Alice is a sweet 6 years old who came to VBA through a school referral in January 2019, and shortly after became a home client as well in April of 2019. When we started with Alice she was emitting self injurious behavior at a rate of 11.5 occurrences per hour. The intensity of the behavior would leave severe bruising and break skin frequently. She also engaged in aggression, vocal protest, screaming, object assault, mouthing, and PICA at high r
ates. Alice was not consistently manding or using gestures to communicate her wants and needs.
Thanks to her VBA team, we were able to identify the function of her problem behaviors as access to prefered items, and then teach Alice functionally equivalent replacement behaviors. Today, Alice no longer requires our support at school. The intensity of her self injury has reduced to low levels which no longer leaves marks on her skin.
March 2021 was the first month she has not emitted ANY self injury. All other problem behaviors have been reduced to a rate of less than 1 per hour. Alice is fluently manding using 3 or more words, waiting and tolerating denials with staff, teachers, and parents, and transitioning from preferred to non preferred activities with minimal problem behaviors. Alice is a true success story thanks to the hard work and dedication of all of those who have worked with her these past 2 years.