Self-injurious Behaviours with Self-Reinforcement in Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder
Giulia Castiglioni, Letizia Reali, Arianna Roncarati, Miriam Tisano, Mauro Leoni
A systematic review of self-injurious behaviour (SIB) maintained by automatic reinforcement in individuals with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder. The aim is to investigate treatment effectiveness. Following PRISMA guidelines, 6 articles were selected through PubMed, EBSCOhost, and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria: treatment of automatically reinforced SIB, intellectual disability/autism population, and publication after 2015. Non-contingent access to preferred alternative stimuli effectively reduces SIB. Integration of differential reinforcement and response cost is often necessary. Effectiveness varies significantly based on individual characteristics and disability level. Experimental functional assessments are essential for treatment selection. Automatically reinforced SIB represents a complex clinical challenge requiring individualized approaches. Experimental functional analysis, behaviour subtyping, and multimodal strategy integration emerge as key elements for effective interventions.
Keywords
Intellectual Disability, Autism, Self-injurious Behavior, Automatic reinforcement, Treatment.
