Rigidity

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Home : 2002 : January : 25

Rigidity
By Adell

I teach an autism class grades 1-3 and my students thrive on routine. I have been working with this population for 5 years now and have never seen a research article specifically addressing rigidity and routine. I always
set up schedules so, they can predict what is happening each day and I keep certain groups the same as far as the times we have them. The rigidness such as lining items up or engaging in stereotypical behaviors I always interrupt and prompt the appropriate way to play with a toy or mess up things. For example if the students wants the books neatly stacked and put away each day I make

sure it is not perfect and to reinforce that "It's OKAY!" Life is not consistently perfect. You can try to make their rigidity appropriate thru other tasks that they might be able to complete. Is there a specific behavior you are targeting (lining items up, stacking, cutting, paper is "dirty",) Sometimes overcorrection works. I had one student who did not like stray marks on his paper (the copy machine made black marks) He would say the paper was "too dirty!" and rip it up. We kept putting more and more "dirty" marks on the paper until the behavior went away.