior, we should intervene immediately to divert the child's attention and not let him get deeper and deeper in his own world. For example, when a child keeps waving his hands, we can teach him to play finger games or plasticine , in short, use meaningful activities to replace meaningless stereotyped behavior.
3. Continuous generalization
If you haven’t learned a new thing, you must generalize it for your child to avoid stereotyped behavior. For example, when we use cards to learn about cats, we have to take the children to see real cats, cats of different colors, let the children listen to the cat's meows and touch the cat's body. Let the child participate in multiple senses to create a more three-dimensional impression of the cat. In this way, children's understanding of cats will not be rigidly stuck on the card.
a. Generalization of location
For example, children are only willing to go to the bathroom at home and are unwilling to go to the bathroom outside. You can start from a familiar friend's home, or a familiar school or shopping mall. The child may only want to walk to the bathroom door at the beginning, but he should be strengthened at this time. You can also let your family accompany you and gradually let your children accept it step by step. After that, parents can take their children to generalize 1-2 bathrooms in different locations again, and ultimately help the children.
For example, a child takes the elevator home every day, and suddenly the elevator breaks down and he cries and makes a fuss when he walks the stairs. At this time, the location needs to be generalized. My mother takes him home in a different way every day, sometimes taking the elevator and sometimes taking the stairs. After a period of generalization of locations, the child can finally accept any way to go home. Of course, this process needs to be gradually started. Maybe at the beginning, the child can only walk to the stairs. You can also use different ways of going up and down the stairs in different places.
b. Generalization of time
For example, a child goes to school every morning and goes to the park in the afternoon. Once replaced, the child is unwilling to do so. At this time, we should pay attention to changing the order frequently and let him gradually accept it.You can borrow a visual schedule and tell him every day a few days in advance that there will be changes. Then gradually shorten the time and number of notifications until he can accept it.
C. Generalization of characters
For example, if the mother sends her child to school every day, once someone else changes, the child will be emotionally broken. Then, we need to start with people familiar to our children, including fathers, grandpas, and grandmas, and change them from time to time to allow them to gradually accept them.
d. Generalization of items
For example, the child always has to hold a small green ball and is unwilling to let it go, otherwise he will cry and it will also affect the child's attention. At this time, we can first replace and contact the same ball of other colors and gradually turn it into other items. At the same time, you can practice picking up and putting it down, or even giving return.
e. Generalization of form
For example, when building blocks, children are only willing to go from left to right at a time, and cannot accept other forms. So, we start with the child’s more acceptable way, change it frequently, and let him gradually accept it.
4. Improve the child's ability
In fact, children have a lot of rigid behaviors, and ultimately, they are the defects of their own abilities. Once the ability is improved, many of the child's rigid behaviors will disappear. For example, children always take the same route, but when parents take their children on many different routes home, the children can slowly change this stereotype. For example, children always ask the same question and repeat the same sentence, but when the child becomes abilities and can truly understand the meaning of their question, they will not ask again.
5. Change can change, accept
. Some of the stereotyped behaviors of autistic children can be changed, while some cannot be changed, but we can use them because it is very meaningful. For example, some children like to keep all the items at home in a fixed order, which is actually a good ability to organize. Some children like to place items in order, which can develop into a future professional skill. For example, librarians need to place books according to numbers.
