Autism

A Unique Sensory, Emotional, and Social Development

Repetitive, Non-Functional Behaviors

    All animals placed in inappropriate or strange environments perform inappropriate, non-functional behaviors. There isn't much literature in this regard. Nevertheless, all the literature on training lab rats, pigeons, baboons, and all other lab animals indicates very strongly that before training, animals living in a lab performed many seemingly random, repetitive, goalless behaviors. These behaviors are not really as meaningless and non-functional as the literature seems to assume. Observing them, I can only conclude that these are exploratory and anxiety behaviors. By doing a variety of meaningless and random behaviors, the animals end up finding which behavior is rewarded. As the rewarded behavior gets established, the other behaviors are reduced.

    Autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally disturbed people tend to produce repetitive, non-functional behaviors. I am convinced that most of what these behaviors really are is exploratory and anxiety reducing. Just like in the case of animals in the wrong environment (e. g. a cage), autistic people are really in the wrong environment. Their sensory apparatus is different. In our world where social referencing is not a benefit to them, and where things are rewarded in ways that are meaningless to them, autistic people simply have to produce exploratory behaviors that will help them find their rewards.

Their rewards, being different than ours, are not accepted or understood by the rest of us, causing anxiety that creates more exploratory behaviors. This generates a cycle that sets the autistic people farther into their own world. Once they are in their world, we must go there, behave like them, integrate ourselves with what they do, and slowly manipulate them to gradually push them out of there.

We can change things very gradually, but not from one day, or week, or month to the next. The process is very long but ultimately highly rewarding.

Click here for an example of going into an autistic's person world.