Understanding Your Child’s Behavior

When trying to understand a child's behavior, one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is:

“What is this behavior helping the child communicate or accomplish?”

Understanding the answer to this question can help parents, caregivers, and clinicians respond to behavior with more intention and teach children new ways to communicate what they need.

Start With the ABCs of Behavior

One way ABA professionals learn more about behavior is by looking at what happens before, during, and after it. These are often called the ABCs of behavior:

A — Antecedent: What happens before the behavior
B — Behavior: What the child does
C — Consequence: What happens after the behavior

Looking at all three pieces can help us notice patterns. Rather than focusing only on stopping a behavior, we can begin asking what the child may be trying to communicate and what skills could help them meet that same need in another way.

Why Does Behavior Happen?

Two behaviors that look exactly the same can happen for completely different reasons. Understanding why a behavior is happening helps us better understand what the child is communicating and determine what skills may be helpful to teach next.

In ABA, behavior is often described as serving one of four common functions:

Attention: “I want interaction.”
Access: “I want something.”
Escape: “I want this to stop or go away.”
Sensory: “This feels good or helps me regulate.”

Attention: “I Want Interaction”

Sometimes a behavior happens because a child is looking for connection or interaction. When attention appears to be the goal, it can help to give children plenty of positive attention throughout the day rather than allowing challenging behavior to become the most reliable way to get someone's attention.

Try This

Acknowledge the child quickly when they appropriately seek your attention. Give positive attention frequently throughout the day and praise appropriate ways of getting your attention. You can also work on teaching ways to ask for interaction, help, or connection.

Avoid This

Try not to provide lots of extra attention only after challenging behavior occurs. During escalation, avoid lengthy lectures or expecting a child to communicate clearly when they are already overwhelmed.

The goal is not to withhold connection. It is to make appropriate ways of seeking connection easier, more effective, and more available.

Access: “I Want Something”

Sometimes behavior is a way of gaining access to something the child wants, such as an item, food, activity, person, or experience. A child may still be learning how to request something, wait for it, transition away from it, or handle hearing “not right now.”

Try This

Teach ways to request using words, gestures, pictures, or an AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device. Visual supports and “first/then” language can help make expectations clearer. Preparing children for transitions, offering choices or alternatives, and practicing waiting in small, achievable steps can also help build these skills over time.

Avoid This

Avoid immediately providing a requested item because of unsafe behavior. When possible, don't suddenly remove preferred items without warning if a transition can be prepared for ahead of time. And remember that waiting is a skill—avoid expecting a child to tolerate long periods of waiting before that skill has been taught.

Escape: “I Want This to Stop or Go Away”

A behavior may also help a child delay, avoid, or get away from a task, activity, situation, or demand. That doesn't necessarily mean a child simply “doesn't want to listen.” The task may feel too difficult, too long, overwhelming, uncomfortable, or unclear.

Try This

Consider offering a short break or reducing or modifying the task. Choices and “first/then” language can help make expectations more manageable. Breaking a task into smaller steps can also reduce the amount the child has to handle at one time.

When a child is overwhelmed, allowing time to regulate before trying again can be more productive than continuing to increase the demand.

Avoid This

Avoid power struggles, repeatedly giving the same demand, increasing demands during escalation, or forcing physical compliance.

Instead, the focus can be on figuring out what is making the situation difficult and teaching skills that help the child participate successfully.

Sensory: “This Helps Me Regulate”

Sometimes the behavior itself provides a sensation or meets an internal need. A child may be seeking certain types of sensory input or trying to avoid sensory input that feels uncomfortable or overwhelming.

Try This

Pay attention to what sensory input the child may be seeking or avoiding. Depending on the child's needs, appropriate options might include movement, fidgets, quiet spaces, headphones, deep pressure, or other sensory supports.

When possible, adjust the environment and allow safe forms of self-regulation.

Avoid This

Avoid forcing eye contact or requiring still hands or bodies simply for compliance. Harmless self-regulatory behaviors shouldn't automatically be removed without teaching an alternative, and overwhelming sensory input shouldn't continue unnecessarily when it can reasonably be reduced.