Clinical outcomes of behavioral treatments for elopement in individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities.

The team looked back at 11 kids with autism or other delays who kept running off.

All kids got behavioral plans in the same day-treatment clinic.

Staff wrote down how often each child eloped before and after treatment.

Elopement dropped a lot after the plans started.

The size of the drop was large enough to see without stats glasses.

Nevill et al. (2025) later repeated the win with 14 kids in a hospital unit.

Their paper updates this one: more kids, same big drop.

Scheithauer et al. (2025) then showed parents can do it too.

They taught caregivers the same ideas in 12 short visits and elopement still fell.

Lang et al. (2009) had already said "use function-based plans." This clinic just proved it works in the real world.

You now have three layers of proof: clinic staff, hospital team, and trained parents all cut elopement hard. If a child on your casheet bolts, write a function-based plan today. Start with the common functions—toys, escape, or attention—and pick one tactic from Nevill or Mindy. You can run it at home, at school, or in clinic.