Education
Misbehavior or Missed Opportunity?
Was Jasmine’s behavior a ‘problem’? Some may consider
Jasmine’s behavior as perseverative over this particular
ABC book, and/or perceive Jasmine as technically ‘‘offtask’’ by her failure to continue working on the mathematics assignment. Others may explain Jasmine’s behavior
as a desire to interact socially, or even engage in play,
whereas still others may interpret such an explanation as
overstated. The variety of potential interpretations of this
vignette clearly demonstrates the difficulty educators may
experience in deciphering the behaviors of young children
with ASD in primary school settings. As educators, we
must keep in mind that if we wish to change a student’s
behavior, we must change something that we are doing
(Scheuermann and Webber 2002), or in some cases, alter
how we are interpreting a given behavior.
Although Jeff originally initiated the interaction with
Jasmine, Jasmine’s interest in maintaining her interaction
with Jeff is clear by her continued application of a script
and interaction style with which she is familiar—that of a
teacher-led, question–answer, teacher-student exchange
during instruction. As the teacher redirected Jeff, Jasmine
continued to employ familiar classroom scripts (e.g., verbalizing questions to her peer in ways that mimic the teacher both in form and intonation) in order to interact with
Jeff. As the teacher guided Jeff through task completi
