Treating aggression in persons with autism spectrum disorders: a review.

Koegel et al. (2014) read every paper they could find on stopping aggression in people with autism.

They did not run new experiments. They simply sorted what others had tried and wrote a story-style map.

The map shows which kinds of treatments were studied and who the participants were.

Only a tiny slice of autism research looks at aggression. Most studies chase other goals.

The papers that do target aggression use pills, rewards, or both, but the authors give no scoreboard of what works best.

Campbell (2003) counted 181 single-case studies and said behavior plans cut problem behavior. Heyvaert et al. (2014) updated the count to 213 and still found the same thing, so the 2014 meta-analysis now trumps the 2003 one.

Parsons et al. (2013) looked only at pills for irritability and aggression. Their paper sits inside the L et al. map, showing that drug studies are part of the small slice.

McHugh et al. (2023) zoomed in on adults who taught themselves to stay calm. That review extends L et al. by proving aggression work is growing beyond kids.

If you write a behavior plan for hitting, you are in rare company. Use the map to check if your tools have any research behind them. When you pick a method, pair it with a functional analysis—Heyvaert et al. (2014) proved that step still wins.