Assessment and treatment of elopement maintained by chase
Chasing an eloping child can accidentally reinforce the behavior—withhold chase and use function-based intervention instead.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Blowers et al. (2020) worked with one child with autism who kept running away.
They asked: does the boy run because adults chase him?
They tested this idea by watching what happened when he eloped.
Then they built a plan that removed the chase and taught a new way to ask for attention.
What they found
Chasing the boy really did make him run more.
When staff stopped chasing and instead gave attention for staying put, elopement dropped.
A small mix of antecedent and consequence tricks kept the gains.
How this fits with other research
Nevill et al. (2025) later used the same logic with 14 kids in a hospital unit.
They also cut elopement by at least 80% for 13 of 14 children, showing the idea scales up.
Boyle et al. (2020) did the opposite twist: they never removed the reinforcer (stereotypy) yet still won with FCT plus a short wait.
That pair of 2020 papers looks like a fight—extinction vs no-extinction—but really they show two roads to the same city: know the function, then pick the tool that fits your context.
Lang et al. (2009) had already said function-based plans work best; the new data just add chase to the list of functions to watch.
Why it matters
If a client bolts, pause before you sprint. Your chase may be the prize they want.
Do a quick functional test: withhold chase, offer attention for safe behavior, and see if running drops.
If it does, fold that finding into your plan and teach a simple request like "Come play with me."
One child or fourteen, the rule stays the same: give the right reinforcer for the right behavior, and elopement loses its power.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractElopement can have serious or fatal consequences associated with leaving the presence of an adult or getting lost (e.g., traffic injury and drowning). Given the dangers associated with elopement, caregivers are likely to chase after their child when elopement occurs. Like other forms of attention that follow problem behavior, chasing and retrieving the child may serve as a reinforcer and therefore maintain elopement. However, no study to date has evaluated whether elopement is sensitive to positive reinforcement in the form of chase. We evaluated the effects of chase on elopement with an 8‐year old boy diagnosed with autism. Elopement was maintained, at least in part, by chase. We then conducted a treatment evaluation in which we tested the effects of various antecedent‐ and consequence‐based treatment components within a multiple schedule.
Behavioral Interventions, 2020 · doi:10.1002/bin.1729