Self-injury is a maladaptive behavior that is defined as self-aggression and other acts of harm against the self. Examples include biting one’s own hand, hitting self in the head, self-cutting, and crashing one’s body into furniture or other objects. Self-injurious behavior often has a sensory component and many children engage in it when they feel overwhelmed and cannot communicate those feelings or sensory needs appropriately.

In this video, Amalie D. Holley, MS Board Certified Behavior Analyst and FirstPath Autism Program Manager, discusses Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB) and best practices for redirecting.

The downloadable data sheet below helps you to track the frequency of a specific behavior:

ABC data collection

  Behavior frequency data sheet

Glossary

Data is needed in order to figure out why a certain behavior is occurring. ABC data is the typical assessment tool and involves directly observing and recording situational factors surrounding a problem behavior.

In ABC data collection, the type of data is broken out into three components: A-B-C

• Antecedent = what happened before
• Behavior = what the child did that is problematic
• Consequence = what happened after

In this video, Robert discusses ABA data collection and how identifying the antecedents and consequences for a behavior will help clue you into why the behavior is occurring.

ABC Data Collection

Glossary