ABA Therapy: Your Child’s Behaviour Isn’t the Problem. It’s the Answer. You Just Need Help Reading It.
“Every behaviour serves a function. When we understand that function, we stop seeing a problem child and start seeing a child with a problem they have not yet been given the tools to solve.”
FUNCTION 01
Attention
The child is seeking connection, presence, or engagement from the people around them. This is not manipulation. This is a deeply human need being expressed in the only way the child currently has available. When a child has limited language, or when previous attempts to get attention have been ignored or misunderstood, the behaviour that gets a response (even a negative one) will be repeated.
FUNCTION 02
Escape or Avoidance
The child is trying to get away from something overwhelming, uncomfortable, or frightening. This could be a sensory experience, a sound, a texture, or a smell that the child finds genuinely painful. It could be a social situation they do not yet have the skills to navigate. When we see non-compliance, we often see a child who is communicating: I cannot do this right now and I do not know how to tell you that.
FUNCTION 03
Access to Something Tangible
The child wants something (a toy, a food, an activity) and does not yet have the communication skills to request it effectively. The behaviour that has previously resulted in them getting what they want, even accidentally, becomes the communication strategy.
FUNCTION 04
Automatic Reinforcement
The behaviour produces a sensory experience the child finds regulating or pleasurable. Stimming, rocking, hand-flapping, spinning, and humming often fall into this category. These behaviours are perhaps the most misunderstood: frequently targeted for elimination when they are actually serving a vital self-regulation function. Removing them without understanding what they do for the child can cause genuine harm.
The Question We Ask That Changes Everything
When a child is referred to us, the referral often arrives framed around a behaviour. He is aggressive. She will not stop screaming. He runs away constantly. She destroys things when she does not get what she wants.
These descriptions are not wrong. The behaviours are real. The impact on families is real: exhausting, frightening, isolating in ways that are hard to convey to people who have not lived it.
But our first question is never “How do we stop this behaviour?” Our first question is always: “What is this behaviour achieving for this child?”
This is the foundation of what is called a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA). It is the first thing our Board-Certified Behaviour Analysts do when they begin working with a new family. Not a standardised checklist. Not a one-size-fits-all programme. A genuine investigation into this specific child’s behaviour and what purpose it serves for them in their specific life. The Four Functions of Behaviour Research in behaviour analysis has identified that virtually all behaviour serves one or more of four core functions. Understanding which function is driving a behaviour determines everything about how to respond to it.
What This Looks Like in Practice
CASE STUDY · ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
When the meltdown is not “coming out of nowhere” Let us say a child (we will call him Marcus) is having meltdowns every morning before school. The family describes them as coming out of nowhere. He screams, he hits out, and sometimes he hurts himself. The school has said he may not be able to continue in his current placement if the behaviour does not improve. When we sit with Marcus’s family and observe, a different picture begins to emerge. Marcus is hypersensitive to noise. The school bus is loud. The corridors are loud. The classroom before the school day formally starts is very loud. And Marcus has no reliable way to tell anyone that the noise is physically painful for him. The meltdown is not random. The meltdown is the end point of a sustained effort by a child to tolerate an environment that is genuinely overwhelming, reaching a point where there is simply no more capacity to do so.
Once we understand that, the intervention changes completely. It is not about managing Marcus’s meltdowns. It is about reducing the sensory load, building his capacity to communicate distress before he reaches that point, and working with the school to create an environment where he can actually learn.
What Parents Can Start Doing Today
You do not need a clinical qualification to begin thinking about your child’s behaviour differently. These are the questions we encourage every parent to hold in mind:
Four questions to ask when a behaviour occurs…
When does the behaviour happen?
Is there a pattern to the time of day, the setting, the people present, or the activity that preceded it?
What happens immediately before? This is what we call the antecedent and it is frequently the most useful clue.
What happens immediately after?
Does the child get something they want?
Does a demand get removed?
Does someone give them attention? The consequence that follows a behaviour is what maintains it.
What is your child trying to communicate? Even if you cannot yet answer this fully, holding the question helps you observe differently.
The Parent Is Not the Problem Either
We need to say this because we know it is felt, even when it is not said out loud. When your child’s behaviour is severe, the world (teachers, relatives, strangers in supermarkets) can communicate, subtly or not so subtly, that you are doing something wrong. That if you were firmer or more consistent or less permissive or less anxious, the behaviour would stop. This is not only unhelpful. It is not supported by the evidence. Consistent reductions in challenging behaviour, parental stress, and improvements in parental confidence have been documented in parents who receive structured, individualized ABA-based parent training.
Not generic parenting advice: targeted tools matched to their child’s specific profile. Source: Kaminski et al., 2018, cited in All Behaviour Consultancy clinical practice review.
You are not failing your child.
You are parenting a child in a world that was not designed with them in mind, often without adequate support, frequently while also managing your own grief, exhaustion, and fear about the future. That is an extraordinary thing to be doing. And the right support (specific, evidence-based, matched to your family) can change what your daily life looks like.
A Final Word on Language
We have been deliberate throughout this article in how we talk about behaviour and about autistic children. We do not use language like “problem behaviour” without acknowledging that the problem is usually in the mismatch between a child’s needs and the environment they are in, not in the child themselves. We do not believe in changing who a child fundamentally is.
We believe in giving children better tools, and in changing environments and expectations to meet children where they actually are. Autism is not a puzzle to be solved. But behaviour is a language to be learned. And with the right support, it is a language that families and professionals absolutely can learn to read.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The Clinical Team at All Behaviour Consultancy Limited
Board-Certified Behaviour Analysts (BCBA) · UK-BAcert Practitioners · Registered Behaviour Technicians
Led by Founder and BCBA Georgiana Koyama.
The clinical team at All Behaviour Consultancy brings together over 23 years of combined experience in Applied Behaviour Analysis, Positive Behaviour Support, and family-centred intervention. The team works with autistic children and young people aged 3 to 18 in London and across the UK, in homes, schools, and online.
Ready to understand your child’s behaviour? Our Board-Certified Behaviour Analysts offer a free 20 minute consultation: no obligation, no jargon. Just a conversation about your child and what support might help.
