Your Child’s Behavior Is Communication with Emily Longino

E18—Your child isn’t “misbehaving.” They’re trying to be understood. Many children with disabilities communicate through behavior, especially when spoken words aren’t available in the moment. Behavior analyst Emily Longino shares practical tools for recognizing communication signals before they escalate and helping parents build connection with their kids. Amy Julia Becker and Emily explore:

• How to look beyond behavior to understand the “why”
• How parents can recognize communication signals earlier
• Ways to support alternative communication skills
• How understanding behavior can reduce crises and build connection

00:00 Introduction to Behavior Analysis
03:31 Understanding the Functions of Behavior
08:31 Functional Communication as a Survival Skill
12:31 Where Parents Can Find Behavior Support
16:00 Practical Examples of Functional Communication
22:15 It’s Never Too Late to Change Behavior

Questions:

Have a question for Emily or for Amy Julia? Record (or email) your questions, and we’ll do our best to respond to them in an upcoming episode: amyjuliabecker.com/qr/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Hope Heals Camp
• FREE RBT TRAINING - Autism Partnership Foundation

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WATCH this conversation on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTube

SUBSCRIBE to Amy Julia's Substack: amyjuliabecker.substack.com

JOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabecker

LISTEN to more episodes: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/

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ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Emily Longino is a Senior Board-Certified Behavior Analyst at Glenwood, a residential facility and specialized school serving children and adolescents with autism and other developmental disabilities. She has seven years of experience assessing and treating severe maladaptive behaviors, providing staff training on crisis management, and supporting functional communication. Emily’s work is grounded in compassionate care and trauma-informed practices. She has published in Behavior Analysis in Practice, presented at state and national conferences, and shared her expertise on supporting transition-aged individuals with autism.

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Take the Next Step is produced in collaboration with Hope Heals. Hope Heals creates sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness for families affected by disabilities to experience sustaining hope in the context of inclusive, intentional, inter-ability communities. Find out more about our resources, gatherings, and inter-ability communities at hopeheals.com. Follow on Instagram @hopeheals.

Transcript

Note: This transcript is autogenerated and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

Amy Julia Becker (00:06)
I'm Amy Julia Becker and this is Take the Next Step, a podcast for families experiencing disability. We've teamed up with our friends at Hope Heals to bring you weekly conversations with fellow parents, therapists, and disability advocates about practical ways to cultivate a thriving future for the whole family. Here at Take the Next Step, we see your family as a gift to our society and to your local community. Your family matters. Your child matters.

We need you among us. Lots of us have what we might call behavior problems with our children. My guest this week is asking, what if your child isn't misbehaving, but instead they are trying to be understood? Many children with disabilities communicate through behavior, especially when spoken words aren't available in the moment. Today, I'm talking with behavior analyst, Emily Longino, about how parents can move from trying to stop behavior

to trying to understand it. Emily is so helpful in giving us tools to recognize communication signals before they escalate and in helping us as parents to build connection with our kids. I am really grateful for her wisdom and insight here today.

Well, hello, Emily. I am here with you after we met last summer at Hope Hills Camp, and I got to watch you in action as someone who had an approach to kids and families with disabilities who had some need for some behavior support. And I just loved what I got to learn from you and got to see. And so I'm really excited to have you here with the parents and families and caregivers who are listening in today.

Emily Longino (01:48)
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Amy Julia Becker (01:51)
Well, let's start with just defining who you are. Will you explain what it means to be a behavior analyst? Maybe give a few examples of the type of work that you do, the goals that you have when you're working with people. Just tell us about what it means to be a behavior analyst.

Emily Longino (02:06)
I thought you were gonna start with a simple question. That should be simple, but it's actually very complex. There are a lot of nuances and differences in how each behavior analyst practices depending on their training and their setting. The goal of a behavior analyst in general is to identify why certain behaviors are happening and then use that information to make life a little bit easier for everyone. And there's kind of two sides to behavior analysis. There is the scientific side.

where we have researchers trying to really understand the principles of behavior. And then there's the practitioner side where we're applying those principles to clinical issues in the community to try to improve the quality of life for various individuals. Behavior analysts can work with a variety of different people, a lot of different populations, individuals with disabilities and without disabilities. ⁓ I myself have worked as a consultant in the school systems and foster care.

and juvenile detention centers, residential facilities. Because if you think about it, everyone behaves all day long. That's what we're all doing. So behavior is applicable in every single context, in every single setting with every single human being on the planet. So there's a lot of different ways you can apply the science of behavior. I currently specialize in working with adolescents with autism that have severe problem behaviors in a residential setting.

Amy Julia Becker (03:26)
Thank you so much just for that overview. I think that's really helpful. And I'm curious, so I think at some point in my life anyway, if not recently, ⁓ I thought of behavior in like two categories, good behavior and bad behavior. And I have a feeling you might not think about behavior as good and bad. Could you like speak a little bit to that?

Emily Longino (03:46)
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a very common understanding of behavior. Either you have a child with good behavior or a child where you're getting phone calls from the school constantly and they're struggling. Even when we have new students or residents come in, part of my job is to identify their target behaviors or what behaviors that are challenging for them that are causing disruptions in their home life and their school life. And as a field, we've kind of termed those behaviors as problem behaviors.

and actually hate that definition of those behaviors. And they are problematic. They're problematic for the child. They're problematic for the family, for their peers, for their teachers. But at the end of the day, they're maladaptive. They're dangerous. They're contextually inappropriate. But it's more than just being bad or good. We try to think about behavior in terms of its function or its purpose. So every single time you engage in a behavior, you're trying to accomplish something.

And in behavior analysis, we try to narrow it down into four different categories or four functions of behavior. I will work with a lot of students that have a lot of attention-maintained behavior, which is common. All humans crave attention. We crave connection. We crave relationships. But these are the kids that are in the back of the classroom, and they are getting upset, throwing things, pushing the teacher's buttons while simultaneously laughing, craving that sort of attention.

⁓ And then some individuals have a really difficult time getting access to things. So a lot of times people have meltdowns or problem behaviors because they want something or they need something. So for a lot of people that I work with, the iPad or their favorite food or their favorite staff or their favorite activity. So those are the students or residents that have a hard time when you say no or when you ask them to wait.

That's a very common function of problem behavior is to get access to whatever they want or whatever they need. The third is very common in a school setting. It is escape from demands or task or aversive environments. So a lot of times your kids are either wanting something or really not wanting to do what you want them to do. So we see a lot of this in school with kids that are having difficulties completing their schoolwork.

⁓ issues at doctor's appointments for people that have a hard time complying with dental procedures or medical procedures, but their problem behavior or their outburst are really just trying to communicate, hey, I don't want to do this. And it's probably not because they're lazy or they're bad. It's probably because it's too difficult. Your expectations might be a little too high. It's too boring. They might need a break. Maybe the room's just too loud.

Or maybe they're just having a bad day. Maybe they're hungry. Maybe they're sick. But at the end of the day, that behavior episode is serving a function. And once you can start to understand what they're trying to communicate, then you can work on preventing those episodes, teaching them how to tolerate those distressing situations, and then teaching them how to communicate in a more functional way. Hey, you don't have to throw your desk if you don't want to do this right now. You could just ask for a break and we'll do it later. Or we can do something else.

And then the fourth function of behavior is automatic or sensory. And this one's a little more tricky. ⁓ We see this a lot of times with self-injury. I work with a lot of students that will bang their head against the wall or bite their forearms at a pretty high intensity. And sometimes this is out of frustration and sometimes those behaviors fall under those other categories. But other times, individuals with autism experience things differently than we do.

And sometimes their behavior produces this sensory experience that they really enjoy that we might not necessarily understand. A lot of people with autism in particular will engage in lot of body rocking. And that's very comforting and self-soothing to them. And those are some of the behaviors that are more sensory oriented. So instead of thinking about good or bad, I'm always thinking about why. Because there's always a purpose and a function behind that. And if I can understand why you're having problems,

then I can start to work on strategies to prevent those episodes from occurring and teaching you how to get what you need through appropriate communication instead of those dangerous behaviors.

Amy Julia Becker (08:05)
That's so helpful and so interesting to me to hear those four different categories. ⁓ And yet also that simple, instead of good or bad, ask the question why. I appreciate that so much and I think about the ways that could apply honestly to my own life, not to mention various parenting questions that come up. I wanted to hone in a little bit on the communication piece of things. I know that you mentioned...

that you see these behaviors as a form of communication. And I know from reading your bio that you are someone who is practicing what you're calling functional communication. Can you explain what functional communication is and the way behavior can manifest as a form of communication?

Emily Longino (08:48)
Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question. And I wanted to say this during the last segment, but a lot of times our kids' bad behavior is their survival skill. That is how they've gotten what they've needed or what they've wanted in the past. And the reason they keep having episodes is because it's working. And I think sometimes we miss those earlier signs or indications of distress. We call them precursors, but that's just changes in your body language before you're about to have an episode.

early signs of agitation. For some of my individuals, it's a change in their tone of voice. One of my girls will look straight at me, pause for a millisecond, and I know something's upsetting her just by the way that she glances. And so I think we sometimes miss those earlier signs. And because some of our individuals don't have the skills they need to seek out a communication partner to say, Miss Emily, I need your help. This is bothering me. ⁓ We might not notice those earlier signs.

and then they start to escalate until you get to a point where someone's going to pay attention to me when I'm throwing furniture, when I'm aggressing towards you, you're gonna work really hard to figure out what I need. Even if I can't talk, even if I don't have a communication device, even if I don't use sign language, you're gonna do everything in your power to help me if I'm in distress and hurting you. So I think...

A lot of times it's about identifying what they're trying to communicate early and addressing it there instead of waiting until we're in a dangerous situation or a crisis situation. And at the end of the day, like their needs are not that different than ours. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to be safe. And so I think when you take a step back and you start to identify what they might actually want in that moment, you can deescalate a little more effectively.

⁓ and I think when we start seeing behavior as communication, it shifts our focus from stopping the behavior to understanding it. Because if I have an intervention, it might be very effective, but that doesn't mean it's very therapeutic. If I have designed an intervention that gets rid of someone's aggression, they're no longer aggressing. They're no longer having those outbursts on the surface. That might seem like a very effective behavior plan.

But if they are not simultaneously acquiring communication skills, they still have meet needs that we're not meeting. they might not be aggressing, but they're still sick and they still don't know how to ask for help. Or they're still hungry and they don't know how to ask for food. Or they're still overwhelmed by the academic work task that's being presented and we're not adjusting that to meet them where they are. So I think you have to focus on decreasing those challenging behaviors while simultaneously giving them

a way that they can functionally communicate, which just means an effective way to tell us what you want and what you need. And sometimes I come in and I have parents that can describe what their kid's own language is. ⁓ I know when my kid is hungry. I know when my kid needs to use the bathroom, but that's not functional across environments. That's great. That's a good starting point. But if you're the only person that knows when your child is hungry,

Amy Julia Becker (11:45)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Longino (12:08)
That's not going to help them when they're in school or where they're in a residential placement or when they're with a caregiver on respite. So we try to teach our kids strategies that would be effective for all communication partners. The way we can limit, I don't want you to have to resort to problem behavior. I want to teach you there's an easier way and I will listen.

Amy Julia Becker (12:31)
Right, right, So for parents who are listening to this, I have a couple of questions. One is the question of like, how do we start noticing and understanding behavior? Like, do you have any kind of, I don't know, tips for, especially, you know, parents who might have multiple children and there's a lot going on and like, what are we looking for? How do we start to notice these things? And I'm thinking especially of kids who do not necessarily have language.

that can clearly articulate what the needs and wants are.

Emily Longino (13:05)
Yeah, that's a good question. ⁓ It's very overwhelming to start, especially when you're a parent that has other kids or even one child living with a disability. There are so many things on your mind. There are a couple of resources. So I am a board certified behavior analyst or BCBA. There's a certification below that. It's called a registered behavior technician or an RBT.

And I did two hours of graduate, two hours, I did two years of graduate school and 1500 clinical hours. But to get your certification as an RBT, it's 40 hours of online courses. And there is a company that offers those courses for free. I think it's Autism Partner Foundation. I might have to look that up.

Amy Julia Becker (13:54)
Pick it up and put it in the show notes. That's great.

Emily Longino (13:56)
Yeah, but the 40 hour RBT course is my entire graduate school experience squished into 40 hours. So I'll give you a very basic understanding of the four functions of behavior, how to prevent problem behavior or dangerous episodes, how to respond in a therapeutic way, how to teach some of those communication skills and how to teach independence. So that's a really good resource, I think, for parents. Amazing. And then if they start to notice some behavioral concerns,

Amy Julia Becker (14:20)
Yeah.

Emily Longino (14:26)
I would highly recommend seeking out a behavior analyst for children that are super young. Early intervention is very, very effective. So seeking out some of those outpatient early intervention clinics can be very helpful. If they are school aged, reaching out through the school system, ⁓ it depends on your district and your state whether or not they'll have a behavior analyst that's available to provide services.

And then I always, always, always recommend to my parents to ask for caregiver training or parent training. Because if you would be a behavior analyst.

Amy Julia Becker (14:59)
Like who?

Okay, yeah.

Emily Longino (15:03)
So if their child is going to a clinic, if they are seeing a behavior analyst in the school setting, or if they have a behavior analyst coming to the house, I would recommend parent and caregiver training because you want your child to have a therapeutic environment 24-7. If they can only communicate with me during our one hour, two times a week therapy sessions, progress is gonna be a lot slower.

But if you can use the same strategies that I'm using, you're with your child way more than I ever will be. So if we can collaborate and create that consistency, you'll see progress a lot quicker. So some resources are that RVT online training for parents, or if they're reaching out and have access to a behavior analyst or any kind of ABA therapy, highly encourage them to request caregiver training, which should be offered at most places, but I would strongly advocate for that.

Amy Julia Becker (15:59)
So helpful and really cool to hear about the resources out there. Would you also, just backing up a little bit, give us some examples of what functional communication might look like in like a home environment?

Emily Longino (16:11)
Yeah. For some of our individuals, they have a very difficult time with their hygiene routines. ⁓ Showering at night is not preferred. If they soil their diaper, not preferred. They would much rather hang out on their iPads or snack in the kitchen. Yeah. So that's a challenging time for many of our residents and they will have some behavioral outbursts. And really what they're trying to communicate is, hey, I'm not ready to shower.

Or maybe I don't want to be showered by this person. I think we have a tendency to try to simplify behavior into those four categories, but it's always so much more complex than that. Especially when you're dealing with individuals that have a history of trauma or abuse or neglect or individuals that have medical concerns. We have had individuals that are having a hard time with their hygiene routine and it turns out they're severely constipated. So it's.

painful and uncomfortable to experience them. But if I have a resident who's having a hard time in that situation, I want to teach them that you do not have to have an outburst to get out of your shower. I want them to be able to communicate like, hey, not right now. Can we do this in 10 minutes? Or I want so and so to shower me. And that looks different for every single individual. I work with individuals that can communicate fully, vocally using complete sentences.

Amy Julia Becker (17:12)
Yeah, right.

Emily Longino (17:38)
And then I have individuals that have never spoken a vocal word out loud. So sometimes functional communication is a very simple sign that is just no. I don't want to do that. It's a sign language. Sometimes I will put a picture symbol that has an X or a break, or I'll put a picture symbol that says five minutes or 10 minutes. Visual supports can be very helpful.

Amy Julia Becker (17:42)
huh.

Emily Longino (18:03)
Having a visual timer for five minutes, 10 minutes, or a visual schedule so they know what to anticipate or expect throughout the evening. And then sometimes functional communication looks different if you have an individual that can acquire their language skills using an AAC device or an alternative, augmentative alternative communication device. I'd go double check that too. Something like that.

Amy Julia Becker (18:28)
Something like that.

Emily Longino (18:31)
But a lot of our students will use an iPad to communicate. So instead of having an outburst because you don't want to shower, I want you to be able to go on your iPad and say like, later, not right now, break and honor that. Part of that is honoring their form of communication, respecting that they don't want to do it, and then helping them ⁓ create an experience that's not as distressing. So you've communicated that you don't want to shower. I'm also trying to look a little deeper.

at why. Right. Why don't you want to shower? Right. ⁓ Is it because you're uncomfortable with male support in the bathroom? Is it because you're constipated? Is it because you're embarrassed? And then once you break down why they're having those problem behaviors, that gives you even more understanding of how you can modify that situation. So for some individuals, I have rules in place that only females shower them. Yep.

or they can shower completely by themselves if they're independent and we'll have the curtain closed and we're just giving verbal cues so that they're comfortable and not embarrassed. If I think that there might be a medical concern, I'm consulting with our health services department. So it's finding the initial function, the initial why, giving them another way to communicate that need, and then digging a little bit deeper to figure out what's really going on and can I do anything else?

in the environment to create a situation that's a little less aversive and a little less distressing, that's less likely to produce that kind of behavior.

Amy Julia Becker (20:00)
I found with our daughter Penny, who you got to meet last summer, this was a long time ago, but she's someone who actually ⁓ often, when she was younger, communicated better by writing answers to questions than by speaking them with her words, her mouth. And even though she was very, very verbal, like I didn't think of her as someone who couldn't communicate.

verbally, and in fact she was communicating verbally just by writing words, but at the same time if something felt uncomfortable to her, she really needed to write about it rather than speak it out loud. And that took a long time for us. She was actually the one who identified it because I didn't understand why she was shutting down and not talking to me. She finally said, mom, can I write about it? And I was like, gosh, sure. And that has fallen away. We don't need it as much anymore.

But if she starts to shut down, it can be a way for her to like express feelings and discomfort. And what I've been really interested in, and this I think resonates with some of the things you're saying, are the times that what I thought was going on, I'm just not quite right about. Like for example, she shut down once when her brother, whose legs are, I mean truly like 12 inches longer than hers, wanted to sit in the front seat of the car. And he was kind of like, Penny.

Of course you can sit in the back. You have like teeny legs." And she shut down and he knew and he was like, can we write about this? And she basically was like, when I'm in the back seat of the car, I don't get included in the conversation. So it didn't have to do with like physically wanting the special seat or all these things we could have come up with. She just wanted to be a part of the action and the conversation, which was so fair to be like, yeah, we should include you if you're in the back seat. And I mean, obviously we could come up with so many examples and you've given some good ones too, but...

trying to, as you said, figure out the initial why, the way to re-communicate or start communicating again, and then to continue, especially because most of these things are going to come up again. And so to try to say, how do we not have this be such a challenge next time? I know we're coming to the end of our time. I am curious for parents who feel like, oh my gosh, my kid is 10 years old and I didn't know any of this until right now.

We have all these patterns of behavior that are really challenging. Is it too late? What do you say to that parent?

Emily Longino (22:23)
It's never too late. I work in a residential facility and I actually get to serve a lot of those individuals. And a lot of times ⁓ our students and residents come to us when they're much older, because when they're younger, parents are able to manage their behavior safely. But as they start getting stronger, as they start getting taller, their behaviors start getting a little more intense, then parents are seeking out ⁓ more intensive placement or more intensive services. So those are the kind of kids I get to serve. Progress is a lot slower.

if you're getting help as your child is older, because they have such a long learning history. So now they've learned for five years or eight years or 10 years that when I beat people up, I get what I want. And it's created almost a habit. So the longer you have that habit or that routine of behavior, the harder it is to break it, but you can. ⁓ It happens with consistency. It happens with a lot of support.

And it happens with a very interdisciplinary approach. So here I work very closely with speech and language pathologists. I work very closely with occupational therapists. I work with psychiatrists. We have a nursing team. We have special education teachers. So it takes everybody to really understand what's going on and then to create a therapeutic space where that child can start to break some of those bad habits and learn like, hey, I don't have to do this.

and learn a better way to kind of communicate and function in their environment. And something I wanted to say too that I think might be helpful for parents to hear is that there are different parts of your brain that light up depending on what emotions you're feeling and what kind of distress you're feeling and processing. And when a child is anxious or in a triggering situation, the part of your brain that's firing is your amygdala. It's in the back of your brain.

and that is in charge of your fight or flight response. And the front of your brain or your prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of your language development, your logical thinking, your decision making, that part of your brain is not functioning when you're in distress. What you are seeing is their response to that amygdala firing, and so it's really their survival skills. So again, it comes back to good behavior, bad behavior. It's not bad, they're just trying to survive that situation that's extremely distressing to them.

And what might not be distressing to us could be incredibly challenging for an individual living with a disability to manage. And so as that part of your brain is lighting up, you kind of lose the ability to rationalize the situation, to communicate effectively what you want. So sometimes for functional communication, if I have an individual that can use his words, like you were talking about with Penny, if they're in distress, I will use a much simpler form of communication.

So if I have a child in distress, I am never talking in long convoluted sentences. I'm using very simple language, two to three word phrases. I'm very calm. And whatever is going to be the easiest way to communicate for them, that's what I'm trying. If it's sign language, if it's a choice board that has a bunch of options, if it is their talker, ⁓ I'm trying to meet them where they are and give them the tools that they need during that situation.

Amy Julia Becker (25:41)
Awesome. Emily, thank you so much. There's so much more I could ask you, but I'm just going to try to, I wrote down a few things that you were talking about and just, think for some of them are just these kinds of mindset shifts instead of thinking good and bad, think why. I mean, that's just like a huge, helpful mindset shift. And also instead of just stopping behavior, you're seeking to understand the behavior. So again, those were two like things you said that I think are really helpful and almost just like the cognitive space. But then there's just some of these like,

practical, whether it is, again, we'll put it in the show notes, signing up for a free 40-hour class. And honestly, I bet one hour of it would still be helpful. know, 40 hours, I'm sure is amazing, but you know, for people who don't...

Emily Longino (26:23)
You

can. There's a variety of different topics within that four-day training. If there's something that's irrelevant for you and your child, skip it.

Amy Julia Becker (26:32)
Yeah, totally. And if you're not gonna be able to do that, ask for help. I mean, think that's such a key part of what you're saying. Like there are lots of people who are trained in this and know how to and want to help you. And if they are coming to help your child, make sure they're also helping you so that your home environment can not only become consistent with the therapy, but also just, I mean, I imagine become a really a place where you all want to be in terms of the way you're able to communicate with each other.

And I'd love also just your ⁓ emphasis on honoring their communication in terms of if the answer is no, honor that. ⁓ If the answer is ⁓ no, but it needs to be not yet, you can still honor it. But ⁓ there is a give and take there. So thank you so much. ⁓ I really love talking to you. And listeners, if you have more questions around behavior, please send them in. We can always get Emily back on here. I would love to be able.

to try to address your specific needs or questions. But I know for me, this is really helpful and I'm sure that's true for many people out there as well. Thank you so much.

Emily Longino (27:37)
You're so welcome.

Amy Julia Becker (27:41)
Thanks so much for joining me here at Take the Next Step. This show is produced in partnership with our friends at Hope Heals, a nonprofit that creates sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness for families affected by disability to experience sustaining hope in the context of inter-ability communities. Couple of notes as we come to the end here. ⁓ One, as we mentioned in our conversation, we would love to respond to your questions.

So if you have a question for me or for Emily, click the link in the show notes to record that or send it by email. We would love to hear from you. Two, also in our conversation, Emily mentioned 40 hours of free training for parents. So we have put a link to that training in the show notes. And if you avail yourself of that, I would love to hear about it. And then three, we have more great conversations in store. Next week, I'm talking with Pam Harmon about spiritual growth.

for parents of kids with disabilities. And then in the weeks ahead, I'm also going to be talking about joy and hope in the midst of disability, as well as the grief that can also accompany disability for various reasons. So I want to conclude all of this by asking you once again to follow, rate, and review the show so more people know it's out there. Share it with other people. Send suggestions and questions my way. You can text me. You can email me at amyjuliabeckerwriter at gmail.com.

Thank you to Jake Hansen for editing the podcast and Amber Beery, my assistant, for doing everything else to make sure it happens. I hope you leave this time with great encouragement to start with delight, connect to community, and take the next small step toward a good future for your family.