Relationship among challenging, repetitive, and communicative behaviors in children with severe intellectual disabilities.

Yip et al. (2009) watched children with severe intellectual disability in everyday routines. They timed when challenging acts, repetitive movements, and communication happened. They also ran short functional analyses to see what kept each behavior going.

Most challenging and repetitive behaviors were rewarded by social events—attention, items, or escape. The surprise: communicative acts almost always occurred within seconds of the problem behaviors, like a tight dance.

Carr et al. (1985) already showed that teaching a child to ask for the same social payoff can replace hitting or screaming. Jane's team adds the timing detail that lets you know exactly when to prompt the new words.

Meyer (1999) did the same in classrooms: after a 2-condition test, teaching function-matched requests ended off-task behavior. Jane's data say the link is so close you can predict the moment to intervene.

Gilroy et al. (2023) later tested high- and low-tech AAC for autistic children with ID. Function-based AAC beat generic teaching, proving the payoff Jane spotted still works when you give kids a device or picture card.

When you see a hit, scream, or hand-flap, look at what the child just got or avoided. Then teach one clear communicative response that earns the same thing at that exact second. Your functional analysis already tells you the payoff; Jane's timing map tells you when to deliver the replacement skill.