The Application of Functional Assessment to Treat the Problem Behaviors of Children with Autism

A total of 145 students (from preschool to junior high school) with autism were selected for investigating and 737 behavior samplings were observed for analyzing the function. The main findings were as follows: (1) All of the problem behaviors conducted by the whole subjects were grouped into eight categories; three of them, noncompliance, social withdraw and stereotype behavior, were the ones occurring with high frequency and middle intensity; and, unstable emotion was the one occurring with middle frequency and middle intensity.

(2) Social withdrawn, aggressive behavior and unstable emotion were the behavioral categories occurring with high frequency and high intensity among the subjects having same problem behaviors. (3) Self-injuring and aggressive behavior were indicated by teachers to intend to solve mostly. (4) Noncompliance was the only one category that showed a significantly different frequency and intensity in three educational levels; no significantly different frequency and intensity were found for the other seven categories in three educational levels or different settings.