Many autistic individuals have behaviors that may benefit from behavior modification. When used in a psychological sense, reinforcement and punishment are not meant to be upsetting. Simply, the purpose of reinforcement is to increase desired behaviors, while punishment hopes to decrease maladaptive behaviors.
A gaming disorder (GD), or an addiction to games, is a behavioral addiction that can be more common in autistic people than in typically developing individuals.
Autistic children can be very particular about what they eat, which can make meal planning very difficult for parents. It might be tempting to chalk autistic peoples’ food preferences up to picky eating, but autistic people often have sensory processing issues that can make eating certain foods upsetting.
Repetitive behaviors are common features of autism, but they can present differently from person to person. Repetitive behaviors are simply behaviors that a person does repeatedly or insists on doing the same way every time. These behaviors can include asking about the same thing several times in a row, lining up objects (toys) in a particular way, spinning objects, and obsessively closing and opening doors or drawers.