Taking Responsibility for Your Actions! Many children on the spectrum have difficulty claiming responsibility for their actions, especially if the consequences were not what were expected. Lindsey had a question regarding this issue that may be of interest to the readers. Lindsey: Do you have any previous posts regarding kids on the spectrum taking responsibility for their actions? My son has a difficult time with this. A good example would be accidents. If someone accidentally hurts him, he gets upset and says they did it on purpose and if he hurts someone, he gets angry when they cry because its an accident. This is a goal on his IEP, and he reached it at only 45% of the time. My concern is that this is too difficult of a goal. If you have a previous PowerPoint on this, or anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it. Thanks! Autism Discussion Page Response: To take responsibility for ones actions, and to assume intent in others are two different processes. To understand intent of others would take perspective taking skills, which you would have to teach that. I am assuming the school is not doing that. Also when he does something to hurt someone else, he probably feels that it was an accident. Not the behavior per se, but the fact that it hurt someone else. He probably is not anticipating that his action is going to hurt someone else, or that he was expecting the consequence of that behavior to happen (e.g. break something when too rough). He may be responsible for the behavior, but doesnt feel responsible for the consequence (someone getting hurt, or something getting broken). He doesnt want to take responsibility for the consequence that he didnt intend to happen. He will only take responsibility for something that he intended to happen. They also dont see, or connect, consequences that are not the expected results of their behavior. So, they may deny that their behavior event resulted in that consequence. To take responsibility for his actions he needs to be able to (1) appraise what he needs to do in a situation, (2) monitor how he is doing as he is doing it, (3) be able to shift gears and modify his actions if it is not getting the desired results, and then (4) evaluate the effects that his behavior has after doing it. Most children on the spectrum are poor at all four steps. To help the child learn to take responsibility you need to (1) help the child appraise a situation before acting (talk it over), (2) anticipate what effects his behavior will have (both what he intends to happen and how it might affect others), and then (3) help him evaluate the effects of his behavior after doing it (both on the intended result, and effects on others.) Help him appraise before doing things, monitor his behavior while doing them, and then evaluate how effective his behavior was afterwards. For your child I would recommend that before you expect him to take responsibility for his actions talk about what taking responsibility means, and that the consequences (effects) of his behavior may not always be what was intended. That taking responsibility doesnt necessarily mean doing it on purpose; it can be an accident. It can be an accident and we still take responsibility for doing an accident. However, you will have to connect the unintended effect directly to his actions for him to see how he created it. Look for opportunities throughout the day to talk about what he is doing, what effects his behavior has, whether it meets his intended objective, and how others are interpreting or experiencing his behavior. He is not looking at the unintended effects of his behavior, only the intended objective. Help him see how his behavior affects his surroundings and others around him. Remember, he probably does not even think others have a different perspective then his. There are three situations you can discuss this. (1) Talk about your actions as you are doing things (what you intend, how effective it was, and what effects it had on others), (2) discuss the actions you see of others around you (watch what others are doing and talk about what others are thinking and feeling, and the effects of the actions) and (3) help him appraise (ahead of time) and evaluate (after behavior) the effects of his own actions. After responding help your child evaluate whether his actions met the intended results (did reach his goal) and discuss what effects his actions had on others (how they might have thought and felt about it). If possible try to also do this before he acts (what do you want to do, what effects it will have, and how others may react). This social cognition” does not develop on its own, like it does for some NT children. You have to provide the “cognitive processing” externally (talk out loud) at first. You have to be his inner voice, until it becomes more automatic for him. This series on discipline can be found in the green book. Autism Discussion Page on Anxiety, Behavior, School and Parenting Strategies.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 19:58:31 +0000
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